Perhaps that's why (unlike last year post-Katrina) US motorists aren't cutting back on fuel consumption, thereby keeping prices up.

Link to the article

 

When there isn't a public transportation alternative, the choices are:

1) Use a more fuel efficient vehicle
2) Travel less frequently
3) Travel less far

With my hybrid, I choose 1 and 3 so I can afford to skip 2 . . . almost reads like a pick two of three question.

Bob Wilson

 

Well... I managed to do all three!

In my old job, I drove between 100-225 miles each day, six days per week. In my new job (at least it was new in December), I drive 8.2 miles for work each day, and only five days per week. I originally had a Toyota Echo at in 2000-2002. Then I got the HCH in 2002.

I feel like I'm doing my part for the ecology! Can I be smug yet? Pleeeeeeease?

 

Of course, in Baltimore, public transportation is a sick joke. The bus lines are so ineficient that it's almost faster to walk. (In Columbia, MD, it actually *IS* faster to walk!) The busses rarely run on time, and half the passengers are homeless bums who buy a day pas to get out of the rain or the heat (they just sit on the bus all day as it goes round and round).

I've had the displeasure of the Light Rail as well. This line also runs late and frequently breaks down. It doesn't have as many bums and heroin junkies, however, since the train runs in a linear, not circular, fashion.

But either way you slice it, the public transport is worthless for getting to work. If I actually tried to get to work by bus, I'd have lost my job already. The train station, on the other hand, is 3.1 miles from my house, but my drive to work is only 4.1 miles.

 

Driving slower and less aggressive is a nice option that I've yet to see anyone in CT participate in. (Anyone but me, it seems!)

 

If only the A/C unit in this 100F plus weather could hypermile....

 

Unless you live in a major city there is no public transit to speak of. I live in a city of over 200,000 people, with well over a million in the metro area, but our public transportation is a joke. I can ride on a major road, but I'd have to drive several miles to get to a bus stop.

However, this may not be PC, but even though gas is expensive many people don't feel it that much in the pocketbook. I used to spend about $150 a month on gas at $2.00 a gallon. That means that at $3.00 a gallon I'm spending $75 a month more. I don't like it, but that's equal to one night at a moderate priced restaurant for our family of four. That's part of the reason why I think people are not cutting back as expected.

 

Maybe they're all ExxonMobil stockholders, spending their share of those record profits.

Or, perhaps like all good addicts, we've reached step 1: "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable."

Or, perhaps the "boiling the frog" myth holds: prices jumped after Katrina. Now, they've been rising slowly, so we're getting used to the price. (By the way, I heard yesterday that a frog will not actually jump out of a pot of boiling water, so the old wive's tale is false.) I remember my parents freaking out when gas jumped to $1 a gallon. But the slow creep to $2 went unnoticed.