At least something good is coming out of our ridiculously high gas prices:
At a time when gas prices are at an all-time high, Americans have curtailed their driving at a historic rate.
The Department of Transportation said figures from March show the steepest decrease in driving ever recorded.
Compared with March a year earlier, Americans drove an estimated 4.3 percent less -- that's 11 billion fewer miles, the DOT's Federal Highway Administration said Monday, calling it "the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA history." Records have been kept since 1942.
According to AAA, for the first time since 2002, Americans said they were planning to drive less over the Memorial Day weekend than they did the year before.
The obvious reason for the dramatic reduction in the driving rate is high gas prices. But it's manifesting itself in a number of different ways. Some people, like our friend Anne Johnson over at The Gods are Bored, are taking a pass on traveling for their Memorial Day breaks and vacations, and having what Anne calls a "stay-cation" instead:
This is how a stay-cation works. You stay home. You pull out the folding lawn chair, whip up a pitcher of iced tea, borrow a few books from the library, and voila. Staycation.
If you're the kind of person who can't sit at your own house without doing the 10,423 things that need to be done, there's a handy solution for you. Take your chair to the nearest city, county, or state park, unfold it, pull out the books and the pitcher, and voila. Staycation.
But what you really like to do is shop. Well, reader, have you noticed how every little town now has the same boring box stores? So why fly to the Barnes & Noble in Milwaukee when there's one in Wheeling? If you like to shop, go to the local mall. Or much better, the local flea market.
But wait. You love excitement and adventure. You want to see things you've never seen before, have all new experiences!
What, are you made of money?
If you can tell me that you've seen every sweeping vista, every historic site, every pleasant camping spot, every hip main street, and every amusement park within 50 miles of your home, go ahead and travel! But that $4.00 a gallon you're shoving in the old auto piles up quick. A tank of gas, or a month's supply of wine?
I just flushed my car keys down the loo.
Others are carpooling, cutting down on unnecessary trips, and even driving slower to save on fuel:
Nakeisha Easterwood of Smyrna, Georgia, said with gas prices on the rise, she sometimes catches rides with friends, and doesn't drive into town more than once a day. "It's crazy," she said.
But best of all, an increasing number of people are relying on public transportation. According to the American Public Transportation Association, ridership was up by 2.1 percent last year, and more than 10.2 billion trips were taken on public transportation, the highest level of ridership in 50 years. And that was before fuel prices got really bad this year. This trend should continue for the foreseeable future: more than 80% of Americans think that we'll see gas hit $5 a gallon before we see it go back fdown to $3 a gallon, and they're probably right. However, the availability and convenience of mass transit for most people could act as a check on the growth of public transportation ridership: only 15% of people say that public transportation is a convenient option for them, and over a third report having no access to public transportation at all. The problem is particularly acute in the South, where only 9% report mass transit as a convenient option and 44% have no access to mass transit, as well as in the Midwest, where 41% have no access to public transportation.
Part of the problem may be cultural in nature: some people might think that not having constant access to a car is inconvenient, and that having to walk a few blocks to a bus stop is equivalent to being cut off from the bus system entirely. These attitudes can be overcome with increased education, but there is a very real availability problem in some communities. Arlington, for example, is the largest city in the country without access to public transit, and even in Dallas there are neighborhoods with limited or no coverage by DART. At far too many stops, the buses run so infrequently that it can take forever to get from point A to point B, especially if point B is in a different part of town. I can personally attest to this: I work in Farmers Branch and used to live in Oak Cliff, which at the time required a bus commute that was nearly two hours long, just for a one-way trip. Even now, living in a different part of Farmers Branch, I have to walk ten minutes to get to my bus stop, then after a half-hour long bus trip, I have another long walk to get to the building I work in.
We desperately need to spend more money increasing the coverage and quality of public transportation in this country, particularly in areas where public transportation is less developed like Texas. And in areas where public transportation isn't a viable option, like rural areas, we need to do more to educate people about the benefits of carpooling and other fuel-efficient practices. As pointed out elsewhere, building more tollroads and freeways isn't going to make gas any cheaper.
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