Will gas prices kill suburban driving?

James Klurfeld

May 15, 2008

Iappreciate the argument that experts are making about why the various proposals to suspend gasoline taxes for the summer don't make any sense economically or from the point of view of a rational energy policy.

The lower the cost of gasoline, the more likely people are to use it, which only creates greater demand and, in the not-so-long run, higher prices. Cutting back on these taxes would also shortchange important funding sources for maintaining or building infrastructure, especially roads.

That's why when Sen. John McCain and Sen. Hillary Clinton jump on proposals such as gas tax moratoriums they are roundly criticized as pandering for votes. I said as much myself in a column two weeks ago. And Sen. Barack Obama gets at least some credit for talking honestly when he says the gas tax suspension is nothing but a cheap political gimmick that won't do anything to deal with the long-term problem.

But there's another issue that unsettles me: What about those of us here in the suburbs who are totally dependent on our cars to live and work? Newsday's longtime editorial writer and columnist Bob Wiemer used to say that Long Island is a moturbia, describing the essential role that cars play in our suburb.

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Long Island as we know it was created by the road network built by master builder Robert Moses. It's all about traveling by automobile. In most places in Nassau and Suffolk, you can't even walk or take public transportation to get a loaf of bread or a quart of milk. You jump into your car and drive a few miles, at least, to the closest shopping center or convenience store.

And that's not to mention the much longer drives people have to make to get to work, or the constant shuttling that parents have to endure transporting their children to this activity or that one. It was an expensive matter when gasoline was $2 or $2.50 a gallon. But at the $4 a gallon level we're now seeing, it's beyond expensive. For some people it is going to become prohibitive. All of a sudden, I'm making calculations about the cost of driving from Stony Brook to Port Washington to see my grandchildren - something I've never thought about before.

What's potentially at stake here is our way of life - the suburban lifestyle that critics like to parody, but that an awful lot of people still find attractive. In a column last week, Bob Keeler correctly said that we have to use more fuel-efficient cars. But if the demand for oil keeps going up - and with the phenomenal growth of China and India, it will - it's doubtful that we're ever going to see cheap gasoline again.

And it doesn't just affect residential drives. School districts have to pay more for bus transportation and heating oil, for instance. That's one reason why school taxes keep soaring.

Experts have been saying for some time now that the greatest failure of U.S. foreign policy over the past 40 years has been the inability to forge a national energy policy, to wean ourselves off our dependence on carbon-based fuels.

The conventional wisdom is that if prices go high enough, people will modify their behavior. In that sense, some economists say that the higher the price of gasoline the better - because it will force us to find alternative sources of energy. The logical conclusion is that we should be adding taxes to the price of gasoline, not cutting them, even for temporary periods before elections.

I understand all that. But for those of us living in moturbia - and that's a majority of Americans - it ain't that simple. I don't know what the answer is, and I suspect it won't come quickly. But I've begun to wonder if the suburban lifestyle, the Long Island lifestyle, will still be viable a generation from now.