The New York Sun reports that gas may hit $10 a gallon before too long, putting it in line with European prices.
The ground is already shifting. Employers find that getting employees out of their cars and onto company-owned, Wi-Fi-enabled buses boosts productivity and morale.
Fewer and fewer teenagers are getting driver’s licenses, and public transportation ridership is at its highest level since the 1950′s.
Is this a temporary shift, or the start of something more far-reaching?
James Kunstler, meanwhile, who weighed in here on the spike in U.S. urbanization, sees rising gas prices as just the kick in the pants we need to kill off suburbia.
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So what’s the vision for the future for companies located in these suburbs?
I’ve been in manufacturing for 18 years and have always worked in a suburb where the only mass transit would be bus service to a city.
The article on the drop in 16 year-old drivers points this out, but perhaps does not emphasize it enough: Almost 100% of the drop in 16 year-olds with driver licenses can be attributed to states raising the driving age. E.g. Florida raised it’s driving age — no longer can 16 year-olds get licenses. This means an automatic 100% drop in the number of Florida 16 year-old drivers. Many other states have taken similar action.
Just another area where statistics can be misleading! 100% drop in 16 year-old drivers does not equal a drop in the desire of to drive among people of that age!
I take the bus in to work every day in downtown Denver from the suburbs. It’s only a mile drive to a park and ride where the buses arrive every five minutes. I’ve found it to be extremely convenient and a big time saver since the bus flies down the HOV lane past the traffic.
A year or two back, Monster.com did a survey of what employers were doing to help with the high cost of fuel. 99% of the respondents said NOTHING.
If there are some green thinking companies on the left coast who are helping their employees drive less, they haven’t influenced Columbus OH yet.
I live in Oklahoma. I commute about 20 miles to work in OKC. Mass Transit systems are non-existent around here. Oklahoma City is the seventh largest city in the country in terms of geographic area, and the largest in land area that is not a consolidated city-county. We have no other options but to drive.
All I can say is, “What took so long?” The sooner driving is too expensive an option, the sooner people will stop making decisions which harm the planet. Thank goodness.
It’s a crying shame that we didn’t have the cojones (and still don’t) to impose a several dollar a gallon gas tax to (1) drive up average fleet fuel economy; (2) have money for/increase use of mass transit; (3) your good idea here. Instead we have the same high gas prices we tried to avoid, but we’re transferring massive amounts of money to oil producing nations, many of whom are most charitably described as destabilizing influences in the world.
It’s not too late! Europe is paying $10 a gallon and manages to function.
Until it takes LESS time for me to take public transit than drive my car, I will continue to drive regardless of gas prices. Currently, it takes me 80 minutes to commute by bus and and average of 35 minutes to commute by car.