Please consider supporting our continuing efforts by purchasing our award winning documentary film Sprawling From Grace.

Only $19.95!

By David M. Edwards

Starting in September of 2007 Americans boarded the petroleum roller coaster that the rest of the developed and undeveloped world has been riding for years. Oil prices went from around $60/barrel to a high that almost reached $150/barrel. Gas prices at the pump doubled in price and Americans felt the pinch in their pocketbooks. Those whose transportation costs only comprise 5% of their monthly budget were only marginally affected. However; those whose transportation costs comprise 20%, and in some cases, as much as 40% of their monthly budget were hit hard, and are still recovering. It is arguable that the price spikes in gasoline impacted these latter populations so profoundly that it has contributed to the increase in housing foreclosure causing the sub-prime mortgage crisis that is driving our current economic downturn.

The spike in oil prices in Late 2007 through mid 2008 revealed to average Americans just how reliant our economy is on cheap transportation fuels. Americans didn’t just feel this pinch at the gas pump. Without this economic driver, American were also impacted at the dinner table, as the high price of transportation fuel drove up agricultural goods all the way to the grocer’s shelves. This included imported produce that made a December Cesar Salad possible.

Oil has now dipped back below $70/ barrel giving Americans reason to let out a sigh of relief. But, has America disembarked from the petroleum roller coaster, or have we merely plummeted wildly down the first hill. The drop in oil prices has been a result of reduced demand that has been driven by high prices at the pump, but also by a looming economic downturn that has caused Americans to tighten their collective belts. OPEC, in Sept. 2008, responded to this by agreeing among their member countries to use demand to guide their future production levels. This decision was a result of the growing concern that America’s economic free-fall would not be isolated to the US, but would reverberate through the world economy, further eroding the world’s fuel consumption. This has proven itself to be true. Still, indicators reveal that the world’s oil consumption will increase by 880,000 barrels per day for the year. That’s about 13.7% less than anticipated growth. That’s substantial to the world demand, but in the US demand for gas was only reduced by less than 4%.

What do these statistics reveal? The largest revelation that is apparent is that automobile transportation in the US is a priority in most US households. Despite family household cutbacks in entertainment and luxury goods, families are still burdened by their reliance on automobile transportation in order to commute to their jobs. They are still dependent on the automobile to function their daily tasks that provide for their families well being. As long as this dependency exists, we will be strapped tightly into the seat of the petroleum roller coaster.

Should the world’s economic downturn be prolonged into global recession, demand levels for transportation fuels would decrease, causing oil prices to drop even further. This however, is not likely to be the case. As economies worldwide recover consumers are likely to see oil markets remain tight as a result of the relatively slow growth in production. This does not even factor in the dismal rate of new oil discovery which has been diminishing since about 1963. Overall Americans can expect to see oil prices to rise again. According to the Energy Institute of America, oil prices are anticipated to inch their way back up to an average of $112/barrel for late 2008 and 2009. This prediction is based on “business as usual” with no interruptions in supply. Whether these predictions are accurate or not remains to be seen. However; one thing is clear, long-term growth in demand will ultimately outstrip the earth’s ability to generate new production, causing prices to rise accordingly.

This raises the question, how can Americans get off the petroleum roller coaster? The first logical step is to discern where American dependency lies. In President Bush’s 2006 State of the Union Address he announced, “Americans are addicted to oil.” I would argue that this statement misinforms the subject by placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of oil. I would also argue that it is not oil that Americans are addicted to. Americans are addicted to unencumbered transportation.

As the issue of energy costs raises the awareness of the American public and American leaders become engaged, we have an opportunity to redirect our resources toward solutions that offer Americans choice. The current grab bag of solutions, while well intended, only serves to maintain or prolong our true addiction as stated earlier. Flex-Fuel Cars that operate on expensive corn based ethanol, and cars run on bio-diesel only change the source substance that supplies our addiction, and will threaten to deplete other valuable resources like water and soil. Electric cars, if adopted as our national fleet of some 260,000,000 cars and light trucks will accelerate the depletion of coal and natural gas, and likely increase pollution and emissions of greenhouse gases. These solutions can only exacerbate the current crises the U.S., and the world for that matter, are facing, and do not provide a scalable and sustainable solution that invests in America.

So, if the current solutions being offered forth are not the answer to our petroleum roller coaster ride from hell, what solutions can be employed to offer a path to mitigate our addiction to unencumbered transportation? To answer this we first must reflect upon how we got here in the first place. Since the 1950s, when America embarked upon the National highway system, we have been busily painting ourselves into a corner by developing a mono transportation culture that relies almost exclusively on the automobile. We have built a transportation system that, for most part, demands that Americans get into their car for everything they want or need to do. This is a result of two influencing factors, the lack of investment in public infrastructure for public transportation, and the horizontal building patterns that have dominated the last sixty years since WW II. These two factors have now brought us to a point in time, and investment, that makes it difficult to envision how to change it. We are trapped in the psychology of previous investment. Former MA Gov. Michael Dukakis appropriately illustrated the pain of this dilemma in the documentary film Sprawling From Grace; Driven To Madness when he quoted Albert Einstein as saying, “ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”

This is an unhealthy dilemma, because continuing the development patterns of the last 60 years will likely cause us to make bad decisions on how to invest our remaining resources wisely. Unfortunately, the current emerging reality does not offer a tremendous amount of hope that we will alter our direction on this matter. This is evidenced by the solutions to the growing energy crisis that are being offered by the candidates from both sides of the isle. I’m not implying that all of the proposals by this year’s candidates are without merit, but somehow they seem a little uniformed. Senator Obama almost gets it right in his focus for taxing windfall profits on oil companies, but this would be unnecessary if we would simply eliminate more than $9.6 Billion in federal subsidies now given to oil companies. This figure only includes the direct or realized federal subsidies, but does not report the cost of securing oil and other hidden cost subsidies that, According to the National Defense Council Foundation, totals $297.2 to $304.9 billion annually. If reflected at the gasoline pump, these “hidden costs” would raise the price of a gallon of gasoline to over $5.28. A fill-up would be over $105. This is troubling, because it won’t be long before we are no longer able to afford to secure oil resources through militarily action.

Our first course of action should be to mandate fuel efficiency and fund research and implementation of hybrid technologies that could more than double fuel efficiency. This would be a first good step toward curbing consumption and reducing greenhouse gas emission. Further, it would have the added benefit of reducing lower and middle income family’s expenditure on transportation. Regretfully, nowhere in either of the presidential candidate’s energy plans is there mention of a comprehensive investment plan for public transportation. This is unfortunate, because by investing in reliable public transportation now, America would be able to insure its competitiveness in the growing world economy. Further, if a future public transportation plan stipulated the provision that it be electrified, we could bridge the gap to new forms of renewable energies, such as wind, hydroelectric, and solar, thereby securing a brighter tomorrow for our future generations.

It is not as if the US hasn’t embarked upon on such monumental plans in our past. The Federal Highway System itself is a prime example of what we are capable of if we dedicate ourselves to the task. And, it is not as if there aren’t plenty of good examples from which to draw from. Most of the world’s industrialized nations rely heavily on these public transit systems in order to move their labor populations, and have done so for many decades. The added benefit of these public investments is that it attracts private investment around the public transportation, particularly rail transit, adding to a rider base that improves public transportations viability and success.

Regretfully, I don’t currently see the political will to make these things happen. My only hope is that organizations such as Transportation for America, and Smart Growth America are successful in lobbying our congress and executive leaders to enact plans for public transportation that include; regional high speed commuter rail, subways or light rail for our urban centers, and rapid bus transit to connect them deep into our communities. Investing in our public transportation infrastructure is only the first step. We must stop populating our most valuable farmland with split level homes that place us further and further from our nation’s employment centers. We must reflect upon the successful development patterns from our past and encourage the development of traditional neighborhoods that embrace multi-modal forms of transportation such as walking and bicycling, by incorporating mixed use development that places services and convenient businesses in a comfortable walking distance form residences. Americans are simply going to have to review and change the way we live.

For more information on how you can become involved in this important issue and help advocate for change, please visit the Congress for the New Urbanism, and Reconnecting America.