Transportation in a Post-Hydrocarbon World

What will our transportation options look like when we have effectively run out of oil and our other hydrocarbon fuels? An illustrative look back (forward?) at the transportation history of one small town.

I was raised in a small, Canadian eastern Ontario town, the type of unremarkable place you don't really think of as having a history and would be forgiven for not caring whether it did or not. As it happens I believe it's history is a pretty good indicator of the types of transportation options that we may be forced to consider and cope with as we approach the end of our long slide down Hubbert's Peak as the oil and other hydrocarbon fuels gradually run down to negligible levels.

We have an unfortunate tendency to look at the way things are and think that is as they have always been. We rarely give any thought to how things evolved to where they are. I also think they will evolve as hydrocarbons diminish very much like running that past evolution in reverse. Between now and then we may come up with totally new options that never existed during that evolution to the present. Those differences, though, will be in detail. The nature of our post-hydrocarbon transportation evolution will very much mirror our pre-hydrocarbon transportation evolution.

The location of the town had long been a landing and portage site for native Canadians. The large rapids that existed there before the river was dammed were not navigable but the river was an important connector between Lake Ontario and the watershed and large system of lakes above the rapids. The first white men into the area came either by canoe like the natives or on foot along trails established by the natives through the extensive swamps that blanket the area or, at certain times of the year, on horseback.

Later, after a small settlement was established, a passable "road" (I use the term loosely) was developed from another town about twenty miles east. That rough road allowed wagons to get through to the small community to bring in supplies and materials and, eventually, take product out. Until that time any materials coming to the location arrived by horseback or canoe. The attraction in the area was Iron and the first small community built up around a small beehive iron foundry. When a significant body of iron was discovered the owner considered and began construction on a long canal that would cross over twenty miles of countryside to link the mine and foundry to the navigable Trent River to the southwest. The canal was abandoned, not for lack of feasibility but rather for lack of funds.

The next significant transportation development for the community was the establishment of a road running directly from the community south toward Belleville on the Bay of Quinte on Lake Ontario. The key to this road was the building of a corduroy road that crossed the large swamps in order that wagons could use the road. Most corduroy roads, and these ones definitely, needed major work every spring as the winter freeze and spring thaw would cause the log bed to badly heave. At their best corduroy roads were hell to travel in a wagon but the alternative was a much longer roundabout trip on alternative roads that were only marginally better.

In time, as the Victorian railroad age progressed, a small railway was developed linking the community with the large town of Peterborough, about thirty miles to the west. From there there were other railway connections to Toronto to the west and Kingston and Montreal to the east. That small railway never was a profit making enterprise and changed hands several times before finally being absorbed by one of the large railway companies which eventually took the prudent step of shutting it down.

In the meantime, however, a small spur line into the community was established from Belleville to the south, a spur line that was still functional and in use during my childhood. It was not iron behind this spur line (The small iron mining and foundry operation had failed by this time), however, but rather lumber. A large saw mill had been established in the community for processing the timber cut from the extensive forests around and north of the community. The river running through the community was used to deliver the logs to the mill. The railway was used to take the lumber from there to market.

Over the years a number of wooden bridges had been constructed across the shallows in the river about a half mile below the rapids for a road link to Peterborough to the west. Each of those had eventually been washed away in spring flooding. Finally, last century, a higher level concrete and steel bridge was built across the river (by this time the river was dammed and no longer subject to the major flooding it had once been prone to) and that bridge still stands today.

In 1948 a much larger body of iron was discovered southeast of the town. This became the economic mainstay of the community for the next thirty five years. This was a large open-pit mining operation. The raw ore was processed on site and turned into crude pig iron which was shipped by train on a new rail line built into the mine site. That line linked to a port facility on Lake Ontario from where the pig iron was shipped across Lake Ontario to upstate New York and then by rail to a steel processing facility in Pennsylvania. The rail line into the mine was closed down with the closure of the mine.

Over the years the crude roads into and through the community became paved highways, one of them part of the trans-Canada highway system. The community has intermittently also been served by highway bus services but in recent years even that service has declined. The nearest public transportation service connections are now either south in Belleville or west in Peterborough.

Being a tourist area there have long been well-established dock and landing facilities in the town, many of the lake cottagers preferring to come to town by boat down the river.

As we slide down the far side of Hubbert's Peak many of those past transportation options will probably be investigated again. Although the rail lines no longer come to the community the beds on which those lines were laid are still in place, as are the railway bridges crossing lakes and streams at various points. The portage trails, though obscured under community development, are still there and the river could once again become an important corridor. The current highways, once they begin to seriously deteriorate due to lack of maintenance, could be re-established as unpaved roads and trails. Everything old could become new again.

Most communities will have had a transportation evolution of a similar nature. This evolution is the clearest indicator of what is possible again as we get well past peak oil.