Future Ready

3On the Move

In 1800, a person living in New York City would have needed two days to travel to Philadelphia. By 1830, commercial trains and improved roads meant you could travel more than twice the distance—to Washington, D.C.—in the same period of time. Twenty-seven years after that, two days took you to Chicago, and, by 1930, all the way to Denver.¹ Now, you can get from New York to Singapore, or just about anywhere else on Earth, in under two days. This revolution in personal mobility has expanded trade, globalized populations, and completely changed the way we think about our planet. It's easier to imagine a world with no skyscrapers than a world with no bicycles, trains, cars, or planes—not to mention the consumer goods that travel the world on massive supply chains.

As with any transformation that rearranges the planet, it's impossible to list all the positive implications of this transportation revolution, simply because they are now an essential part of the human experience around the world. There is, however, one glaring negative. The transportation sector is the second largest source of GHG emissions—27% of total GHG emissions in the United States and a similarly significant amount in other countries.

As with other infrastructure sectors, all of those planet-warming emissions that transportation has released into the atmosphere are now creating a self-destructive feedback loop. The mobility revolution has necessitated a rapidly expanding infrastructure. Today, train ...