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Wednesday, February 02, 2005
New Yorkers, the Best Patriots Environmentalists have begun a very smart and appropriate campaign to get people to sign The Patriot's Energy Pledge, which is an attempt to reduce the United States' ever increasing foreign oil consumption by appealing to those red blooded red staters who consume so much gasoline per person yet don't grasp the connection between their expensive lifestyle and our military campaign in Iraq. Here is the pledge: 1. In the next year I will:Notice how many of the most important things one can do to reduce oil consumption are automobile-related? Most people in New York City don't even own cars, let alone worry about whether they are using low-friction motor oil or keeping their tires properly inflated. These represent tiny reductions in the amount of oil used per person. The real reduction would be accomplished by getting people to live near their work and leisure places and that happens when people live in cities. Startsandfits.com hasn't even been inside a car since Jan. 25, and that was for a 2.5-mile round trip that a guy was going to make anyway. I can't remember the time before that that I was in a car, but it must have been even longer. In the past weeks I've probably saved more gasoline than a typical motorist would save in a year by using a low friction motor oil, avoiding fast starts and using the manufacturer-recommended octane level. My round trip to work, a five block walk, consumes 70 calories a day, which is equivalent to three Hersey's Kisses or three quarters of an apple. It also wears out my shoes a little bit. There are millions of other transit riding, bike riding, walking New Yorkers who consume similarly low amounts of gasoline. What is our reward? We New Yorkers should be given a big thank-you from the motoring public for decreasing demand of gasoline, keeping prices low and lessening traffic congestion, air pollution and the pressure for development in rural lands and wilderness. But instead people deride us as elitists for talking about this subject. So we take our reward in the form of cash savings. Here are some of annual transportation-related costs for the average American, as calculated by AAA, compared with those of myself, a proud "inner city" resident:
This table summarizes the obvious costs of car ownership on a person. It doesn't factor in the hidden ones. For example, the owners of the buildings where I live and work had to pay $0 to build parking garages or parking lots at their sites, and have therefore passed $0 of that cost on to me. How much do exurban office park employees and suburban residents pay in hidden parking fees? Most probably don't know. Similarly, I have spent 0 hours stuck in traffic jams in the past few months, and have thus wasted 0 minutes per day staring blankly at license plates and tailpipes or listening to inane drivel coming out of the mouths of morning shock jocks or right-wing talk show hosts. Thankfully, many people are starting to realize that city life is more sustainable in the long term. The New Urbanists are among the people who are most aware of this. Hopefully, by getting people to think about the effects of their gasoline consumption, the Patriot's Energy Pledge will carry that notion a little bit further into our collective consciousness. - Posted at 9:27 PM | Permalink | Comments: 1 | Post a Comment |Sorry if I facilitated the breaking your record of not having been in a car since early February. But at least there were four of us in the vehicle. [2/20 driver] By , at 2/21/2005 1:27 PM |
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