1969 prediction: Traffic jams could lead to caps on auto production

Olympia traffic at dusk

“That bell you hear tolling ominously in the background could be for the automobile and driving as we know them. An ever-increasing number of individuals and organizations are expressing alarm over the proliferation of cars. No less an august group than the National Geographic Society is on record as saying the end of the road for the automobile — one big traffic jam — may be just ahead. The Society cites a number of ‘trouble spots’ in various cities throughout the world (including Agana, the capital of Guam, which each day goes through the agonies of rush-hour traffic), quotes the head traffic man of Washington, D.C., as saying ‘By 1975 every single center city area of every big city will be absolutely choked with automobiles.’ The ‘traffic mess’ is being bounced off the walls of Congress these days, a possible result being that manufacturers may one day be restricted to producing only as many cars as are junked in a given year.”

— Bill Kilpatrick, Popular Mechanics (1969, p. 20)

RE:SOURCES

Also see ‘CO2 emissions: Automakers still partying like it’s 1975’

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