How Much For Gas Before We Change?
WANE brings some local flavor to the national story of how Americans are turning to smaller cars in response to increasing gas prices.
Fort Wayne is an exceedingly car-dependent community. The Center For Neighborhood Technology’s “Reconnecting Fort Wayne” report points out that in 2005 the percentage of those commuting by car was more than 97%.
According to a recent prediction by Goldman Sachs, prices for a barrel of oil could be $150 to $200 within the next two years. Would $5 a gallon be enough to make us reconsider our transportation priorities? Probably not.
People like their cars and don’t want to give them up, as evidenced by the fact that the transportation debate is centered on how to make the car viable again by looking to alternative fuels or praying for lower gas prices instead of looking to diversify our transportation options and not put all of our eggs into the car basket.
At some point, gas prices will become so high that each trip made by car may turn into an economic decision. Those cities with a variety of transportation options will fare much better than those designed for cars instead of people.
Citilink should investigate systems such as bus rapid transit and the possibility of some kind of tram system and then take a plan to the Federal Transit Administration and apply for funding.
There’s no reason for Fort Wayne to be behind the curve on diversifying transportation options. Dan Burden’s recent visit and focus on pedestrian issues is a good start towards changing the current mindset.
We can either begin to enact change now and build up some resiliency or we can wait like good Hoosiers for the system to be broken first before acting.
It is irresponsible to think our post-WWII infrastructure built upon cheap energy will work in the future as it did then. The city (and nation) is at risk of serious economic damage if gas prices continue to rise as expected and we don’t do anything about it.
At what price per gallon the camel’s back is broken is unknown, but that doesn’t mean we have to sit around waiting for it to happen.
The real problem with most public transportation is it doesn’t go where you want to go or act nearly as efficiently as does the car. We’d need a cultural shift whereby we aren’t always rushing. While it is possible to go from Glenbrook to most houses in the city via bus, it won’t be nearly as fast, and it doesn’t take you to your door.
Also, there’s a certain stigma for busses that keep people in their cars too.
We have one car and the Mr. rides his bike to work or rides the bus if the weather requires. We purposefully chose a neighborhood where the riding distance to work was reasonable as well as many amenities within walking/biking distance. We could do better even with the one car, and make better choices, but hopefully just doing this will make a difference and maybe people will see it is a good choice to make if they can.
Let’s see light rail, mass transit, bicycling to work are all great ideas which save gas but….
Have you seen the Cadillac Escalade commercials which show this good-looking guy who wasn’t part of the cool crowd in high school, but who now is successful and affluent, and drives a big gas-guzzling, behemoth, SUV Cadillac Escalade around town and guns it at every stop light in order to show the naysayers the meaning of the word cool ?
On behalf of the Cadillac Escalade and Hummer drivers of the world who desperately need more gas for future strutting around town and flooring it when the traffic lights turn green, I say, open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling. Why should we deprive them of that much needed oil to fill up their gas tanks with ?
Driving a gas guzzling behemoth is a consumer’s choice. The U.S. is just catching up to the rest of the world when it comes to gas prices. Go to Aruba, it’s $12 a gallon there, or try London, it’s around $7 a gallon. I drive a Ford F250 that gets about the same mileage as that Escalade. It’s got a 25 gallon tank and takes about $90 to fill up. I need a big truck and some people need a big SUV. Some don’t but it’s no one’s business if they do drive one.
If the tree huggers would get out of the way and allow a few dozen more nuclear generators and low-emitting coal plants, U.S.oil consumption would be far less.
Dan,
Thanks for giving some insight on what the rest of the world pays for gas. The US has had gas at relatively cheap prices for a long, long time. The fact of the matter is we are at a crossroads when it comes to energy and fuel consumption. Russia, China and India’s economies are booming and are continuing to expand. Energy and oil consumption will only continue to grow here and abroad.
Whether or not we make smart, intelligent decisions on how to supply the energy and fuel we need, is entirely up to us. There is only so much oil left in the Earth. Simply adding more refineries or opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling are short sided solutions.
Constructing more nuclear power plants in the US is not a decision to rush into. Extensive mining is needed to supply the reactors with uranium. Disposing of the radioactive waste produced from the plants is a controversial topic. Remember Yucca Mountain ? The people living around the nuclear waste storage facilities and nuclear reactors, rightfully have concerns regarding contamination and safety.
Adding more coal plants is gong backwards. Coal is one of the most dirtiest and harmful forms of fuel to use. The amount of carbon and sulfuric acid produced from mining is disastrous to the communities which live near the mines, not to mention the planet as a whole. The impact coal mining has on the environment, even long after a mine is closed down, takes years and great financial resources, often times billed to the taxpayers, to rectify. The people of West Virginia already have had enough contaminated ground water or acid rain than they desire.
What I am in favor of is clean, renewable energy sources. In particular, wind, water and solar power. These forms of energy represent the future of our energy consumption and have far less impact on our environment. The great thing is we are only in the infancy stage regarding these alternative forms of renewable energy. The sky is literally the limit. Spain and Germany now obtain almost 10 % of their electricity power needs from wind. Denmark is at nearly 20 %. Not only are these forms of energy sustainable and less harmful to our environment, but they also create new jobs.
As for the tree huggers, I am thankful for them. If it wasn’t for their love of our natural world, we would not have the great National Parks and forests such as Yosemite, Yellowstone and Glacier National Park. With a little luck, hopefully I will have the opportunity to take my grandchildren to see and experience some of these last great wild areas some day.
Responding to Dan’s comment that a consumer’s choice of vehicles is no one else’s business – Fuel prices are driven by demand, and people who waste fuel by driving aggressively or driving a big vehicle unnecessarily, or who drive aggressively in a big vehicle, may easily afford the extravagance, but their excess demand drives up fuel prices and imposes an onerous burden on people who are just getting by, or maybe falling short of getting by.
Most of the public discussion I’ve heard is about finding alternative energy sources from wind, solar, hydropower, nuclear and biofuels. Of the commenters above, only Angela touched upon one of the most important issues. We continue to follow poor land-use patterns that make transit, walking and bicycling non-viable options for most people. If the continued sprawling of Illinois Road hasn’t made it into any urban planning textbook as a bad example, it should. Jobs, services and retail move farther and farther from residential areas, and the car-centric road systems that serve the malls, strip centers, and big-box stores make access hazardous by any means other than driving.
That’s on the local level. On the state level, continued head-in-the-sand planning brings us projects like the Fort-to-Port highway and the I-69 extension, both of which subsidize trucking in competition with freight railroads even as oil prices escalate. Over the long haul, railroads can move freight with three to five times the energy efficiency of trucks, and they build and maintain their own rights of way and pay taxes on them. New highways take land out of the tax base, shifting burden to farmers, businesses and home owners, and fuel taxes, excise taxes and other dedicated revenues don’t cover the ongoing costs of the new roads. In the 19th century Indiana intiated construction of the Wabash-Erie Canal, a project that brought near financial ruin, at a time when canal ventures in eastern states were already falling into bankruptcy because the then-new railroads did the work better. It doesn’t look like Hoosiers have learned much.
“While it is possible to go from Glenbrook to most houses in the city via bus, it won’t be nearly as fast, and it doesn’t take you to your door. ”
It is this attitude that makes mass transit in Fort Wayne an unviable solution. Heaven forbid you walk to use the transit system. My aunt lives in Evanston, IL and commutes to work in Chicago. The nearest stop for the “El” is 8 blocks away. She basically walks across downtown Fort Wayne twice in a day to get to work. But the people in Fort Wayne can’t walk half that to get to a bus stop.
Mass transit can work, but the residents of a city have to want it to work. These systems are not solutions unless residents use them. If people don’t use them, we will continue to get the sprawl and extensive roadways we currently have.
I’m awy out here in the West, Palm Springs, CA. Gas prices don’t effect us yet. Small town with no long drives. Yeah, Angela is right . . . along with an energy policy this country also needs a national transportation policy. People are going to have to learn to move about in different ways . . . A lot of it is just changing our habits and it’s not an “ALL OR NOTHING” approach. Ride your bike/bus some of the time. Car pool some of the time, Walk some of the time. It’s just a new way of thinking. How ’bout getting the politicians out of the energy/transportation business and get the scientists and engineers involved. Let them figure it out and then Washington funds and oversees the plan. It’s gotta be a whole lot harder to drop a guy on the moon than it is solving this energy crisis, especially when a lot of the tech. exsistes right now. I wonder why Calif. can not mandate all new construction to be fitted with solar panels. Much cheaper when built-in with the construction. The exsisting energy cos. need their piece of the action . . let ‘em in . . . let ‘em part of the solution. This is our SECOND CHANCE to solve the problem. We didn’t do anything 40 years ago, but let’s be the HEROS of the future. Our great grandkids will look back at our generation as the guys who stepped up. HEROS
Keep up the good work.