The summer of our discontent
As the price of gasoline in the U.S. pulls itself up to $4/gallon, and the realities of our poor housing, transport, and investment choices set in, I’m glad to see that we as a nation are slowly coming around. Mass transit ridership is up, the Hummer and its ilk are dying a much-welcomed death, and even the shill of the auto industry has made predictions about a decline in travel.
If one was, say, a presidential candidate, now might be a good time to make note of the unreality of our previous way of life, note the positives that higher gas prices can bring, and propose setting a floor on gas prices.
On second thought, one might be wise to keep this plan hush-hush until after one has obtained the office. Selling this plan while campaigning presupposes an electorate with enough brains to realize the benefits.
But what the government can’t, or won’t, accomplish, the market will, for better or for worse. I think the ratchet effect is in full swing. $3/gallon gas, we hardly knew you: $4 is here to stay. It’s just a shame that we couldn’t have realized this earlier, skimmed a bit off the top, and done a better job of preparing ourselves for a different way of life.
Getting in the way
Leave it to Allegheny County to muck up the elegant Flexcar process.
From the Flexcar website:
The Allegheny County Council has enacted a $2 per day Rental Vehicle Tax to help fund mass transit programs. The tax code states that any establishment that rents motor vehicles without a driver for less than a thirty day period must comply with the provisions of the law and charge the new tax to its respective customers.
The Allegheny County Treasurer has informed Flexcar that we must begin to collect the Rental Vehicle Tax from members starting January 1, 2008. You will see this tax reflected on invoices for any January Flexcar charges. The rate of tax assessment shall be $2 per day, or any part of a day, on which a Rental Vehicle is rented within Allegheny County.
Flexcar apologizes for any burden this may cause. Flexcar intends to address the issue by educating Allegheny County on the community benefits of car-sharing and key differences from traditional car rental. We are prepared to work with the County on a differing interpretation of the current law or to achieve a fix that will more specifically exempt car-sharing from the Rental Vehicle Tax.
While I do support these unfortunate taxes as a way to keep the buses rolling, I hope something can be done to lessen the burden for Flexcar users, whose rentals are measured in hours, not days.
I figure that writing the county council and county overlord is a good start.
Killer essay
This commentary hits just about every nail on the head. I couldn’t agree more with the following paragraph:
There are three things that keep me up nights: the threat of climate change, peak oil and the mountaintop removal strip mining that is destroying Appalachia. And I have reached the conclusion that, here in the United States, there are three major causes of these problems: Our homes are too big, our food travels too far, and our entire economy is built around the automobile. American homes are twice as big as they were 30 years ago, though fewer people actually live in them. The average item on a supermarket shelf has logged 1,500 miles to get there. And the homogenous suburb has ensured that we must drive everywhere, destroying at once the traditional, walkable city and the surrounding rural landscapes. Thus we have created a consumer culture that much of the developing world — most ominously, China — wants to emulate. But the problem is that this culture is based entirely on carbon-emitting fossil fuels, and it is therefore a culture that has no future.
The short of it
Elizabeth Kolbert, in a few elegant words, gets down to crux of the world’s car consumption problems, and makes a strong point for why alternative fuel technologies will ultimately fail to save us:
Designing the car of the future is such a daunting challenge because its bigger even than cars. […] Its true that hydrogen cars, which the Bush Administration and the Big Three claim to be working on, dont need gasoline…but they do need hydrogen, which has to be produced using energy from somewhere. If that energy comes from, say, burning coal, […] then the puzzle hasnt been solved; its just been rearranged. The same catch applies to plug-in cars and cars that run on ethanol. (Ethanol made from corn takes almost as much energy to produce as it yields.) If someone, somewhere, comes up with a source of power that is safe, inexpensive, and for all intents and purposes inexhaustible, then we, the Chinese, the Indians, and everyone else on the planet can keep on truckin. Barring that, the car of the future may turn out to be no car at all.
Shameless politicking
A local state senator has taken it upon himself to propose a measure to suspend the Pennsylvania state gas tax until October 31. He claims that “people can barely afford to travel to work” and that they “end up spending a large portion of their paycheck on gas.” My heart bleeds. Really.
It’s an pretty bad piece of legislation given the loss of revenue to the state and, even more so, the complete and utter lack of any action to combat our oil-fueled hedonistic culture. And I said as much (in less crazy terms) in a letter to the editor.
But what really gets me is Mr. Logan’s attempt to “humanize” the issue by telling the story of a 7-year old blind boy who won’t be able to get to summer camp because of the expense of getting him there.
Well, I feel for you and your son Ms. Travisano, but you’re being used as a shill.
Using the magic of the Internet, I discovered that such a trip to camp is approximately 14 miles. Round-trip, 28. We’ll round it up to 30 for good measure and to take into account the stop-and-go nature of the trip.
Let’s pretend that camp is 5 days a week, all summer long. June 1 to August 31. I’m sure it’s not. But I like to be on the high side of things. That’s about 70 days, give or take a few.
All said, that’s about 2100 miles of driving. Assuming a fuel efficiency of 20 mpg, one will use about 105 gallons of gas to make all of the trips.
The current fuel tax is 31.2 cents a gallon. For 105 gallons of gas, you will be paying about $33 in tax. Amortized over 70 days, that comes out to about fifty cents per day.
I don’t presume to know the details of anyone’s finances (beyond what is publicly available), but come on. Half a dollar a day? I’ll pay you $33 not to be used as the face of a piece of ridiculous legislation.
Do-it-yourself fun
I love Chevrolet.
Not really.
But I do love their new promotion for the 2007 Tahoe. You can make your own Tahoe love-fest commercial and submit it to win a bunch of shit that would make SUV owners everywhere drool (more than they normally do, anyway).
Or you can use the tools to make something more meaningful. It’s ripe for subversive use. And it takes only a couple of minutes.
I am especially pleased with my creation. Pass it on.
Tightening the noose
It should come as no surprise that the reprieve from the high gas prices of the Hurricane Katrina era is at its end. After falling back from a high of $71 a barrel, prices are almost back up to their former high, closing at over $65 a barrel yesterday.
I think we have seen the last of consistently sub-$2/gallon gasoline. And prices starting with “2” might just be a passing fancy on the way to something higher.
Why? Supply and demand dictate price. The world’s never-ending lust for oil coupled with the tightest spare production capacity ever seen makes for a volatile market that can’t go anywhere but up.
Global disruptions in the oil market from natural disasters or wars are one thing. But when a single country — let alone a group of militants — can cause such a rush on the market, things are in pretty bad shape.
Wrong way
Ironically, these two stories appeared side-by-side in my ‘transit’ Google News Alert. The direction of this country appears to head further down the toilet. In relation to our world neighbors, we’re a sorry bunch.
Similar to our vapid leadership, Americans continue to ignore the reality of the situation and instead prefer to live in a make-believe world that will somehow make itself better just because we say it’s so.
Misplaced intentions
The hybrid SUV is coming and I (and many others) find it to be a inauspicious event. Ford is touting it’s Escape hybrid as the best thing since sliced bread. They boast it “combine[s] SUV capability with the outstanding fuel economy and low environmental impact of a full hybrid.”
So what does that mean? More of the same unsafe handling and increased risk injury or death? And just watch that fuel economy soar, you suburban commandos, as you latch that boat trailer to the back or sit stuck in traffic while making your daily trip to the neighborhood Super Wal-Mart for toothpaste. Splendid.
Ford is so proud of their latest creation that they feel the need to show it off on the streets of New York City. Never mind that Manhattan is the last place anyone needs to be driving an urban assault vehicle.
Yes, great, let’s pat ourselves on the back. We’ve managed to develop a technology that just prolongs the inevitable, which is the eventual failure of our oil-based economy due to overconsumption. We can stretch out this suffering that is called American Culture a little longer and continue the charade of the American Dream while our cities decay, our environment suffers, and our sense of place disappears.
I don’t care how efficient automobiles become. They’re still objects that encourage isolation, monotony, and consumption. They are mechanical shells into which people retreat, emerging only when they are in the confines of their garage or mall parking lot. They, through their enormous demands upon space, create a bleak, unlivable landscape of concrete and asphalt, islands of shopping surrounded by a sea of parking.
And, oh, the shopping. We’ve all got more shit than we know what to do with, and still we can always go out, buy more, and load our oversized automobiles with our oversized merchandise that will soon fill our oversized homes. Wonderful.
Why can’t we put this ingenuity to better use and come up with novel ways to attract the suburban dweller back into the city and traditional small towns? How about coming up with mass transit systems that are attractive alternatives to private transportation? Working towards a better, different, future instead of continuing down our present road to ruin, is a bright prospect in these otherwise bleak times.
Oh, those crazy French
They’ve set standards in fashion, cuisine, literature, and the visual arts. Now they want to do something to improve their cities. And how long will it take America to catch up? Well, seeing as we’re in love with our mobility more than our environment, I’m guessing never.
This story is great. I especially like the take the mayor of London has on SUV’s:
The proposal, certain to be opposed by motoring groups, follows similar remarks by the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, who in May month described SUVs as “bad for London — completely unnecessary” and called their owners “complete idiots.”
And here’s a statistic that probably applies to American’s suburban commandos pretty well:
Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported a survey showing that just one in eight 4x4 drivers had driven their car off-road, and six in 10 never take it out of town.
Morons. Gas prices be damned; we still like our big vehicles. They’re starting to catch on in Canada. The difference?
Fuel costs have a greater effect in Canada than in the United States, where gasoline prices are lower, Gomes observed.
He said typical Canadian households, despite on average owning smaller cars than Americans, spend more than three per cent of disposable income filling up the fuel tank, compared with 2.5 per cent in the United States.
We’re subsidizing ourselves into a smoggy, car-choked future. It is perhaps not as sexy as what the French have done for the world, but we’re making our mark.
