Our travel habits are changing - Northwesterners are buying less gas
Like a frog who slowly permits himself to cook because the water only slowly comes to a boil, people in the rural Pacific Northwest have remained relatively quiet in the face of painfully escalating gasoline prices.
It was only four years ago when gas prices controversially broke the $2 a gallon threshold, a psychological barrier that unleashed a spasm of hand wringing and angry denunciations. Now, the Oregon average exceeds $3.50 for regular - and is considerably higher here on the coast. It is easy to imagine surpassing the $4 mark by Memorial Day weekend.
What happened? Where is the outrage as oil companies tap record profits?
Aside from simple fatigued feelings that mere citizen irritation will achieve nothing in the way of meaningful action from the White House and Congress, Northwesterners are responding to higher prices with that most time-honored capitalist tool - we are buying less.
If a report by Seattle's Sightline Institute is to be believed, residents of Oregon, Washington and Idaho are buying 11 percent less gasoline per person now than in 1999, the equivalent of every motorist in the Northwest taking five weeks off from driving each year.
Sightline chalks this up to more people using mass transit, buying more fuel-efficient vehicles, living closer to their jobs and simply driving less.
See the complete story at the Daily Astorian
