Article contributed by peter lunsford

“In spite of its numerous benefits, conveniences, and the sense of freedom associated with the automobile, it is unlikely that the concept of the private car, as we know it today, is viable for the future. Traffic is worsening all over the world. We can’t continue using a machine that has been so devastating for the planet. As energy resources deplete and pollution worsens even a 100 to 200 mpg automobile cannot be the main vehicle for billions of people.”
-- CommunitySolution.org

Unless a very significant technological breakthrough occurs, the majority of Americans (including you) will not likely be driving automobiles or light trucks by 2025, or sooner. As the availability of motor fuels becomes increasingly scarce, prices will rise to levels which are unaffordable for the vast majority of Americans, or supplies will simply become unavailable for personal vehicles. Biofuels will not rescue us in the volumes required. The change will most likely involve dramatic reductions in the use of personal vehicles and dramatic increases in use of the more fuel efficient mass transit services.

The average American drives approximately 12,000 miles per year and uses more than eleven barrels of oil just for this activity, per passenger vehicle. How will you get around when fuel becomes scarce and expensive?

Work is an average commute time of 26 minutes for most Americans – far enough that the boss can’t just call us in to do something quick. But more than 3.3 million Americans commute by car more than 50 miles each way, daily; one in five of those commute more than 100 miles; and one in twenty travel more than 200 miles, each way. One hundred and one million American’s (77%) commute to work in a car or truck every day by themselves, 10% carpool, 8% take public transportation, walk, or use some other means, and 5% work from home.

An increasingly large sector of parents don’t trust the safety of kids riding their bikes to school anymore (many elementary and middle schools simply don’t allow it for child-safety reasons) so we pack up the kids early each morning and at least one parent starts their day of chauffeuring the children to their dizzying array of events, finding just enough time to get to the grocery store, supercenters, the home improvement store or the dry cleaners between trips. If there is another parent in the household, they leave on their daily expedition of 26 minutes to navigate through the mélange of millions of other commuters to get to work, making calls or catching up on the news or listening to the latest top-ten hit along the way.

With managed medical care Americans can drive to a medical center every time someone gets a bad runny nose or a skinned knee, for the little ones’ frequent checkups or the medical maintenance needs of seniors. It’s so convenient that many Americans have already met their medical insurance deductible minimums within the first three months of the year.

Being only a couple of dozen miles down the highway, Medical Centers offer specialists for just about every kind of medical or dental issue you can imagine, and there is generally a hospital nearby. Skilled laboratories and imaging centers are located just across town with twice-daily pickup and delivery services to the medical offices they serve. And there is now a pharmacy right inside many grocery stores so that, on the way home from the Doctor, we have the opportunity to pick up another cart full of groceries and the photo processing while waiting for the prescriptions to be filled.

There are so many restaurants within 20 miles of most Americans that we could eat from a different menu two or three times a week, for an entire year. And the portions are typically enormous (an estimated 25% of food served in restaurants is thrown away!) Fast food establishments let you drive up, order, receive your food and be on your way in three to five minutes. Pizza parlors and other types of food services offer delivery right to your door in under an hour, even some gourmet restaurants have jumped on his trend.

Every one of these activities takes fuel -- lots of it. Transportation accounts for more than 60% of all the oil used in the world, and the United States uses the most transportation.

We now have a living room on wheels! We’ve got zoned climate control, leather reclined seating, cellular communication to almost anywhere in the world (including e-mail), GPS video navigation systems, CD-jukeboxes, dual color DVD players with individual earphone plugs, satellite radios with 100+ digital channels piped to multiple-speaker digital surround sound systems, individual reading lights, and even one-button instant communication with roadside assistance if our mobile living room has a mechanical failure or we get lost. And we can move our living room around town at speeds close to a mile per minute. All we need to do is pump fuel into it to keep it going, and at a cost that is less than bottled water.

Americans are travelers. 45% of our trips are for shopping and errands and 26% are social in nature. We use our mobile living rooms to navigate nearly 4 million miles of highways in the country, more than 1.1 billion trips a day — that’s more than four daily trips for every person in the U.S., and totaling 11 billion miles, or 40 miles per person per day. And 40% of the vehicles we use are vans, SUV’s, or light trucks.

In 2006 there were 210 million personal vehicles in the U.S. including SUVs, cars, pickups, and other “car equivalent units” or CEUs, not including motorcycles or motor scooters. This represents about 30% of the approximately 750 million cars in use in the world today.

In 2005, almost 660 million people traveled on U.S. airlines on more than 1.3 billion trips, up 120% from 2003. To visit virtually anyone out of state requires just a quick glance through online discount travel websites; book it, enter the credit card, and voila!...trips half way across the country and a rent-a-car all arranged for about what a cart or two of groceries costs, or even to Europe for the equivalent of a monthly car payment or two. There is currently no viable replacement for aviation fuel.

Helpful Guidance

Important Individual Actions

• Use public transportation where available, ride a bike, or walk.
• Downsize your family to one very fuel-efficient vehicle now; and carpool, bike and rideshare.
• If you need to trade to a more fuel-efficient vehicle, seriously consider a plug-in hybrid, gas hybrid, EV, flex-fuel vehicles, and target vehicles with an engine size of less than 2.0 liters. (Excluding EV’s and hybrids, diesel offers the highest mileage per gallon.)
• If you must drive, schedule the trip to avoid heavy traffic and congestion.
• Plan errands so you aren’t hauling a 2-ton machine with you every time you just want a gallon of milk or “something quick for dinner”, or need to run a single errand.
• Purchase goods from a close source rather than a “favorite” place across town.
• Slow down. You achieve far better gas mileage at 50-55 mph than you do at 65 mph.
• Discover the “walkability” of your neighborhood http://www.walkscore.com/. If your score is below “50”, seriously consider moving. Start walking to handle local errands.
• Know the fuel cost per mile (fcpm) to operate your vehicle. At the start of each errand or trip, mentally calculate the fuel cost ($$) for that trip. For example, if it costs $35.00 for 10 gallons of gas ($3.50/gal.) and 10 gallons takes you approximately 250 miles (25 mpg), then fcpm is 14₵ per mile on average. To calculate trip cost, use the formula “trip miles x fcpm = trip cost” [ex. 18miles x 14₵ = $2.52]. Promotes visibility.
• Work closer to home or move closer to work.
• Commit to using public transportation to work and back at least one day per week (will reduce your commuting fuel use by 20% per week.)
• Request permission from your employer to telecommute from home at least one day per week (will save you another 20% in fuel use per week.)
• Request a ten-hour, four-day workweek instead of eight-hour, five-day workweek.
• Purchase a good bicycle for every member of your family now, including appropriate safety gear.
• Insist that children, from the age of 10, ride their bike to school.
• Get to know your neighbors. Be prepared to work together on transportation issues for your neighborhood.
• Know your local bus route schedule and transit center options

Important Neighborhood Actions

• Canvas neighbors to see what transportation resources they use and encourage neighbors to make appropriate choices. Become an activist in your neighborhood on the subject of mass public transport.
• Organize cooperative bulk purchases of staples like sugar, flour, grains, (i.e., through a food co-op)
• Plan a carpooling coop for your neighborhood. Find out where your neighbors work and shop and coordinate car sharing between them.
• Investigate a car coop (car sharing) for your neighborhood.
• Lobby for bike and pedestrian paths and wide sidewalks into and through your neighborhood to shopping, school, and public transit areas.
• Investigate purchasing a “Neighborhood Electric Vehicle” (NEV). These electric cars have a range of about 30 miles at speeds up to 35mph. See http://www.evworld.com

Important Community Actions

• Become an activist on the subject of peak oil so that your community will understand what you are doing and why, and why it is important to the future of the community.
• Write to your community leaders and lobby to encourage heavy spending now on increased/improved public transport (preferably electricity-based), more bike and pedestrian paths and trails, and a walkable community.
• Support and encourage localized, neighborhood shopping versus big box centers.
• Purchase/utilize locally-produced products and services (w/in a 100 mile radius, to conserve fuel and keep your dollars circulating in your community.) Support localization.
• Support implementation of carpooling and HOV lanes -- honor them.
• Lobby your community leaders to reduce spending for more roads, urban sprawl and inefficient infrastructures, or policies that encourage or require long-distance consumption.
• Identify wasteful behavior and be courageous enough to speak up about it .
• Think about everything you do in relation to how your life will be affected in a world with substantially reduced fuel supplies.
• Lead by example -- become the change.

Resources

Learn about electric vehicles
MC Electric Vehicles: Beaverton showroom
Biofuels stations: (bio-diesel, ethanol) in and around Portland Metro area
Google Transit: Compare walking, car, and public transport options for a given route.
Get to know your local TriMet schedule
Report on the “Smart Jitney” ridesharing idea
Film about Metro’s biking and 'green' transportation design
Electric bicycle kits
Oregon Bicycle, scooter, moped, skate and motorized bike laws
Washington County Bike Routes
Map of Metro Bike Routes: $6 online, or also available at Powell's, New Seasons, PCC Bookstores, REI, and other quality outlets.
TriMet's Trip Planner: Put in start and end address, and desired arrival time, and the software builds the route for you listing which bus(es) or Max line to take, and when.
TriMet's Metro Mass Transit route map: including buses, MAX, transit centers, park & ride, etc.
TriMet and Rideshare alternative transportation services for disabled and elderly in Washington County
How close are you to a retailer? See at Walkscore.com