Our gas prices are incredibly cheap relative to the rest of the world. Personally, I hope this perceived “expensive” gas will get people thinking about their lifestyles and urban planning. It seems so few actually look at the source of this problem. They are too busy lounging in their 3000 sq. ft., air-conditioned boxes, surrounded by acres of a meticulously groomed carpet of foreign grass species, while snacking out of the gallon jar of pickles they drove five miles to Wal-Mart to get for $2.98. What a deal! Anyone who has had the pleasure of running downstairs to pick up a carton of milk from the grocery store below them should understand what is wrong with this picture.

Not only does this unsustainable lifestyle make us angry when gas prices go up, but it also tears at the social fabric of our communities, something Paul has noticed from the benefits of carpooling with his colleagues.

Capitalism isn’t perfect, but yes, fortunately there will be alot of money in finding energy alternatives, as well in developing sustainable communities, and reforming public policy to spend our money on better things than 8-lane highways and other infrastructure extensions needed to aid sprawl. Here’s our next problem: today’s suburbs are tomorrow’s ghettos.

Try 25,000-50,000. At least without buses. You might see a random taxi here and there.

Sounds like you’ve got a good deal going with carpooling. I should ride my bike to work more often.

As far as driving to see friends and going to new places, I will gladly pay the “independene tax”.

Even in my Illinois hometown (pop. 13000) there are ample busses available to transit people around the whole burg – the fact of the matter is that you only ever see college students and lower income folks using them. Everybody else is sitting alone in their cars trying to figure out some way to pass the busses in traffic.

I can’t explicitly back this argument up in terms of the Nebraskan cities (Lincoln and Omaha obviously developed these transit networks by need of the population) as I don’t have all the stats on them, but I can’t believe that they’re all without taxis, busses, or some other sort of above ground transport…

Maybe, Bennett, your joke points out a misperception about mass transit as well – it’s obviously more than just the subway for many people.

While there’s not a Seward bus that I climb on daily to make the sojourn from Lincoln into work, we’ve effectively suplemented that by pooling our resources – even if fuel prices do finally dip back down into seemingly tolerable levels I suspect we’re going to continue carpooling as it’s been an excellent source of social connection.

The danger to me of assuming that cars are the only way is that it feeds the base issue at hand: fuel consumption, as Bobby highlights.

The luxury of choice is fully in swing when it comes to driving a car to begin with – it affords you the luxury of choosing where you really want to live as opposed to having to look in a geographic window that’s traversible on foot or bike. It affords you the luxury of deciding on the spur of the moment that you want to go somewhere.

It offers you a great deal of freedom, convenience, and employment options, and maybe that’s frankly what the gas price ultimately begins to include: an independence tax.