Peak oil peak, planning, paths and passing paradigms

Abstract

This paper considers the rise and rise of petroleum use; the 'automobilisation' of our species, then looks past the petroleum peak to inevitable changes in urban form and travel, finishing with a focus on cycle paths in and out of activity centres. The authors strenuously encourage planners to push harder for longterm sustainability planning. To do this, issues of urban mobility in Townsville are discussed. After a literature review, research and current experiences in alternatives to urban car use are provided as a case study on impediments and ways forward to urban needs-meeting and urban mobility. From a novelty of the early 1900s, after the Second World War, humans embraced car use in an era of prosperity only rivalled by the present; rapidly moulding urban form from walkable; walk and rail, to car based urban settlements, Planners of vision are now only asking how we can get to coherent, technological cities which are not car based.