Getting from A to B

The more transportation costs, the more we pay attention to it. The price of transportation declined steadily during the post-war decades of cheap oil, leading Canadians to pay less attention to their options in getting between one place and another. Today’s rising price for crude oil and the soaring value of the loonie both signal clearly that the era of cheap oil is ending. This will inexorably lead us toward revolutions in transport technology and organization that attain much greater energy efficiency. In short, the easy mobility supported by unsustainable oil consumption will soon be history.

The key role of transportation would have been familiar to the parents of today’s Canadians and overwhelmingly obvious to their grandparents. From Winnipeg to Vancouver, Canada’s towns and cities are laid out in relation to the railways that brought them to life and delivered many of their early citizenry. Canada’s North remains the most attuned to transportation’s...