When I was going to pick up my free toilet a couple weeks back, I spotted this train sitting idle in the station off Metric. Some day soon–but who really knows when?–it will be ferrying people from the northern ‘burbs to downtown Austin, and I can’t wait.
Observing our collective reaction to rising gas prices, it’s clear to me how we got into this mess in the first place. Are humans incapable of looking any further ahead than tomorrow? Do we only care about ourselves? Are we the dumbest, most short-sighted animals on the planet? I hate to say it, but, “Yes, YES, YES.”
First, there was that whole gas-tax holiday gambit championed by old man McCain and Hillary Clinton. Two days ago, McCain jumped on the idea of overturning the 26-year-old ban on offshore drilling in this country, a glaring reversal from his previous position on the matter. A day later, Bush chimed in that he thought it was a good idea, which is all the evidence you need to know that it isn’t. I’m not even going to mention all the environmental damage such a move would cause. Nor am I going to harp on our infantile desire to keep things just the way they are (“I’m going to be driving this Suburban when I’m 95!”) when nature constantly shows us that everything is in flux. No, this plan doesn’t even make sense economically. A 2004 study by the Energy Information Administration found that drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would trim the price of gas by a mere 3.5 cents a gallon by 2027.
Another option I keep hearing about is using biofuels to run our cars. A bunch of companies (one is Sapphire Green in San Diego, another is Valcent Products in El Paso) are trying to convert certain strains of algae into fuel. This is fairly exciting in that algae doesn’t need fresh water to grow, and the carbon dioxide it needs to grow might possibly offset all the carbon dioxide it releases when used as fuel. But it still seems like a stop-gap measure when what we desperately need is a paradigm shift, an entirely new way of thinking as we enter a new era in our history.
As thrilling as using algae as fuel might be to some, I still don’t understand why we love our cars so much. What good have they done for our culture? They’re expensive, dangerous, and socially isolating. Sure, they’re an ideal spot to fool around with the opposite sex when you’re a teenager, but beyond that they’re just rapidly depreciating death traps. I still think we’d be better off in the long run just ditching them and fully embracing public transportation. To help people in Austin make that choice, Capital Metro is offering “Xtreme Transit Makeovers,” specific advice about which routes to take for commuting and other trips, as well as handing out free seven-day bus passes from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today at 100 Congress Ave.