I couldnt even guess at that, but our addiction to using our cars constantly is a terrible thing. anything that reduces our use of vehicles is positive but in the cities though I think so much of what we do doesn't require a car at all. People also need to get walking, riding bikes and taking buses a lot more and carpooling too when possible. I just think we've become so used to the convenience that cars give us that most people dont even realise how much of what we do just doesnt require a car at all.

trancegemini wa wrote: "I just think we've become so used to the convenience that cars give us that most people dont even realise how much of what we do just doesnt require a car at all."

I agree... but gas prices will cause people to become aware, I think.

I also agree with you about walking and riding a bike. We do both of these out here quite a bit, when distances allow.

J.

I havent really noticed much change in people's behaviour, they do complain about the petrol costs but they dont seem to think beyond that, it's just something to complain about and accept. I've been doing all my local errands on a bike for the last couple of years, Im sure it has saved me a small fortune in petrol, and given me a great opportunity to get regular exercise, but I'm definitely out of place, it's actually a big talking point with people.

Everyone is so intrigued and impressed by it, but when I talk to people and try and encourage them to do the same, they come up with so many excuses, the biggest one is "I dont have time". The crazy thing is, that it really doesn't take much longer but people have the perception that they're getting places quicker in a car but it's really just not true on short trips because it's all stopping and starting and traffic.

I think eventually petrol/gas will get so expensive that people will be forced to rethink their dependence on cars, but then again maybe another fuel source will be used and life will just continue on as always. I think it's a shame that more people arent getting out there and walking and riding around more, we seem to have forgotten how useful these simpler forms of transport really are, and it does give you a sense of independence, you realise that your world wouldnt fall apart if you didnt have the car to rely on for whatever reason.

My husband and another guy take turns driving to their job in the neighboring town. But, I have to run the kids to daycare before going to work which is about 15 miles away. I don't have a choice. No bus route no carpooling or anything. I am in a rural area. I could carpool with the neighbor lady but she doesn't seem interested. I bet if the gas prices get much worse she will be calling me. I wish I could come up with something. It just hasn't hit us here yet. We seem to be behind the times.

My area is horrible for the one-person-per-car thing. I live in a somewhat rural suburb. The closest (small) business area is about 2 1/2 miles away. Not terribly far, but no sidewalks and an extremely busy, rather dangerous road (a walker was struck and killed there about two years ago) so I don't feel too comfortable walking there, although I do sometimes at quiet times of the day/weekend. If I had a bike, I'd just be walking it anyway because it is a HUGE hill too, lol.

Here in Fairfield County there is terrible rush-hour traffic, and sooo many of the cars have one person in them. Such a shame. But public transportation is not that good. Locally, in my town, it is practically non-existent. On a larger scale it is not convenient to take the train, because once you get to your destination, the trransportation there is not always great. If you work for a big corporation, some of them have shuttle buses, which is great, but if you don't work a 9-to-5 schedule, it can be tough.

My daughter went to a private school, and no busing was provided. I was given a car-pool list, but only one person on the list lived near me and she ended up not wanting to car-pool! And it kills me the number of high school students who drive to school instead of taking the bus.

Maybe these $4+ per gallon prices for gas will finally get something done on the public transit front. I read recently that train ridership is up in the area lately. Maybe something good will come out of it.

:)
Dee

Dee... I think that many obstacles are currently peceived to be in the way of sharing transport, some more real (certain situations) and some less. Like other aspects of a green lifestyle, sharing our car usage will be ventured by some people before others, by some groups within society before others. The same can be said about the history of home-based recycling, compact florescent lights, super-insulated houses, solar-electric panels, etc.

Buses, commuter trains, and bicycles may begin to play larger roles. Buying a larger proportion of our food from local sources and processors may gradually take hold in society.

But individual-household cars will still be around. And even if new sources of energy gradually come on-stream for our vehicles, petroleum and its derivatives (such as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, home-heating oil) will be getting more pricey and will still be part of the way we add more or less carbon dioxide to the Earth's atmosphere. Slowly, people will I'm sure wake up. And learn how to share.

Joel

trancegemini wa wrote: "I just think we've become so used to the convenience that cars give us that most people dont even realise how much of what we do just doesnt require a car at all."
How I agree (I have not driven a car in over twenty years)
I live in an area where you can walk to markets,Now here
a young couple that live just down from me drove the car
to the market less fifty feet from my house and theres.
When they returned they had purchased a gallon of milk
I asked them why they didn't just walk,they replied we have
a car why would we walk.

I for one would love to see gas prices at $20 per gallon
maybe then we would reduce the use of cars.

GREEN ON A MISSION

Blueangel

"Now here a young couple that live just down from me drove the car to the market less fifty feet from my house and theres. "

LOL, that doesnt surprise me at all, and how rediculous is it?
It's like a bad habit that we've been lulled into and we dont even stop and question the logic of it. I do think high fuel prices are a good thing, it's probably the only thing that will make most people rethink and change their driving habits.

I think it's outstanding that you havent driven in 20 years. how did you do it? and what made you decide to go without a car?

blueangel, it's unfortunate - though I think you may be correct - that it might require VERY high gasoline prices to drive home the simple message about personal transportation.

But still I believe that people are only going superficially green until they begin to take matters like transportation, housing, and community planning into hand. Sure - recycle, re-use, make compost, dry clothes on a clothesline, use low-energy lighting... all good things. But we still make huge impacts on our atmosphere & our city streets by how we get around.

Joel

trancegemini I live in Portland,Oregon
and becuase it was so easy to get around
without a car I just sold it.
joel_bc you are so right and there
is so much more work to be done
and to get more people involed with
conservation efforts recycling etc etc
I use every venue and site newspaper
etc to get the message out.

Blueangel

Recycling, reusing, composting, using a clothesline, etc., are all private issues and easy for a person to start doing, if they want to.

But transportation, housing, and community planning are also public issues -- not so easy for a person to start addressing.

Hello Alfie
you may or may not remember me
but, transportation, housing, and community planning
are high on my list as well.
Trying with little success to stop the buying
of low income housing just to turn a area around
I work with communties to raise fresh fruit
and veggies for food banks as well as set up community
gardens.Transportation is big on my list and I
would like to see it mandatory for the use of public
transportion within cities as well as more public
transportion for those outside the city who commute
into the city.

Blueangel

Blueangle, I wonder if what Alfie meant was that an individual can control things like composting, recycling, etc., in her/his own daily life, but cannot easily control public transportation. An individual can certainly lobby and make her/his opinion known to local officials, but on an individual basis it is harder to deal with an issue like this.

I recently followed with interest NYC's attempt to make certain areas of the city accessible to automobile/truck traffic only after paying a fee. The idea was to reduce traffic in the city; people would not want to pay to drive, and therefore would take public transportation into those areas. Whether it was for convenience or environmental issues, I'm not sure, but certainly the environment would have been affected if there was a reduction in traffic. Sadly (to me at least) the effort was defeated.

I love the idea introduced in several European cities where the center of the city is closed off to automobile traffic. I wish cities here in America would adopt that.

I think the big problem with mass transit and public transportation, though, is not IN the cities, but in getting people TO the cities. In my area, most people have at least a 30-mile, one-way commute, if not more, and the public transportation is just not up to moving that many people that far.

We can't just say, "Oh, move closer" because there are several reasons why people live so far - mostly because they can't afford to live in the areas in which they work. It really will take a overhaul of the way our society has lived for the last 70 or so years (since the widespread introduction of the car) to change things.

trancegemini, there is a school bus stop down the street from me, and every day there are two cars parked at the corner with the kids. The road only has three houses on it, so they must drive their kids a whole 200 feet at the most to the bus stop. I can see in the rain or bad weather, but on a beautiful spring day, there they are, driving to the bus stop a couple hundred feet from their front door. Sheesh.

:)
Dee

Yes, Blueangel, I certainly do remember you, every time I look at the eastern red cedar I got from you (which is now easily 20 feet tall)!

Indeed [InDeed :-)], that's what I meant. For example, you can't take public transportation if there isn't any, or if it doesn't go where you need to go when you need to go there. You can't live closer if you can't afford to live closer. You can't live in walkable or bike-able neighborhoods if planning departments and zoning codes allow (or even require) developers to build unwalkable neighborhoods. But you can compost if you want to compost :-).

The "most laughable non-green" thread on this forum includes comments about "improved" SUVs that get up to 20 miles/gallon(!) - which of course is abysmal mileage these days compared with the many fuel-saving cars on the market that can get 35 or 40 miles per gallon on the open road (or better). The thread mentions how often these SUVs are carrying only one or two people, which is the real kicker.

Anyhow, I do think there is a place for vehicles (like SUVs) that have the capacity to carry six or eight people at a time. It's just that so many households that don't really need such a car have acquired one.

But you'd figure: These big-SUV owners have to pay the rapidly escalating gas or diesel prices, just like the rest of us - aren't they feeling the pinch, and won't this smarten them up?

Gee... maybe they're so affluent that they don't actually feel the pinch, and therefore feel no incentive to economize. What do you think? Personally, I don't know any people like that.

J.

In fact, people aren't buying SUVs any more. But buying a new vehicle is expensive. It's going to take a while to get those things off the road, and in the end, only poor people will drive them -- ironic, eh?

Here is a link that might be useful: SUV and truck sales plunge

Alfie, you wrote: "In fact, people aren't buying SUVs any more."

Well, the artickle at least relates that people are buying far fewer of them (though clearly still buying them). A step in the right direction, I'd think. Thanks, Alfie.

J.

over here in Aus we call them 4wds, and people usually get them because they see them as a status symbol. Most of them never go off road and get used for driving the kids to school and do the grocery shopping, or just being used as a town car. There is a lot of anti-4wd sentiment around though by people who dont drive them, mainly because they create visibility issues for everyone else, and often the people who drive them can't manage them well enough to even park them .

as a town car they are way over the top, people might feel safer in them in case they have an accident, but what about that sedan or pedestrian you might run into one day, how are they going to fare? there was even a local incident where a small child was run over in a parking lot because the driver of the 4wd didnt see them over the top of the bonnet :/

I will say, in defense of minivans, at least, that if you need to transport more than two children in the car -- e.g., if you're carpooling -- you pretty much need a minivan. You can't pile children into the station wagon any more, because of car seats and air bags (which are a good thing).

Well, I've been able to fit 4 teenagers and their hockey bags in my Honda. The hockey bags are bigger than the kids, lol - although I'm not sure which smells worse, lol! I wouldn't want to ride that way for a long trip, but for the 4:30AM ride to the rink, it works.

:)
Dee

Teenage passengers can sit in the front seat; well, anyway, one teenager can. Hockey bags can sit in the trunk :-).

Actually, next week we are going to see whether we can fit three booster seats with backs in the back of our four-door Jetta. We can fit a baby car seat, a child car seat, and a backless booster seat -- just barely.

Anyway, trancegemini... Maybe we should have explained: The North-American "SUV" isn't a straightforward mini-van. It's a vehicle that combines characteristics of a mini-van with the torque & traction of a 4-wheel-drive truck and/or "off-road" (cross-country) vehicle. It is made to look both rugged and stylish (for instance, the Hummer initiated a sort of mystique or style).

Due to their inherent capabilities for use in chellenging off-road situations, fuel-economy is sacrificed to power. But the joke for many years now has been how they are bought often as SYMBOLS, and in very many cases are rarely used by the owner for off-road conveyance. (After all, that might damage the paint job.) So they look impressive and offer a kind of fantasy, but - on an everyday-use basis - they guzzle a lot of fuel.

So when you have a single-passenger (the driver) getting about town in one of these, it's a symbol for the height of wastefulness.

By comparison, a mini-van can be an appropriate technology.

J.

Actually, only two hockey bags fit in the trunk. (Hockey bags are BIG.) The others ride on the laps of the teenagers. That's why the smell is an issue, lol!

:)
Dee

hi joel, youve captured what we mostly call 4wds below: (they look just like the suvs and are probably made by the same companies as yours, just called something different here)

"Due to their inherent capabilities for use in chellenging off-road situations, fuel-economy is sacrificed to power. But the joke for many years now has been how they are bought often as SYMBOLS, and in very many cases are rarely used by the owner for off-road conveyance. (After all, that might damage the paint job.) So they look impressive and offer a kind of fantasy, but - on an everyday-use basis - they guzzle a lot of fuel."

we have a less specific terminology over here, we call the suv type vehicles 4wds, but we also call the more sturdy offroad vehicles (which are taken off road but more serious design and less flashy) 4wds. if a sedan or van has 4wd capabilities, we still call it a sedan or van. we just dont use the term suv and not all cars with 4wd capabilities are called 4wds, confused? :)

youre right, people buy the 4wds and wont take them off road because they might get scratched, and also tradespeople get them as a work vehicle, but wont put their tools etc in the back because it might mess it up, so they then hitch a trailer on back for their tools as well : /

I am not in the know as to what the answer(s) could be, but a lot is mind set, and that can be a difficult thing to change, and it takes time (years).

Twenty years ago in the coffee room of my office there was a discussion about pollution and gasoline consumption, and someone made the comment about how we are gluts (in North America) about stuff, and how some of the things we buy or pay for are too cheap, and should be WAY more expensive. He used saran wrap as an example, it's so cheap that people use it alot, and once, and throw it out, yet it doesn't decompose well (or at all?), and costs $ and resources to make.

I walked away (young and naive) thinking he was one of those 'hippies' from the 60's, yet over time I found myself coming back to his comment and I've started to look at everything I use, and questioning whether I need to do things the way the tv commercials tell me to (and society).

I try to watch my gas consumption, grouping my errands to the same part of town on the given day. And waiting another week or two until I am back in that part of the city, instead of making a special drive for an item. But it's how to get other people to start to be aware of this. They get hit with 'global warming' speeches on the news, and it's so depressing and overwhelming that I think many just try to avoid thinking about it, placing hope and trust in researchers, or that all will turn out well.

I read in a People Magazine that last year Tom Cruise's fuel bill was $1,000,000. (Jetting his beloved over to Italy so she can pick out the perfect dress for one of his premieres - is that like my family driving 20K in to town to window shop?) Just because he's got the $, what gives him the right to use so much? I cannot remember, but in some eastern country, residents had gas card allowances, where it did not matter if you had the money to buy more, you could only purchase 30 litres of gas per week for personal use. Maybe that's what's needed here, a weekly limit, to try to make people aware of the gas they use, when they want to hop in the vehicle and drive in to town to 'shop' because they've nothing fun to do that day.

Or there needs to be some way to know what the actual cost of driving here and there is, like the meter on a taxi.

kioni

Just felt like mentioning something related, though not specifically about car-ride sharing. It's about bicycles & buses. In the last couple years, some of our regional commuter buses have been outfitted with external racks designed to carry bicycles. So, for instance, you can bus an hour or 90 minutes into the trade-center (larger town), and then use your bike there to run errands and shop - then use the bus again to return home.

And some of the city buses that transverse the major hills of our larger town also have these bike racks.

How many of you are noticing this sort of thing, where you live?

We barely have buses, unfortunately, so I haven't noticed if they have bike racks. We have possibly two buses that go through town, definitely one from the major city to the south, and possibly one from the major city to the north. They drive in to the local big box store and then go back.

I do know that the local trains are considering adding cars to hold bikes.

:)
Dee

$20 a gallon would kill me. $3.50 was about enough for me to quit my job and live off the government. I have to eat and feed my family and wash my clothes. While I agree that most people don't even think about gasoline and drive big vehicles, some of us don't and we don't have other options for reducing driving. There is no bus or public transportation to where my husband works (there is carpooling, but his schedule is so different from others he works with, doesn't work out).
I have noticed that since gas prices have gone up, people are thinking about combining errands (something I've always done). They also drove slower.
There are a ton of suv's and big trucks and I don't think that there is going to be a reduction in them in my area. It is downright scarry driving on the interstate in a small car. I would get a smart car but hubby says no way--too dangerous with all the big trucks and people driving suv's while talking on the phone. I have a smaller car that hubby drives to work (he drives farther) and I have a truck. But, we use our truck to haul dirt, mulch and pull a camper (and before you think something about money and a camper, it is small and paid for). We don't have the money for another car to run around in. We also can't move close to the city--one houses are more expensive there and two, probably can't sell the house we're in--with this economy and all.

Just a word of note. A friend of mine's mother in law was carpooling and her car was left sitting in the drive. When she did drive it, the "check engine" light was on. Rats had eaten some wiring, causing $1600 worth of damage. The mechanics said they used to see that a couple of times a month, now they see it a couple times a week as people are not driving as much.

Well, I sympathize & understand that not everybody can carpool, take a bus, or ride a bike everywhere they need to go. Nor can everyone give up their pick-up truck or other H.D. workhorse.

I simply hope that more people, from the general run of North-American drivers, will find options that will work for them. Alley, do you think that the presence of so many oil wells (and maybe refineries) has contributed to a complascent blind eye toward gasoline consumption and prices in Texas?

About the rats getting into the wiring of dormant, parked cars: Seems to me that people could put rat traps, with some good bait food, under their vehicles when parked at home. If they don't want the neghborhood cats and small dogs to getting broken legs in old-style traps, they can use live traps and then drown the rats (trap into barrel or tub of water) after they're caught.