Flashes of Panic

It’s bike commute week here in the Pioneer Valley, and I’m trying to ride to work four days out of five. Five out of five would be cool, but some days it’s just not possible.

I have three possible routes to work: I can drive, which is most convenient, fastest, and costs a bit less than $2 in gasoline. I can take a bus, which is relatively slow (30 min. one way,) on a limited schedule now that the University is not in session, and costs $1.80 (two $0.90 passes.) And I can bike or run, which takes about twenty minutes (riding) to an hour (running a roundabout route,) is route-flexible (after-work Puffer’s Pond stops are both reasonable and practical) and is fueled in a way I actually enjoy—specifically, me chowing down.

(I have heard people who claim they run not because they like to run, but because they love to eat. I have some sympathy for that point of view.)

There’s the odd car that doesn’t share my view of the rules of the road (I’m not blocking traffic, I am traffic) but I’m just enough of an opinionated coot to give back as good as I get in most cases.

In a way, Bike Commute Week is an attempt at organized action on high gas prices: people voluntarily using no gasoline for a day, two days, a week. And hopefully discovering that it’s a reasonable alternative to paying for gas. I don’t, in theory, have a problem with paying for gasoline; even at $2-plus per gallon, I don’t think the price we’re paying represents the real cost of the resource. So I don’t think the proper response to historic highs in the price of gasoline is to complain about the price and ask the oil-company fat cats to lower it. (Well, maybe they’re not historic highs, but I can remember filling this same car at $0.85/gallon, so within the past six years it has more than doubled.) They are, after all, giving us what we’re asking for, and thanks to something in the pricing structure in this country (I can never figure out if it’s government, subsidy, lower taxes, or government subsidy in the form of lower taxes) we still pay less for gasoline than nearly everyone else in the world.

So, if you don’t like the price, don’t buy it. I don’t like paying $50 monthly for the two or three hours of television which might actually enrich my life (but which I don’t have time for anyway,) so I don’t. If I don’t like paying $2/gallon for gasoline, I should drive less. I’m willing to cough up for trips to see my nieces, to road races, etc., but the convenience of burning fossil fuels to get me to work each day might not be worth the real cost. So I’ll try non-motorized transit for a while.

I’m fortunate in that biking to work is realistic for me (only about a twenty-minute ride.) But I think it might be more than just good fortune; I think I’ll always want to arrange my life such that a person-powered commute is possible.

Now, where the rubber will really hit the road is when I buy my next car. Peppy and fun or principled and efficient? Maybe I can hang on to the black horse until I don’t have to choose.

Now playing: Shakin’ from Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia by The Dandy Warhols