It's Our Own Fault

Last night, I headed out to my local Costco to do some shopping and fill up with gas. As I was standing there watching the numbers tick upwards on the gas pump, I looked around at the other vehicles in the Costco gas station and realized with a start that my trusty four-cylinder Honda Accord was the only actual car in the station. The rest of the pumps were occupied by SUVs, Minivans, and large pickup trucks. 

Then I heard the gentlemen across from me grumble and bitch about the price of gas while filling up his GMC Acadia. I don't think he meant for me to hear him, but I did and said in reply "You want to know why gas costs so much? Just look around." I said, waving my hand at the SUVs drinking in $3.44 a gallon gas. This earned me a mean look but nothing more, but it got me thinking.

Whose fault is it that gas costs so much? No one but ourselves. For the last 60 years, we have designed our cities and planned our lives assuming that gas would always be cheap. Of course, anyone with half a brain could tell you that gasoline is derived from petroleum, and petroleum is a fossil fuel, which means there is a limited supply of it, and when demand increases faster than supply you get increases in price. That's a free market economy for you. But our country has blithely ignored that reality, and instead built massive houses further and further out in suburbia, while buying behemoth SUVs for our commutes. We spent trillions on new interstate highways while abandoning rail transit and eschewing buses and other mass transit options. Now we're paying the price. 

The good news is, that since we caused this run up in gas prices, we can put an end to it as well. How? By using less. By trading in those SUVs for four-cylinder cars. By trading in that McMansion in subrubia for a smaller home closer to your place of business. By planning and living in walkable neighborhoods where you needn't hop in a car to go to a grocery store, bar, or pharmacy.  By demanding our leaders take rail transit funding as seriously as they take highway and airport funding.

Want to see lower gas prices? Get cracking and do something to make it happen.