electric and alternative vehicles don't exist as much because the auto/oil industries have squelched the development of those technologies to retain their stranglehold on consumers and reduce choice.

mass transit doesn't exist as a viable choice because the auto/oil industries bought up cable car and mass transit in the 30s and 40s for the purposes of trashing it, receiving huge govt. subsidies to create highway systems for the cars they sell instead (again, reducing consumer choice).

http://www.nader.org/interest/082902.html

petroleum use also increases health care costs, as it pollutes the groundwater and as the rates of childhood onset asthma, respiratory and circulatory disorders (e.g., sudden heart attacks from breathing the air) and other petroleum-borne diseases skyrocket.

http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/585986.asp?cp1=1

not to mention the intense political problems the world faces today because of oil. petroleum is basically an evil. the sooner we learn to do without it the better for everyone and for the planet.