Look at what happened in Europe in the 1970's when the Saudis and OPEC held the world to ransom and the price of fuel went through the roof.
Raging inflation
Mass layoffs of workers as companies tried to economise
Bankrupt companies by the hundred
Strikes
Lock-outs
The death of the airline industry
What they forget is that public transport also requires fuel to operate and, if the price is high, the public will find alternative methods. There is also the essential requirement of a network that actually goes to and from the places people want to go. They already tried to ban car sharing to drive the lower paid workers onto public transport.
Time to drive from Al Nadha to Dubai Media City is approximately 30 minutes. The same trip by bus takes over 2 hours.
The Dubai mass transit system goes nowhere near the places where large numbers of people need to get to and from. There is no service from Sharjah (or any planned!) to Jebel Ali or Al Quoz or Al Qusais for the simple reason that the powers that be in Dubai do not want the lower income drones living in Sharjah or Ajman at sensible rents and having all their expensive glass and concrete white elephants standing empty.
The latest business forecast is that, by the end of 2011, 50% of the available office space in Dubai will be standing empty. They have no available figures for the residential spaces.
Knight