According to a nice February 18 article in the L.A. Times by Ronald D. White, Californians are driving less often and using less gasoline. Even in southern California they are driving alone less often, although the number doing so is still almost 75 percent of all commuters. The article takes a look at many types of commuting, from vanpooling to mass transit to cycling.

Here are some excerpts:

Americans are getting serious about using less gasoline, confounding some economists who have argued that most people can’t reduce their driving much because they have to get to and from work and make those necessary trips such as shopping and chauffeuring their children around.

The truth is more complicated, according to some energy experts: When the price reaches a certain threshold or the driving reaches a peak point of aggravation, people are willing to give up personal space and independence.

“There is an awful lot of what might be called discretionary driving,” said Edward Leamer, an economist with the UCLA Anderson Forecast. “Raise the price high enough, and you will see that there is a lot more that people can do.”

For some, the next drop in prices won’t be enough to send them back to their old driving habits.

“The trend will be toward more lasting conservation and longer-term savings if they are not just reacting to prices and have instead made a decision to change,” said Bruce Bullock, executive director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business in Dallas.

In California, the nation’s biggest fuel market, drivers have been burning through less gasoline than they had the year before for six straight quarters. From July through September, the most recent data available, Californians used 46.2 million fewer gallons, or 1.1% less than in the year-earlier period….

In its annual state of the region report, released in December, the Southern California Assn. of Governments noted that the share of commuters who drove alone had dropped in 2005 and 2006, from 76.7% to 74.1%, reversing steady increases from 2000 through 2004.

With gasoline prices doubling since 2003, motorists nationwide are conserving fuel by taking fewer trips, driving slower and paying premiums for the most fuel-efficient vehicles, the Congressional Budget Office said in a recent report.

Some are even becoming cyclists:

Kimra Haskell, a mathematics professor at USC, began bicycling to work six months ago.

She had many reasons. Sometimes she felt a shooting pain in her driving leg. She wanted to make a statement about the Iraq war and U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The California lifestyle of driving everywhere for everything — even to exercise at a gym — had left her too dependent on her aging 1993 Honda Accord.

She made her trial run from Eagle Rock to USC on a clunky, old Schwinn mountain bike. On the return trip of the 26-mile ride, uphill, she was ready to abandon the bike by the side of the road. But she persevered, bought a sleek, Italian Bianchi Volpe bicycle and is building up to cycling to work five days a week.

Gas prices were only part of the story, Haskell, 43, said. “It was mainly the effects on my health, on the time it took out of my life, the stress of dealing with the traffic.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 11:19 am and is filed under Transportation.