Creeping Shadow
Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit
This last Tuesday was Earth Day. The MT staff did our part and all worked from home on Earth Day. I know it’s a small effort, but if everyone just turned off their cars for one day, think of the effect that would have.
In that vein, gas prices rose again like a creeping shadow following along behind you. We all know that gas prices are predicted to hit $4 a gallon this summer (well, that is everyone but the president, who seems curiously oblivious to it). Unfortunately summer may just come a lot sooner than we expected. Gas prices are already topping more than $4 a gallon in California with some nearing or topping $4.50. The national average is hovering around $3.50, but that’s little comfort.
I was talking to a coworker yesterday who said that he had heard gas prices could hit $7 a gallon by 2010. Doubling in a year in a half? I once would have said that’s not likely or even impossible, but with the recent dramatic rise in gas prices over the last few years, I no longer rule anything out.
So what is there to do about it? Well, the obvious choice is to take transit. It’s simple math: transit = less car use = less $$$ spent on gas.
Of course, for a large part of the United States this isn’t an option. Transit just isn’t an option for some people. So what do they do? Telecommuting has become popular. And it is going to become even more popular.
Spend some time perusing the tech news. Google is offering a host of services for businesses to allow you to access all of your files anywhere. It has its own suite of office programs, and now you can access them offline as well as online. Adobe is putting up a streamlined version of Photoshop online. The next generation of software looks to all be Web-based.
With this trend you’d think people would travel more. They can stay connected anywhere. Unfortunately, people are using this to stay at home. And it’s that creeping shadow that is to blame. As gas prices grow we become more and more isolated as a culture. As gas prices grow, the price of everything else grows as well. If you haven’t noticed, the price of food is creeping up. Just a little here and there, but it’s going up.
As everything gets more expensive, transit becomes more and more appealing. A couple years ago when gas prices shot up, transit ridership soared. This year with that creeping shadow getting longer, keep an eye on ridership levels, I bet they are going to go up as well.
Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,
April 25th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Fred & all:
Here is another good posting from Fred for we the readers of MT Position, a narrative of the present state of affairs for the frogs in the pot. No reference to those of Roman ancestry, more about clinging to the status quo even at grave peril. Inaction is not an option.
It is important to consider the issue of food, as well as the choice of telecommuting. In fact, Peaking Oil is lurking in this situation, and cannot be ignored. All of the benefits of transit; ie; alternatives to the so-called flexibility of rubber tire transport, are wrapped up in this energy crisis. But we forget we “Eat Oil”.
The local papers here in Northern CA are filled with notices of meetings to discuss Earth Day: Climate Change, energy security, electric cars & alternative fuels for… cars. Peaking Oil threats to business as usual- NADA.
Some thing have a way of getting out, even with this unconscious unwillingness to face reality, however. Truckers are becoming the miner’s Canary for the energy crisis, it appears. Keep an eye on where this trucking problem goes. At some point, the need to revert to rail haul will manifest itself, and the planners for transport and distribution will get hold of the rail atlas maps for their respective locale, and set about getting the dormant rail lines and abandoned corridors rehabbed to de-minimus condition for freight movement. Victuals.
You other readers, maybe impatient for the responsibles to do their duty, can see website http://www.spv.co.uk for listing of 18 railway map books for the USA. This is an event of degrees of discomfort, sort of like the potted amphibs noted above: we are in high price phase of fuel.
Next, see possible food shortages, gas rationing, negative feedback effects that shout for rehab of railway branchlines, vast expansion & extension of mains. Add renewable infrastructure to match rail energy demand growth. This will buy time at least. In a perfect world, we would be able to perfect the perfect car, emissions free and almost unlimited mpg. This is a world used to cheap fuel, we are being forced into a new energy paradigm, and we are acting neither quickly enough or intelligently. Try “Deer in the headlights”, if you don’t like the frog analogy…
To the web: we are entering “The Long Emergency”.