Why reduce driving? Higher gas prices can help

Reduce how much we drive instead of looking for technological fixes that will not get us to 350 CO2. Amory Lovins, and others, offer light weight green cars like hybrids as a solution to our energy problems from oil. However strip mining the Congo with massive human rights abuses through sponsored resource wars, to keep our hybrids humming, on lithium and cobalt, and colton for our cellphones is an unsustainable and clearly unethical system.

Large lighter cars with present speeds is advocacy for unwalkable cities, against our only real solution. There nothing we can do to teach our kids how not to get run over by a Prius or a monster truck. Walking today is like rolling a dice with cars. I don't know if smaller cars will help but slower anything helps.

People in Lovin's favor argue that there is nothing we can practically do to reduce the necessity for cars. Addressing the properties of cars can reduce their impact on the environment. But our social economy is designed for fossil fuel consumption, and favors those who consume most. Lovin's is like aristocracy surfing the tide of elitism. Healthy cities are a wistful goal, instead of taking the chance out of walking, lets tinker with the machinery of death they say.

Worldchanging and Duany/Zyberk/Speck in Suburban Nation offer alternate visions.

Reducing driving with functional transit in corridors like the El Camino is a real alternative. The access parameters to make it viable need to be developed primarily on time service, shorter commute times versus the single occupancy automobile, expensive parking to not hamper fare box recovery, and improved throughput with grade separation for both bus and train.

High gas prices have delivered many benefits like higher transit ridership, better air quality, and lower congestion. Policy makers for the last 50 years have tried to achieve these goals by spending trillions of dollars on road expansion. In the process people have become trapped in their homes by speeding and scofflaw gridirons of steel. Cancer, lung disease, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity have accelerated in the fast lane; but can be cured with higher transit usage. The state has bankrupted itself cutting school programs to pay for road expansion and the contractor lobbyist have muscled the governor not to shuffle the budget.

So you'd think that better transit, air quality and congestion relief would have policy makers thinking how they could improve these issues on the free. A study says commuters can deal with higher prices. Others are downsizing their engines reducing the potential for speeding traffic and producing less air pollution or leaving suburbs. What can policy makers do to improve coffers, reduce costs, and provide choice? Looking the gift horse of high gas prices in the mouth Policy Makers declare.... that gas prices are problem! Congress has an investigation going.

Gas prices may not stall commuters. They only choke our cities and kill our children and force us to leave our homes to retire, to the Sierra's, where we can walk in a retirement community, because not moving with our legs will cause us to end up in a pine box. Higher gas prices can pay for mass transit and help with fare box recovery, especially if we focus on corridors and drop low density service; and give transit authorities control over the landuse decisions within 1500 feet of a transit center primarily to control parking which erodes fare box recovery and makes for unsustainable transit authorities.