Gordon Feller of the Urban Age Institute says the current era is “eco-overshooting.” He offers a model for planned expansion, which integrates land use and bus transit to encourage high-efficiency transferring, Road & Track reports.
In the model, buses are chosen over light rail because they are some four times cheaper than rail and bus routes run local, express and orbital, with high-efficiency transferring. Feller says efficient transit encourages high-density corridors of business and residence. Cars are not a vital part of the corridors but they have access to the periphery. Curitiba, in southern Brazil, is hailed as a good example of this model.
Curitiba has the second highest car-ownership rate in Brazil, yet their per-capita use of gasoline is 30 percent below that of other comparable Brazilian cities. Feller says cars are in balance there.