More Americans are leaving their cars at home and jumping on buses, trains and trolleys as retail gasoline prices approach $4 per gallon, the American Public Transportation Association said in a report.
“There’s no doubt that the high gas prices are motivating people to change their travel behavior,” APTA president William W. Millar said. (For the full story, click here.)
Record high gas prices are forcing many drivers to spend less time behind the wheel. Data from the Department of Transportation on May 23 shows Americans drove 11 billion miles less in March than a year earlier — the sharpest year-on-year drop in the history of the agency’s reporting.
The government agency also reported that highway miles driven in March fell 4.3 percent from a year earlier — the first March decline since the last major oil shock in 1979.
Have you started taking mass transit more often in light of high gas prices?
Related blog: Who wants a 4-day work week?
For full coverage on the rising cost of oil, click here.
(Editor’s note: This blog was originally posted on May 23 and updated on June 2, 2008)
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I used to be able to bite my nails, yell and cuss, and wear out my clutch leg for an hour or more each way every day. But now, I have to ride in the train, snuggle with a different strange woman every trip in the tight seats, and sleep or drink beer and tell jokes on the way home. Man, high gas prices suck …
- Posted by john tuckerOIl! Give me oil. I don’t care how or who you have to hurt, just hand it over! ANYONE AGAINST OIL IS A TERRORIST OR IS JUST PLAIN CRAZY. If you are not like me then you are against me and America. Science is not the answer, faith in the lord is.
- Posted by Blinded by the truthOil and coal fuel is done. This is the 21st century, where are the flying cars. Hell I will take a water powered car. We have the technology, why aren’t they being produced in mass quantities. This oil hike is helping to make people realize that oil will one day be gone from this planet. Drilling anywhere is no longer the answer we have to find new ways of producing energy. Nuclear is not the answer either. Wind farms in the middle of the ocean seems like the next step.
- Posted by JayCut your gas use by 20%: SLOW DOWN!!
- Posted by Jim D.Driving, say, 50-55 mph, rather than 75 or 80 mph, will cut your gas consumption by 20-30%!! Reducing the DEMAND side of the supply/demand curve by 30% is a very BIG DEAL.
ANTICIPATE: Speeding up to get to the stop light quicker so that you can stop faster is just what the oil barons would like you to do! The more you use your brakes, the more YOU spend in gas! If traffic is braking in front of you, or you see that the stop light has changed, release the accelerator and coast.
Time is money. The faster you would like to arrive at your destination, the more it will cost you in gas. Collectively, we, as a nation, cannot afford to be in such a hurry.
The ECO-NUTS are atrying to control our lives. They want to tell us what to drive, what to eat, where to go, how to get their, where to live, what temp to set on the thermometer etc. They are the new communist dictators.
If the ECO-NUTS and the local, state and federal govt’s let us drill on our own land and off of our own shores we would not be at the mercy of our enemies for OIL!
Food and fuel are essential items and should not be allowed to be traded as a stock. If they are going to be traded as a stock then the buyer should be mandated to hold their position for a minimum of 30 days. Selling that position before that time should result in a massive penalty, say, 125% of their profit.
- Posted by SteveThe silver lining in this crude cloud is that due to the high gas prices we have reduced our carbon footprint on our breathing air. Without the higher prices for oil there would be no incentive for change.
- Posted by JimCutting the trips down to a bare minimum; I agree with John, if it wasn’t for those “poor little polar bears… or some little bug like that dart jumper bug that might have went extinct” we could drill for oil here. But as usual, we just let the Russians and Chinese drill off our coast while 2% of the most liberal left spout horse-crap to stop us.
- Posted by StanThe US needs to do these steps immediately: 1. build bike lanes everywhere in our country, 2. Build Bicycle assembly plants, 3. build affordable housing close to jobs/plants/employment centers. These steps will: reduce unemployment, and reduce our enslavement to Big Bush/republican Oil, and reduce our obesity.
- Posted by MollyJust drove 2×30km to visit my parents with my Peugeot 106
- Posted by EugeenElectric Vehicle and charged 5kW afterwards.
For longer distances I will use the public transport systems.