Now that gas prices seem to be going through the roof...

are you going to change your transportation habits?

Take a bike?
Carpool?
Mass transit?
Buy a fuel-efficient car?

At what point do you think a lot of Americans will start changing their habits? $3.00 a gallon...higher?

Gas could hit $5 a gallon, and people won't give up their precious SUVs.

Don't plan on driving any more this year.

I am so glad that the wife and I were smart and bought a Chevy Aveo. The car is awesome, a little four cylinder made in Korea, yes that's right a Chevy made totally in Korea. We get to Grand Rapids to Detroit which is 170 miles one way 340 round trip on three quarters of a tank and cost only 24 dollars when bone dry. With my son living in Detroit and the trips necessary it has been a great car. I laugh at the fools with the big Suv's and pick ups with their forty gallon tanks.

50 Mpg Plus!

:scared: My VW would be $70

And I do have hopes that fuel economy will start to become an issue with more and more people.

I hate the gas mileage.

If I could afford to buy one of the upcoming hybrid Toyota Highlanders, I would.

If the prices get bad enough, I'll have to start driving my '88 Corolla to work.

Traded my Lincoln Mark VIII in on a Nissan Sentra. I have to tell you that is one BIG step. The Lincoln got 28.8 mpg on freeway driving but only 21 mixed. The Sentra advertises 38 hwy and 32 city, but is only giving me 31 mixed.

I still own a Chevy Tahoe that gets 18 hwy and i-don't-want-to-think-about-city. Unfortunately there are things that a Sentra can't do, like haul a 4000 pound sail boat. It just doesn't get much use anymore.

My husband drives 120 miles to work every day. He is now going to work from home 1-2 days a week. I am glad he has a job that he can do that with. He gets more done at home without as many distractions.

I don't have to drive that much though.

Just have to unload my Toyota sedan first, which won't be easy because it has a good bit of body damage that I can't afford to have repaired. Oh well - at least it's totally paid for.

Unfortunately, not everybody can live in a city like New York or Chicago, where mass transit systems were built long ago.

On the other hand, if all 59 million registered Democrats picked a protest day, once a week, in which is gas-guzzler stayed PARKED, we could make some serious waves.

The argument for mass transit and good interstate transportation - TRAINS - has never been stronger. We can do something about this!

I'm pretty poor, so I can't say that the gas prices aren't affecting me, but It's definitely less than the idiots in the 'burbs with their SUVs will be affected.

Even with the higher gas prices and having to shuttle 2 kids to school daily, I only spend $20 per week on gas, tops.

we have biodiesel in seattle.

the math:

my 91 saab: 22 mpg city
passat TDI: 35 mpg city

regular: $2.20/gallon
B100 biodiesel: $3.50/gallon

$.10/mile for each. its a wash.

except for the intangibles: the blood of oil won't be on my hands. as much. i still have diesel heat in the house.

I'd love to. I petitioned my city to put in bike lanes on the major roads. They were already widening the roads anyway, and they refused, even with all those signatures.

We have no bus service here. A cab costs $40 for a short one-way trip.

There are no trains in my suburb. There are in Dallas and Ft. Worth, but a lot of good that does me. The one in Dallas only runs north-south and is far, far away from me. Same thing for Ft. Worth, only that one runs east-west. Still doesn't do me any good, because it's service area is so limited.

A bike? I did an experiment three summers ago. I decided to see how little I could drive my car. Since I was teaching at that time and off in the summer, I thought "This shouldn't be a problem" (since I didn't have to go to work everyday).

Well, I ended up nearly being killed two times by traffic (no bike lanes and in a lot of places, no sidewalks, either) and then, in July, I had a heat stroke.

I'm toughened to hot weather, too. I'm a native Texan. I was a kid during that horrible heat wave in 1980 (115 degrees many days running). But that biking thing nearly killed me. I was using it for all my transportation, even attached a carrier on the back for groceries. And I wasn't out riding in the middle of the day, when it is the hottest.

Carpooling? I work with one other guy and he drives in from Ft. Worth. So that's a big no.

My next vehicle WILL be more fuel efficient. This one's paid for and not bad on fuel so I am going to drive it until it falls apart (again, the paid for aspect making it more appealing). My husband is trading in his Ford F150 truck for a Toyota Corolla next month to get better gas mileage. He drives a long way to work and there is no mass transportation that can get him there. No one he works with lives out here, so carpooling is out for him, too. He's even asked our neighbors if they work in the general area he does and they don't.

one is risking the neck. And, they are cutting bus and el routes and the cost of tickets for mass transit are going UP - possibly to as much as $2.50/ride on the el.

OF COURSE that gets the people who can least afford it right where it hurts.

More maddening: people were seeing the shape of things to come when I was a kid - in the 1950's.

I'm afraid it might take a major depression to get these people out of power and really get some constructive changes underway. I sure hope NOT.

Hang in there!