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Political backers needed for improved transit system
Public transit ridership is on the upswing, but the current system is not capable of handling a huge volume of people or connecting everyone to where they want to go. Yet, there has not been a huge political push to improve the system.
Grist Environmental News
By Ryan Avent
One year ago, as America prepared for the traditional summer-driving crush, op-ed pages nationwide fretted over a disturbing trend. Only a decade earlier, oil had plumbed depths near $10 per barrel, and dirt-cheap gas had allowed us to roll over the nation's blacktop in vehicles of monster-truck proportions. But now something odd was happening: In just nine short years, real oil prices had quadrupled. The steady upward march threatened all that we held dear, like Chevy Tahoes, the open road, and driving alone. How, the nation's pundits wondered in 2007, could America cope with oil at $60 per barrel?
With grim determination, as it turned out. Locked into habits formed over decades of pro-auto policy, motorists doggedly faced down rising prices. Oil has since doubled in price again, and for the most part, the American public continues to motor away. Having busied ourselves building horizontal cities and eight-cylinder engines for decades, we are now woefully unprepared to do otherwise. Better to swallow hard, fill the tank, and hope the whole mess goes away.
But behind our car addiction lies hopeful news. Americans drove 11 billion miles less this March than last March -- a 4.3 percent drop, and the steepest one-year reduction since 1942. In 2008, gasoline consumption is on pace to decline for the first time in nearly two decades. And transit ridership is up.
