Nuts

Am I the only one who thinks gas is too cheap?

karmcity:

One year ago, when gas was around $2.60/gallon, I remember hearing interviews where the reporter asked, “How high will gas prices need to go before you’ll change your driving habits?” The answer was almost always $3/gallon. Here we are now, with gas prices reaching over $4/gallon, with not many signs of people making an effort to reduce their fuel consumption.

As I said in this post, I also think higher gas prices SHOULD sway consumers, but as evidenced here… that isn’t always the case.  Now, I’m a bit of a hypocrite, as I commute to work in a car, by myself, daily and generally hop around town on a car.  On the other hand, I love going to someplace like DC where I can hop on a metro and get anwhere I need to go.

In the same vein, taxing mileage may be one way to go - but what if you commuted in a carpool?  Shouldn’t that affect things, as well?  It would be harder to track, though.

The bottom line is that most of America’s transportation infrastructure is based on people with cars (*cough*suburbia*cough*) not on walking or public transit.  We like convenience and ease of access, and good-for-the-environment forms of transit currently have neither.