"Greater fuel efficiency."

By itself, it's great, but it's not the same as frugality. It can lead to *more* consumption, not less, all else equal.

I buy my gas with one dollar bills as a political protest!

Use pennies.

I don't buy gas as a political protest.

Walking/biking with my daughter to and from school, we were seen as oddities (we live a mile away). Today, as I dropped her off for summer school, I noticed a lot of families biking and walking. I continued on to the grocery store where I saw four bikes chained to a sign post, where I never saw any before. Walking/Biking seems to be more common right now(even accounting for the weather).

Finding a place to park bikes is becoming a problem around here. Some people are chaining them to trees, which can injure them. The bike paths are becoming crowded in the mornings and evenings.

But the main problem is still drivers. The evening bicycle commute is especially difficult. Gas is way too cheap.

Well, these changes were made during the last "gas crisis" too. Remember the 1970s? As soon as prices fell, we went right back to our old ways. Cars got bigger and bigger and suburbs got further and further. If prices come back down, bad habits will resume.

What a bunch of bourgeoisie environmentalists, you are advocating letting only rich people drive, while ignoring that poor working people are the ones who actually need to.

How advocating for public transportation and other alternatives (bikes, smaller cars) ignoring poor working people? I don't see the connection. Working people would benefit most from a policy shift toward pedestrian-friendly, local initiatives and public transportation.

The article refers not only to mass transit but that "the high price of gasoline has done what years of dire warnings have failed to do — get Americans to change their driving habits."

Except for the wealthy.

People who can afford gas, you can drive, people who can't, you can take the bus.

Have you ever ridden a bus? Have you ever heard of getting fired for being late? Go ahead and try working two jobs while using mass transit, see what you think.

Mass transit would be fine, if it had a much, much larger infrastructure, or if people didn't have to commute to work. Even so, it would still make driving a privilege for all but those who could afford it. You act like poor people don't need cars. How does a mother with three kids use the bus to go and buy ten bags of groceries?

How about taxing the rich so that they can't afford to drive either? Then we could expand the mass-transit infrastructure to make it accessible to everyone.

The last thing I want to do is to sanction privilege.

zzz,

Your problems aren't related to mass transit, but to the wage-slave conditions imposed on the US worker - along with the ridiculous sprawling suburban locations of too many employers.

Poorer Americans have to work multiple jobs at multiple locations, with intolerant bosses - which makes using cars the only practical way to get to work. They even get into a vicious cycle where the higher gasoline proces go, the more thay have to drive - to work extra jobs to buy the gas.

Where I live, a bus goes downtown and lots of points in-between, every 15 minutes. I'm pretty rich, but I took the bus downtown every day when I worked there because it was the most convienient way to get to work. So if anything, public transit may become a luxury of the well off who have the remaining steady middle-class jobs in the downtown business district. Certainly we have seen gentrification of many walking and transit-friendly city neighborhoods, so they are too expensive for the people who would benefit the most living in them.

My last car died in February 2004. I could have scrambled to come up with the money for the needed repair. Since then, there have been opportunities for me to own cars. Two different friends offered to give me cars when they were buying new ones!

I decided to go car free when my last car died. I have never regretted it. If I can't get where I wish to go on public transit (sometimes with some serious hoofing appended to the bus ride), I try to get a ride with someone else going where I am headed. I have ALWAYS been able to get anywhere I wanted to go. I have never taken a cab, although I would, if in a pinch.

It takes more time to move through the world without a car. Most people, when they learn that I live in Silicon Valley without a car say 'I would love to do it but I don't have the time". Most of these 'most people' live lives meaningfully different than my own. They seem to think that if they aren't 'doing something' they aren't doing anything. Nobody seems to spend times with themselves anymore. When I am riding a bus or a train, I am 'BEING'. Sometimes I fire up my iPod, sometimes I surf the web, sometimes I read but most of the time, I hang out with me.

My kid is all growed. I live alone. I agree with comments that a mom with a few kids can't readily do a weekly grocery shop without a car. You can't haul ten bags of groceries home on the bus. Umm. . . you can. You can buy a grocery cart. But, gosh, hauling groceries with two or three kids? What is a whole, WHOLE lot of work. That mom needs a car.

There are no easy solutions to coping with our car-centric culture. It's gonna take a lot of time to change culture. And while we adjust, the poor are going to suffer the most, like they always do.

We already have a culture where the poor always suffer more than the rich. I don't see that changing in my lifetime, do you?

"How about taxing the rich so that they can't afford to drive either? Then we could expand the mass-transit infrastructure to make it accessible to everyone."

And will you be the one who will be the arbiter of what "rich" is? And after you are finished disposing of "the rich" through taxes, exactly how will you expand mass transit? Will you have people working and innovating for free just for the sake of the cause? I'd rather drink beer down by the river under the conditions you suggest, and I suspect everyone else would too.

"In 2004, when my husband turned in his Lexus for a Toyota Prius, friends thought he was crazy. Now they think he was prescient..."

This sentence "plus" demonstrates the reason for the flaws in the Author's thinking.

She is not of the working class, obviously, but she is also one of those who has effectively REMOVED the working class from her worldview.

Many of us cannot afford to puchase or "finance a loan" for ANY new car, let alone one as expensive as the Prius.

Many of us -as other commenters have pointed out- cannot afford to rely on mass-transit because it is limited, unreliable, dangerous, or non-existant.

Biking is good, of course, and so is walking -not just for the economy or the environment, or for frugality, but for maintenence of Health.

But there are many places -with hilly terrain or poor weather- where biking or walking may not be reasonably acheivable for those not exceptionally fit or determined. This is compounded by the exodus of even the poorest of the working-class to "garden apartments" a hefty bike ride -but a 30 minute drive- from their work.

We could, of course, do what we so often do in "America" -we could blame people for being too poor to drive, or too fat to bike, or too foolish for living so far from work, or too stubborn for not moving back. Then after we feel they are properly scolded we could return to ignoring the fundamental structural problems of our Living, Governance, and Economic systems.

Or...

We could finally face them.

So, to the Author (and others) I pose these questions:

1. Would you support a program -at the Local, State, or Federal level- to redesign and rebuild our Cities, Towns, and Villages to a scale and layout condusive to sustainability?

1a. Would you be willing to contribute -your Time, your Labor, or your Wealth in the form of taxes or donations- to the acheivement of such a program's goals?

2. Would you support a program -at the Local, State or Federal level- to redesign and rebuild our Intra- and Inter-Urban transportation systems to de-emphisize cars and trucks, to re-emphisize light- and heavy-rail, allow for the easier and safer use of human-powered vehicles such as bicycles and animal powered vehicles such as carts and wagons (obviously in rural areas mostly), and finally to re-invigorate water transport both Coastal and Lake/River Systems?

2a. Would you be willing to contribute -your Time, your Labor, or your Wealth in the form of taxes or donations- to the acheivement of such a program's goals?

3. Would you support a program -at the Local, State or Federal level- to redesign and rebuild our Agricultural system to remove its dependence on fossil-energy and limit its need for electric or combustion-powered machinery; and instead focus on sustainable polyculture, animal-power and animal manure, and in general, a greater focus on imitating natural processes of growth and decay rather than industrial ones? This program or programs would also work to increase the number of working farms and farmers and lessen the power and scale of Agribusiness enterprises and the number of "farm laborers" who have no ownership of their work and too little compensation for their Toil.

3a. Would you be willing to contribute -your Time, your Labor, or your Wealth in the form of taxes or donations- to the acheivement of such a program's goals?

Finally, and perhaps crucial to the accomplishment of any of these other goals:

4. Would you support a program -at the Local, State or Federal level- to make all of this work possible by creating jobs, in pure "unskilled" Labor and "skilled" labor, management, design, engineering, and construction, for the working and middle-classes of our Citizens and Legal Migrants?

4a. Would you be willing to support funding these projects with "progressive" taxation, focusing on real assets, capital gains, inheritance, and corporate profit, while reducing the relative tax burden on the Majority of Citizens by restructuring or removing the sales tax, restructuring the payroll tax, and removing home-ownership and other "prejudicial" tax deductions?

-

These questions only BEGIN to look at the scale of the work ahead of us if we are to reform our society into a Sustainable, Peaceful, Just, and Libertine place.

But we are going to need to make these changes NO MATTER WHAT, sooner or later, or the whole thing may come crashing down around us.

So why not start now?

Why not get serious?

The time for fluff B.S. "market forces" thinking like "people having to change their lifestyles" -as if one's "lifestyle" was merely a choice for anyone but the upper-third of the wealth-holders- and lame-yuppie anecdotes about giving up your Lexus for a Prius IS LONG PAST.

We have all the Tools we need!

All we need to do is put them -at long last- to Good Use!

I say we start now, research what you can on these subjects, discuss them with people in your town or neighborhood, begin to form a plan on how to acheive the specific goals that would best serve your Locality and get to work lobbying your government, Local first, then State and Federal as your movement grows and need arises.

Then we can begin co-ordinating, though the Internet, Travel, the Post and other means, and one Big Movement of Little movements can awaken to make these changes happen.

Good luck,

and Have Fun.

-matti.

"I buy my gas with one dollar bills as a political protest!"

exactly what are you protesting and how does buying gasoline with $1 bills accomplish it?

"How does a mother with three kids use the bus to go and buy ten bags of groceries?"

you make multiple trips. buy a monthly bus pass to lower the cost.

"1. Would you support a program -at the Local, State, or Federal level- to redesign and rebuild our Cities, Towns, and Villages to a scale and layout condusive to sustainability?"

Mostly at Local level, less so going up. The devil is in the details.

Regarding how the poor deal with this, it's *always* harder for the poor. For those who would suggest higher taxes on the retail products, it would hurt the poor the most.

Ironically enough here in New Jersey where we are blessed with a major rail system and tracks which could be used everywhere NJ Transit is axing trains everywhere. May 11th they cut my Morris Line 30% on trains to Hoboken. My own town got decimated 40% until we ran their phones off the hook so they restored 3 of our 21 trains cut still leaving 3 hours gaps in our train service.
Train ridership is soaring yet NJ Transit says we don't have
enough ridership.... Nope instead the Dept of Transportation
wants to waste $2.7 Billion to widen the NJ Turnpike which has actually had decreased riders. There was a 400,000 vehicle drop in traffic across bridges and tunnels to NYC.
But they cut our TRAINS!
Unbelievable!!
And Gov Corzine claims to be "Green".. right...

TreeFitz,

In my town I've seen women with three kids and a 2-4 bags of groceries on the bus often.

But I agree, I increasingly find all these excuses about being too busy to take the bus to be lame. Slow down.

the rewards of living in a slower simpler way becomes more apparent when not coerced by resource scarcity/price escalation but instead is chosen for its own intrinsic value. for many the inability to afford "normal" patterns of consumption will be a bitter blow, and there will be suffering. but some of that suffering will be minor pangs of hunger to a grossly overweight, overstimulated and lazy individual - and that really, is the current condition in this culture of excess and waste.

I'll be looking for the home heaing oil shock's silver lining in a few months!

Toast,

I'm all for personal initiatives, but alone, they don't cut it. I bought two battery-electric motor scooters (i.e vespa type - not those little illegal things), made in China. They needed some some modifying to get usable performance - the most recent mod being a lithium-iron-phospate battery pack (also from China). They now have most of the performance of a 150cc scooter.

When I started the project two years ago, I was expecting all kinds of interest from passers by (they would all know it was electric and curiosity piqued, by it's silence, right?) But this wasn't the case. Even with big stickers proclaimimng "electric" on it, they still don't notice or don't care (probably the latter) that it is electric - although some, loooking straight at the "electric" decal still ask "what's the gas mileage?"

And, I get much more ridicule than expressions of interest - especially in the suburban areas (hey buddy - get a real bike!) and especially from younger poeple. They are completely clueless why a grown adult would want such a low-performance motorcycle unless they are some kind of "loser" and it is the only transportation they can afford (one notch above riding the bus - which is only for blacks and retards) Remember they don't notoce or care it is electric - it is just a cheap Chinese "moped" to them. I even had an egg thrown at it once.

To promote the new high tech (but low Q/C) Chinese batteries, I put a decal sticker stating "LiFePO4" (chem formula of the active electrode material in the battery) An average high-school educated USAn should recognize a chemical formula, right? Wrong. From reactions so far (includung my wife) they they think, of they do any thinking at all, that is is the word "lifeepoefore".

The seems to ba minimum level of education and intelligence required for taking personal initives to mitigate climate change, and very few USAns have it.

Nothing wrong with those who can afford to exchange a Lexus for Prius, to do so. Frankly, people who have more money ought to be implementing energy saving measures. The more people who buy Priuses, solar panels, etc. the more mainstream they become and perhaps the government will get a clue and change our infrastructure.

America's city councils and mayors and other local government officials (including police, fire departments, and medical) should learn about Portland, Oregon's plan for dealing with oil shocks.

You can get it from here: http://tinyurl.com/599or8

The transition to higher gas prices is painful for many (including me!), for sure.

But I hope this will result in a reduction in wasteful habits, an end to suburban sprawl, and a restoration of our cities and small towns.

And I doubt gasoline will ever be cheap again.

On July 15th, 2008 10:06 pm orbit7er wrote:

Ironically enough here in New Jersey where we are blessed with a major rail system and tracks which could be used everywhere NJ Transit is axing trains everywhere. May 11th they cut my Morris Line 30% on trains to Hoboken. My own town got decimated 40% until we ran their phones off the hook so they restored 3 of our 21 trains cut still leaving 3 hours gaps in our train service...

Sorry to hear that orbit7er. I am a former native New Jersyan and it pains me to read about the decimation of the Train system there. It was by no means perfect but I could take one of the trains from the Matawan platform all the to Grand Central Station or take the PATH train over to Wallstreet.

I remember most of the trains being mainly deisel-electrics and they could get you right into grand-central without changing at the platforms. I saw in a youtube video most recently at the Matawan platform that the trains are now electric! How cool is that! I live in Houston and have for 29 years. I long to go back but I'm afraid the real estate costs would kill me but at least if I worked in NY I would have to worry about gasoline.

"The more people who buy Priuses, solar panels, etc. the more mainstream they become and perhaps the government will get a clue and change our infrastructure."

I'm not sure how Piruses would change the infrastructure. They are still cars - more efficient ones, so they are often driven more, and contribute to even more car-oriented sprawl.

In fact, efficncy gains by themselves do not reduce resource consumption, they tend to just lead to more useage of the efficient item. Higher costs relative to alternatives lead to less usage.

I live in rural western Michigan, where there has been an active "Rails-to-Trails" movement for many years to convert old rail beds to bike trails.

Lots of support. But some property owners with rail beds thru their property are adamently opposed, and the matter's been fought in courts for years over exactly who owns the land. It takes only a few folks to really throw it all off.

Eisenhower was able to get the Interstate Highway system through by claiming national security. We could do the same to restore rail transit -- and it could have been done in the aftermath of 9/11 -- but it would take intelligent leadership from the top. Enough said there.

On the economic front, high speed rail -- such as they have in Europe -- could work here. If folks here could take an overnight high-speed train from Chicago or Detroit to Orlando or New Orleans, it would be a booming business in winter. Many years ago, I took an overnight trip from London to Edinburgh, Scotland. Not the greatest night's sleep I ever had, but well worth it.

I personally would bike more, even long miles across rural areas, if we had a proper path. It takes nerves of steel to ride on two-lane roads (no paved shoulder) with cars and trucks whizzing by at 60 mph. I'll sacrifice much for the environment, but not my life and limb.

"The more people who buy Priuses, solar panels, etc. the more mainstream they become and perhaps the government will get a clue and change our infrastructure."

Yes and no. Government action is questionable. It's important for people who can, to invest in alternative solutions, even one as relatively insignificant as a new hybrid with a questionable payback period.

The reason? Market forces come into play. Innovation accelerates as supply and demand push original equipment manufacturers and third party entrepreneurs into new areas of research and development and most importantly... competition.

And eventually the price comes down and the performance gets better and old technologies are phased out. Do NOT condemn individuals for jumping on leading (or bleeding) edge changes. They are investing in those changes for all who may not be in the position to afford it at this point in time. Look for "used" hybrids on the market soon, and electric cars that change quickly (and inexpensively), and will have 300-400 mile ranges. It's not that far away.

In the meantime, start demanding that your states require energy companies to purchase increasing amounts of alternatively generated energy. Also require that those companies connect you to the grid, lease and install solar and wind and meter any excess generation to be paid at or near market rates.

If you had an electric car that was charged with your own alternative generation and the power company still had to pay you for the extra energy you produced... this would be a better world.

There's a solar power revolution happening in Silicon Valley. It will take about 20 years to completely transform our energy and transportation needs, but it *has* started.

In the meantime, opt for personal change. I have not driven a vehicle since the day after CheneyOilCo and their monkeypuppet stole the election nearly 8 years ago. I've learned some new habits that were a bit tough at first, but now are well served. I had to bear a great deal of ridicule at first... it should be much easier to opt for change for those who are just now investigating alternatives, as a MUCH larger sector of the general population and local governments "get it" now.

Be encouraged.

"I'm all for personal initiatives, but alone, they don't cut it." (snip) "The seems to ba minimum level of education and intelligence required for taking personal initives to mitigate climate change, and very few USAns have it."

Most avalanches start with a very small amount of initiative... a few rolling stones, perhaps. I don't know where you live. I assume that change is not uniform... for a number of reasons. In the Seattle area, the changes in just the last year have been something of a phenomenon.

Swings towards alternative transportation have shown increases upwards to 25%... so much so, that they are taxing the mass transit capacities at times. Good is not always good in the short term.

A few years ago, scooters were a rarity in my neighborhood, and although it seems like most users are young, I'm seeing a demographic shift in my unscientific survey... perhaps 3-5 an hour as opposed to one per day ...and the bicyclists and walkers!!!

Congrats on pushing the envelope... perhaps you can interest a small group who have the business initiative to market your amalgam. There are some new technologies coming soon. Here's one that solves the common complaint made by those who might bicycle, but who are daunted by hills... a power wheel that can be installed on most standard bicycles that promises upwards to a 200 mpg engine that can be turned off at any time for normal cycling... and hints to have natural gas and electric versions in the works.

http://www.revopower.com/faq.php

Stick with it... the avalanche is picking up speed.