They seem to get by alright in Europe, and they pay more for gas then we do. Americans need to stop whining and start changing their driving habits.
Do you have any suggestions as to how people are supposed to get to work, school, gigs, etc? I don't know about Detroit, but in the Austin area, public transit is, at its very best, unwieldy. An expensive, mostly-useless joke. If you are in an outlying area, and you need to go *anywhere* besides downtown, you're going to need the whole danged day to get there on the bus/train system. Capitol Metro must believe that we allllll work downtown. Silly rabbits.
Don't tell me "live close to work", either. Most people can't afford to live in the central city.
Even when we lived in Leander proper, the grocery stores were too far away for walking or riding a bike, and how would I get the groceries home then? Now that we live in Sandy Creek, outside of town, we can walk to the local convenience store, but that's it. The grocery is still ten miles away.
The fact is that, in America, most towns were planned in the age of cheap cars and cheaper gas, and do not have public transit systems, or centers of business/education/shopping in every neighborhood. And most towns cannot now afford to put such infrastructure in place.
So...change our driving habits? How? We can plan errands and shopping in the same trip, but that's about it. I can't even do that. I can't be gone from home more than two hours at a time, during the day, because my Mom must be gotten up from her chair or bed, fed, and repositioned every two hours, minimum. There's no going out and getting everything done in one day for me, or for other people trapped at home caring for small kids or elderly people.
Gas is $3.70 a gallon at our little local store. I have (had, actually) rich girlfriends 20 minutes up the road...old bandmates. They can't be bothered to pick up a phone and *plan* anything...they just expect me to show up at the lake or what-not and hang with them. But, at $3.70/gallon, I'm not about to go chasing rich people around trying to find them. So...we don't hang out anymore. They don't like to come over here to TrailerVille, and I can't afford to go run around here and there in their big Yukons and Explorers with them.
Basically, I don't hang very often with people more than a ten-minute drive away. I visit online or by phone, but I don't drive to see them unless for a special visit. All my friends either are in the neighborhood, or they hang at the ice house down the road. I've restricted myself socially a *lot* because of gas prices.
Cherie
I'd ride a recumbent (sp) bike everywhere if i could.
