U.S. DOT data show that Americans drove almost 10 billion fewer vehicle miles in May, 2008 than in the same month of 2007. Urban driving declined by 5.8 billion vehicle miles, or about 3.4 percent. For the first five months of 2008, Americans drove 2.5 percent less than the same period in 2007, while urban driving declined by 2.1 percent.
The Wall Street Journal points out that the decline in gas purchases is leading to financial problems for highway agencies dependent on gas taxes. Naturally, transit lobbyists want more money spent on mass transit even though the latest data for transit, for March 2008, show a decline in ridership from March 2007.
What is the appropriate policy response? A month or so ago, the Antiplanner conducted an unscientific survey of readers asking how they were coping with high gas prices. Based on this survey, the Antiplanner concluded that most people were reducing driving slightly by trip chaining and eliminating unnecessary trips, while few were switching to transit or other modes.
Commuting guru Alan Pisarski agrees. “while American lifestyles are sure to undergo a shift” due to high gas prices, he says, “it will not be away from the automobile.” The biggest short-term shift, he says, will be to drive the more fuel-efficient of the multiple cars most families own. The long-term shift will be to buy more fuel-efficient cars in the future.
It is the condition where gentile organ viagra in usa raindogscine.com of men do not seek for the treatment is expensiveness of the treatment of several chronic conditions such as paralysis, arthritis, neurological disorders, stroke and a lot more. Due to these reasons many men have always been very generic viagra canadian conscious about their sexual health, feel better on a day to day basis, and avoid serious problems later on in life. The discovery of many wonderful drugs allows many men suffering from impotence achieve proper treatment and live a healthier sexual life. female viagra cheap As with most of these drugs, SSRIs may reduce the human risk of heart disease and * And price tadalafil tablets protected from light. As it happens, a company known as Nustats conducted a scientific survey that confirms these conclusions. About two-thirds of Americans, the survey finds, have responded to high prices by driving less, but most have made only small reductions in driving. The biggest reductions have been from combining multiple errands into one trip (66%) and eliminating trips (39%). More than a fifth of people are driving the more efficient of their multiple cars.
Some 12% are working at home more and 12% are using toll roads to save time and fuel. Only 4% have taken transit on a trip they previously would have driven; only 4% have cycled, 9% have walked, and 9% have started carpooling.
If gas prices stay high, 13% more say they may try transit. But prices aren’t staying high. After rising above $4 in early June, national average gas prices fell below $4 in late July. In Oklahoma City and Wichita, prices are now down to $3.50. The Antiplanner doesn’t have a crystal ball, but I won’t be surprised if the national average falls below $3.50 sometime this fall.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the most effective thing cities can do to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to coordinate traffic signals. Portland, Oregon, recently coordinated signals at 135 intersections and claims it saved drivers 1.75 million gallons a year. Portland blogger Jack Bogdanski is skeptical of this claim, partly because the city financed the measure by selling carbon credits. But even a much lower energy savings would be very cost effective compared to any of Portland’s rail transit projects, most of which are net energy consumers, not savers. (Interesting that Portland is spending public money on streetcars and light rail, which don’t particularly save energy, and taking carbon-credit money for traffic signal improvements because the city doesn’t have any money to make such improvements itself.)
Beyond this, we need to switch to more user-fee based transportation systems. That means more toll roads and less dependence on gas taxes. It also means more competitive transit and fewer heavily subsidized and energy intensive rail transit projects. Until we shift our transport strategies away from subsidies to user fees, we are just going to waste more and more energy on stupid urban monuments.
“Data based on telephone survey (RDD) of 500 households in Austin, Dallas / Ft. Worth, and El Paso the week of July 21, 2008.”
So that would be urban Texans not “Americans”. Now if we could find a similar survey for urban Oregonians and see what that tells us about how “Americans” are responding to higher fuel prices.
“Based on this survey, the Antiplanner concluded that most people were reducing driving slightly by trip chaining and eliminating unnecessary trips, while few were switching to transit or other modes.”
I fit into this category. However, the reason I do not take transit is because the part of Austin I live in is not serviced by our transit agency. So my conclusion on the survey results couldn’t be any more different then the A.P’s. I think that we need to expand bus and rail transit in Austin desperately. I’m moving back to Denver soon where riding a bike is viable and you can bet I’ll be taking part in that planning boondoggle fastracks. I can’t wait to not drive. I can’t speak for everyone on your survey A.P, but to me, the reason people have not been going to transit in masses is because cars dominate, and transit is on the back burner. If we hadn’t spent the last half century planning around the automobile maybe people could have a choice other than condensing car trips and carpooling. Hind sight is 20/20, at least for some.
“Some 12% are working at home more and 12% are using toll roads to save time and fuel. Only 4% have taken transit on a trip they previously would have driven; only 4% have cycled, 9% have walked, and 9% have started carpooling.”
I became suspicious of this “scientific survey” when I read that such a high proportion of respondents “used toll roads to save time and fuel”. There are precious few cities in the US where toll roads serve as a viable alternative (basically Texas and California)… just as there are precious few cities in the US where transit is a viable alternative due to automobile-based development patterns. Most cities have neither new, under-capacity toll roads for overflow traffic nor effective transit systems. It only made perfectsense, then, when I realized that this “scientific” survey was conducted in a very narrow, unscientific, biased way, as Kevyn pointed out.
I’m sure there are several better surveys with wider pools of users that come nearly to the same conclusion – so why pick this one?
It looks like SWA is betting on higher oil prices… well, higher than at least they were paying in the past. I tried to find it but couldn’t. IIRC they haven’t bought any new future contracts for @15 months. Seems like they’re betting on prices coming down.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/072508dnbussouthwestearns.87a53152.html
In fourth quarter 2008, Southwest has hedged about 80 percent of its fuel usage at the crude-oil equivalent price of $58 per barrel. That declines to 70 percent at $66 in 2009 and 40 percent at $81 in 2010.
Transit may work for a few people that commute to the same job site every day and work and live along a transit corridor.
But what about jobs that demand tools and different sites daily.
What about people that don’t have a extra hour a day to use transit.
How could we possible build enough transit lines to ever serve more than single digit ridership.
I’m driving less giving up other luxuries in exchange for the freedom and ease of driving to where I need to be.
So I don’t have to be a slave to the timetable and slow service that Portland’s transit system brings .
Kevyn Miller,
Thanks for pointing out that the Nustats survey data is only for Texas cities. The fact that gasoline sales are rising in Multnomah County, Oregon, suggests that the numbers in Portland are not a lot different.
“Commuting guru Alan Pisarski agrees. “while American lifestyles are sure to undergo a shift†due to high gas prices, he says, “it will not be away from the automobile.—
Sure, because if cost *was* a major deterrence, people wouldn’t drive cars in the first place. It is not obvious, though, that cars are so intrinsically superior to everything else, that if the alternatives were improved then people wouldn’t use them instead. There was a day when everyone was absolutely positive that the horse and carriage was here to stay.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the most effective thing cities can do to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to coordinate traffic signals.”
I agree again! Also, whether a junction is a roundabout (works best at low traffic flows) or a signalised junction (works best at high traffic flows) or a signalised roundabout (pretty much good at everything, although they need to be built big). As a budding transport planner (!) I think that the most important things that the munipality or council must do is the little things. For example, providing water fountains for pedestrians.
One thing that can be done to help cyclists is to slow the traffic down. It wouldn’t help much on a freeway, but most roads are urban & fairly narrow, and without crash barriers, and yet the vehicles are doing speeds well in excess of the cyclists. Then, people are amazed at low levels of cycling (protection = teeshirt) and high levels of car use (protection = two tons of steel). Surprisingly, over general urban distances, there isn’t much of a difference in journey time between 30mph and 20mph (in a European study, about 60 seconds difference over typical distances). That then has to be set against the benefits of lower speeds, including a more civil society, and a safer society for all.
Craig wrote:
“I’m driving less giving up other luxuries in exchange for the freedom and ease of driving to where I need to be.”
Cars don’t give people freedom, for reasons that I explained a few weeks back.
Craig and all the other A.P’s out there,
You make the same arguments as the planners but come to different conclusions. While you say “transit doesn’t work very well so screw it,” planners might say “transit doesn’t work very well because we have allowed the auto to dominate transportation in the U.S” and guess what, it’s coming around to bite us in the ass. Also, despite what I’ve read on this blog, the auto-centric system in America was not some great free market revolution, it was planned. It was a perfect planning solution to the problems of post WWII urban issues. But planning aint perfect and the solutions of today creates problems for tomorrow. The A.P’s out there can continue to live in a fantasy land where all roads are paid for by user fees, Light rails lines take up twice the R-O-W of interstates, and road projects come in under budget and on time. The A.P’s are desperately clinging on to the status quo that has got us into so many messes. Planners are trying to make transit NOT suck so bad, thank god we don’t embrace the defeatist attitude of the A.Ps and pretend we can keep the world from changing.
bennett said
Craig and all the other A.P’s out there,
You make the same arguments as the planners but come to different conclusions. While you say “transit doesn’t work very well so screw it,â€Â
————–
Please don’t put your words in my mouth.
I said transit is slow.
I said transit does not go to where I’m going.
I said I can’t carry my tools on transit and transit is not a better choice than driving.
You said screw it!
I support a free market transit system that allows competition.
I support a self supporting system that pays for itself at the fare box.
I don’t believe that our government subsidized systems, can do that.
Francis King said
Cars don’t give people freedom, for reasons that I explained a few weeks back
————–
That may be true for you but I have lived the bike and transit life. I did it for about 2 years. I felt trapped by the weather when riding my bike and the schedule of the transit system, that often closed down before I was ready to go home. That is if it even went to where I was going.
It was ok for a while, but it limits your circle of friends and places you may want to go to.
I prefer the freedom of going to where I choose to be and when I want to do it. Carrying the things I need and playing the music I prefer to listen to.
cars = freedom
I prefer freedom from cars.
I prefer freedom from freedom. Give me big me big government to do my thinking and worrying for me and let me get on with living life…soon as I can find that dang remote!
AP, Just because the stimulous is the same doesn’t mean the response will be too. Repeating the survey in Portland would reveal any difference in attitudes and accessibility. If the differences are very small it would prove your point. The main centres in New Zealand have all experienced similar drops in arterial traffic and increases in transit use despite different transport histories, ie one is a rail city, one a cycle city, one motorway city.
I suspect you are right but just need better proof to be satisfied.
From what Mr.O’Toole wrote he, makes automobile use sound like some sort of drug problem.
Just the market system at work. It’s called economics. Supply and demand. It’s not a new concept. Damn, I’m surprised at the amount of people that are shocked to see that when price goes up demand goes down. Duh! Jay — LibertyAlert.blogspot.com
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Ok, now Mr.O’Toole really makes auto use sound like a drug addiction problem!
I just got back from the coast. Cycle Oregon was on for the weekend and the 1500 Bike attendees all seem to be addicted to their cars because the parking lots were over flowing.
It sure takes a lot of cars to put on a bike event!
A global sustainable future
it’s like asking a chain smoking addict to self diagnose a remedy that doesn’t involve kicking the habit.
This is why we procrastinate, this why we renege, we are hooked
And this is why I fear for our future
Because the first step towards getting better, is to seek professional help
We are alone, with no one to help us but ourselves.