

Americans drove 9.6 billion fewer miles in May 2008, biggest drop in 66 years - MikeCapone
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/07/miles-traveled-usa-may-2008-vmt.php

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sysop073
"US citizens drove 9.6 billion fewer miles in May 2008 than in May 2007, or
3.7% less. Yet May usually means an increase in traffic because of Memorial
Day vacations and the beginning of summer."

I don't think Memorial Day being in May means May this year has an increase in
traffic over May last year, that would've only made sense if they compared
April and May

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jcl
The confusion is due to selective quoting of the article's source:

<http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/07/us-vehicle-mile.html>

...which says that not only are we seeing a drop compared to last year, but we
are _also_ seeing month-by-month drops, which is unusual because May has
historically been an "up" month.

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mikeatlas
The American government could have put a $3 tax on gas when it was $1, and the
consumption would have dropped and all those oil profits could have been
invested in renewable domestic energy development.

People would have screamed bloody murder then, but they're screaming now
anyways. 20-20 hindsight.

~~~
soundsop
But their anger would have been directed at the government rather than the oil
companies, as it is now.

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stcredzero
The other day my girlfriend, who is of Louisiana Creole extraction, commented:
"I've never seen so many white people on bicycles!"

We live in Houston, and it used to be that most of the bicyclists you see in
my neighborhood are Black and Hispanic guys who have to get to work but can't
afford a car.

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orib
What the green lobby can't do, it looks like economic pressures might be able
to do.

It's a pity that the gas prices will probably drive higher usage of cheap
coal, instead of more environmentally friendly alternatives like geothermal,
wind, solar, and (dare I say it) most practically, nuclear.

Edit: Interesting typo in the article -- it seems that this month's usage was
actually less than this month's usage.

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xlnt
Who's fault is it that we don't have more nuclear plants?

~~~
froo
I'm going to lay the blame fairly and squarely on the Simpsons.

Seriously.

The show is the only mass market show that I can think of that is continually
giving nuclear power (in general) a bad reputation and because of its
popularity amongst young people, it is helping to prevent the adoption of
nuclear power, even though the technology is much safer than earlier
implementations.

~~~
jonknee
I think Three Mile Island and Chernobyl have a lot more to do with it.

~~~
Zev
There's a few nuclear power plant on Long Island that never got started due to
Three Mile Island :\\. Also, Brookhaven has a few nuclear reactors for
research purposes that are still used as well. In the late 60's or early 70's,
they (the power company, now known as LIPA, but this was before NY State took
over) started to constructed a commercial nuclear power plant.

It was originally supposed to output ~550 Megawatts of power and cost ~75
million to make. Then it got delayed. They went back to planning stages and
increased the output to over 800 Megawatts as well as designing plans for
another two reactors. However, one reactor was close to Manhattan. That one
never got past planning stages due to protests. The other one never got built
either. I'm not sure why.

Anyway, by the end of the 70's, the cost of the original plant had skyrocketed
to over $2 billion. And it wasn't even finished yet. Then there were protests
due to Three Mile Island. By the mid 80's, the plant was complete. However,
politics deemed that it would never be opened. So they spent another $250
million to decommission the plant. It cost around 6 billion in total.

And a few years back, anyone remember the big blackout that happened? Power
grid got overloaded. There's a cable that runs under the LI Sound now that
draws power from Connecticut's nuclear power plant. Around 330 Megawatts of
power. By comparison, the unused nuclear power plant on Long Island - that's
still connected to the power grid - is supposed to be able to produce around
400 Megawatts of power.

Oh, and we (the taxpayers) are still paying the bill for that unused power
plant. And will be for the next 15 years.

Wiki has a good writeup on this,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoreham_Nuclear_Power_Plant>

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rokhayakebe
Great. Can someone raise the gas price to 5 dollars. Sure my milk will be more
expensive, but it will force more people to work from home instead of going to
an office to drink coffee and take smoke breaks.

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apollo
Economics. It works, bitches.

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time_management
This is good news, but we still have the idiotic habit of using airplanes for
mid-distance travel, due to the lack of a decent train system.

~~~
tx
I upmodded you because I share your wish, but unfortunately what you're asking
for is impossible.

Both of my parents have been railroad engineers all their lifes, and the main
thing I learned was this: railroads are not economical at transporting
passengers. Nearly all countries with "decent train systems" use government
subsidies to effectively sponsor passenger railroad transport. Even subways
can't make any profit.

And I am against paying more taxes. Period. Therefore, no government subsidies
to Amtrak from me.

~~~
sethg
In the US, highways get an order of magnitude more government subsidy than
transit (not just Amtrak but also urban subway systems, etc). Even if you
treat the revenue from the gas tax as a user fee rather than a subsidy,
there's still a huge subsidy coming from other kinds of tax revenue.

Chart and link to more info here:
[http://www.streetsblog.org/2008/07/22/highway-funding-the-
la...](http://www.streetsblog.org/2008/07/22/highway-funding-the-last-bastion-
of-socialism-in-america/)

~~~
tx
I don't get it. We aren't building any new highways (easy to check) yet our
expenses are going up. WTF?!

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newt0311
Umm... Supply and demand works... Not much in the way of news.

