[Sosfbay-discuss] [Fwd: [SVBC] LA Times column on "The joy of $8 gas"]

[Gerry Gras]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [SVBC] LA Times column on "The joy of $8 gas"
Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:01:24 -0700
From: Kathy Durham <kfdurham at earthlink.net>
To: bikes at lists.svbc.dreamhost.com



Here's a link I think may be of interest to SVBC members interested
in encouraging more people to choose bicycles for more of their
everyday trips.  You probably have already read serious policy
arguments along these lines, but this is delivered with a Generation
X edge to a wider audience, most of whom have never considered why $8
gas might be a good thing for our society:

Joel Stein, "The joy of $8 gas:

Why life would be better if the cost of fuel here were as high here
as in Europe

"
Los Angeles Times, July 11, 2008

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-stein11-2008jul11,0,258677.column

============
Whole article is worth a read but here's a quote to entice you to
click on the link:

". . .  With public transit use nationally at a 50-year high, traffic
dropped 2.1% in the first four months of this year across the
country. That mileage reduction -- along with people driving smaller
cars, and more slowly, to save gas -- could mean that 12,000 fewer
people will die in traffic accidents this year, according to a study
by professors Michael Morrisey at the University of Alabama at
Birmingham and David C. Grabowski at Harvard Medical School. Air
pollution has been reduced enough, according to UC Davis economics
professor J. Paul Leigh, to prevent 2,200 respiratory-related deaths
over the last year. Less eating out and more walking and biking could
mean a 10% reduction in obesity, according to Charles Courtemanche,
an assistant economics professor at the University of North Carolina
at Greensboro. And, apparently, higher gas prices also keep econ
professors employed."
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