The M25 on a quiet day

The internal combustion engine has become almost as potent a target of green opposition as the hamburger. But could we do without it?

Towns and cities

It would be one thing to do without cars in urban areas. This is the thinking behind congestion taxes, or road pricing, in which motorists have to pay an extra fee to enter the roads in a city centre. There are plenty of cheaper alternatives, such as buses, trains, cycle lanes, perhaps Undergrounds or even trams.

There are even (horror) pavements.

Not only are these alternatives to the car, many of them become more viable and pleasant the fewer cars there are. Just close your eyes and imagine how fresh the air in Piccadilly Circus could be.

Let your feet do the walking

In London, public transport already has the upper hand for people getting to work - an average of 939,000 people using it every day. Just 135,000 drive. (Only 12,000 cycle.)�

But to do without cars there would need to be an enormous increase in the capacity of planes, trains and buses to cope. How much? Well, the average person travels 6,806 miles each year - and more than 5,500 of those are by car.� That's a lot of planes, trains and buses.

In the country

The situation for rural dwellers is even more extreme. Whereas 43% of Londoners use cars to get to work, how about a more rural area, such as Wales? The answer is nearly twice as many - 80%.�

Country dwellers' demand for their cars would be very inelastic; in other words even if the cost of motoring soared, using their cars would be important enough for them to pay the price.

Back in the real world

In any case this is all pretty fanciful; short of criminalising car use, it's difficult to see that anything could make people give up their cars altogether. Maybe even that would not work.

Rail passengers waiting at King's Cross

But if pollution is the main concern of the anti-car lobby, there are at least reasons for optimism: