unsustainable communities; commuting challenges

the herald tribune has an article about the financial challenges of driving 50 miles to your job each day, and heating a 4000-square foot house - otherwise known as living in exurbia, the fringe of the suburbs. was there anything more representative of the early years of the bush administration than a tax-incentive purchased hummer in the driveway of a mcmansion an hour from the city, its conservative homeowners soaking up the wisdom of dick cheney ("conservation is not... sound energy policy") or ari fleischer's statement below:


Q Is one of the problems with this, and the entire energy field, American lifestyles? Does the President believe that, given the amount of energy Americans consume per capita, how much it exceeds any other citizen in any other country in the world, does the President believe we need to correct our lifestyles to address the energy problem?

MR. FLEISCHER: That’s a big no. The President believes that it’s an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one. And we have a bounty of resources in this country.


so that didn't work out too well, much like the rest of the bush administration's policies. yet even as their chosen lifestyle becomes unsustainable, the excuses for not taking action pile up. in the article above, one woman says that the tank of gas for her minivan has only gone up to $50 (she must fill up when the tank's only half empty), and that she combines trips to the store with other errands... all while ignoring the fact that her gains are wiped out by hubby's 80 miles a day of driving to/from work.

driving through riverside county on i-15 (not recently with these gas prices), i always wondered if some of the more distant 'burbs would someday become low-density ghettos. and now some analysts are saying just that. some of the trends are already there - faster price decreases than core neighborhoods, and greater foreclosure rates in these outlying communities. meanwhile, the la times describes ghost towns in new home subdivisions in the "undesirable and remote" locations of corona and ontario well outside of LA.

it feels like a pivotal time for this country, as the car-oriented lifestyle we've built becomes unsustainable for many. while some are still in denial about it (the woman above, u.s. automakers, homebuilders, offshore drilling proponents), $2/gallon gas probably isn't coming back, ever. on the bright side, americans are pretty adept at changing their lives as necessary to survive economically. to help them out, it would be great to see some state and federal highway funding diverted to public transit, now that those changes include fewer total miles driven.

speaking of public transit, this would be a good time for companies to consider how they can subsidize it, and encourage workers to use it, while encouraging other ways of reducing gas use. if conservative utah can embrace a four-day work week, why can't other states and businesses? why should every worker have to be at the office from 9 to 5, monday to friday, when "presentism" doesn't correlate to productivity? employers should promote telecommuting where possible, and if they're concerned about productivity, simply set employee benchmarks and make sure they're met.

i'm impressed with the variety of public transit options available at ucsd, which includes free san diego mts service for employees (on lines serving ucsd, thanks to subsidies), the hillcrest/ucsd shuttle that i've started taking, and various campus shuttles. yet even as gas has doubled in the past year, i don't recall a single email from campus encouraging workers to use these options, or encouraging telecommuting. i've asked my boss if i can telecommute one day a week, but he's hesitant to allow this, citing distractions. yet he works from home most of the week due to medical issues, and has an employee who already telecommutes nearly 100% of the time. neither has productivity issues.

one problem with working at sio is its poor public transit service. sio had to fight to retain its single MTS bus line last year, which is great if you live in la jolla, but that's about it. it can be taken to the main ucsd campus (and has a bike rack), but often runs ridiculously late due to traffic leaving la jolla. a web tracking program like ucsd's would be a big help in that regard, especially with the proliferation of cell phones with web browsers.
getting to the main ucsd campus via the sio shuttle, which runs on time, requires boarding a cramped van that's nearly impossible to get to the back seats of. simply adding a bike rack to the van would allow folks to bike down the steep hill from ucsd to sio (and take the van back up), reducing passenger load. kudos to ucsd for its triton bikes program btw, allowing people to use abandoned bikes for their campus bicycling needs. one useful idea would be bike lockers for people who don't want to leave their bikes locked on campus overnight.

sio could also benefit from allowing workers to use office space on main campus or satellite locations like hillcrest medical center. unfortunately these don't exist, but the new price center on campus does have some work areas that could be useful.

at any rate, it's good to see some positive first steps being taken to address high gas costs, but there's a lot more that could be done. time will tell how employers and homeowners respond to what's clearly a crisis in how we get to and from work.