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>Multiple-car ownership could spread beyond the one-third of American families that already own two or more vehicles, but the pattern will be different. "The more variety you have in small cars, the more people who have one car will want two," says GM's Gerstenberg. A small, unostentatious car will be the workhorse for commuting and shopping. The second vehicle could be any of a number of special-purpose types, depending on family habits and interests: a camper for vacations, a pickup truck for light hauling, a sports car for pleasure driving—perhaps even a large sedan for limited use. Some families may own a small car and rent a large one whenever they have to travel somewhere together. Joseph M. Pepek, a dentist in Westfield, Mass., may represent the two-car future: last month he traded his big Buick Electra Limited for a smaller Buick Century and a tiny Japanese-made Subaru. "I use the Subaru to go to work," he says, "and the Buick for going to church or stepping out on Saturday night—you know, ceremonial occasions."
>Car pooling will have to increase, despite massive psychological resistance to it. Many drivers cherish their hour of splendid isolation in the car as about the only time all day that they are alone to think out plans, muse philosophically or scream out their frustrations free from embarrassment. But the one-occupant-per-car habit is simply too expensive to be continued. Already, radio station WTOP in Washington broadcasts ads for car-pool organizers. The Federal Government, on William Simon's orders, is assigning parking space in lots on the basis of the number of car occupants rather than their rank—the more passengers, the choicer the location. Car pooling will not sweep the country overnight. At least 56% of all cars on the road every day carry only one occupant. But even a minor reduction in their number would produce considerable energy savings.
>The inexorable advance of highways into the countryside will slow, and cars may even be banned in some places. The Highway Trust Fund, which has disbursed some $58 billion over the past two decades, was tapped by Congress for mass transit money this year for the first time. If gasoline remains scarce, states that depend on fuel taxes to fund local highway construction may end up with less money than projected; some planned highways may never be built. The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed banning cars from certain downtown business districts by 1977; many city dwellers, including not a few local businessmen, are in favor of the idea. "You are not going to control this nation in the form of a police state where you have to have a passport to cross the state line," says AMC Chairman Roy Chapin. "But there definitely will be restrictions on passenger-vehicle access to certain areas of major cities. That's something I think is both feasible and proper."
> Public transportation will experience a revival, but perhaps not in the form that many people expect. Most discussion has focused on improving mass transit, such as subways and commuter rail lines. Auto executives argue that that is only a small part of the answer; the public-transportation future, in their view, belongs to