Transportation For America » PBS Blueprint America looks at freight, rail, and trucks

September 1, 2009
By Stephen Lee Davis

PBS continued their excellent Blueprint America series with an episode on NOW last Friday night examining the issue of freight movement in America. Watch it below or over at the terrific Blueprint America site.

http://blog.robpitingolo.org Rob

I’ve typically liked everything that Blueprint America has put together thusfar, but this episode was a bit disappointing. There was almost no discussion of the role that oil prices will play in the future of trucking. The harsh reality is that those big rigs are not fuel efficient, and if/when oil prices appreciate, it is going to mean big trouble for the truckers.
http://t4america.org/author/sdavis/ Stephen Lee Davis

Yeah, Rob, the notion of peak oil or at least wildly fluctuating prices with routine high spikes in the future (certainly a mark of peak oil) is one of the stories being wildly missed by most of the media. There are certainly plenty of energy considerations for shifting freight to rail — not just environmental reasons for doing it.