Gasoholics Anonymous

This shouldn't be surprising, the U.S. has a fascination with supersized everything including vehicles. "The United States ranks at the bottom of industrialized countries in vehicle fuel-economy standards, but would jump far up the list if legislation to boost mileage requirements clears Congress and is signed into law, according to a report released on Monday... U.S. fuel-efficiency requirements for passenger cars have been stuck at 27.5 miles per gallon since 1985, while the standard for pickups, minivans and other light trucks will increase from 20.7 mpg in 2004 to 24 mpg in 2011.

Why Bikes Are a Sustainable Wonder goes over some aspect of bicycling which are very positive. Riding a bicycle uses minuscule amounts of energy compared to any other form of transportation. Riding a bicycle gives exercise and promotes better health. Bicycling uses less land area, leaving more land available for other things such as houses or farms.

I'm traveling again, this time attending OSCON 2007, meeting with people about open source software. A few weeks ago I'd taken a carfree trip to Chicago. As before in Chicago I'm doing this trip without renting a car.

I was thinking on my way into work, how strictly should I or anyone else end gasoline (or other fossil oil) use? Should use of it be zero'd or just diminished? Clearly in the context of today's city infrastructure etc (in the U.S.A.) it's going to be nigh on impossible to have zero fossil oil (gasoline) use. Yes there are people who have zero'd their use of fossil oil (gasoline) but should everybody do so?

A couple years ago the Go Motorboard 1500 caught the eye of personal EV enthusiasts. It was sleek, well made, sturdily constructed, etc. But it had a couple flaws such as no suspension (making for a very rough ride) and a battery design that didn't stand up well to the rough ride (no suspension) causing batteries to fail rapidly.

The original makers went out of business, but the design has been continued and refined by gosportinggoods.com. They added a suspension system and changed the battery pack.

I recently took a trip to Chicago, and as discussed in recent blog posts I brought a bicycle with me on the airplane. On the trip I stayed in a hotel 2.3 miles from the event I was attending, and wanted a way to travel in-between without having to rent a car. While I could have walked between the hotels, that would have meant 1 1/2 hrs or more of walking each day. Since there wasn't convenient mass transit, what could I do?

As I wrote earlier, I'm taking a trip to Chicago. I'm looking into how to manage myself without renting a car, and with minimal oil use. Of course I'm flying a plane to Chicago, but what I'm looking at is travel while there.

The Wikipedia has useful pages about the mass transit systems of Chicago.

Mass Transit in Chicago: An overview

Metra is a rail system in and around Chicago.

A few weeks ago I took a "car free" trip to Atlanta. Of course I flew on an airplane, and that involved burning some fossil oil fuel. I also ended up driving my car to the airport. But I wanted to, as much as possible, travel around Atlanta without burning oil.

Regular hybrid vehicles still leave the owner 100% addicted to gasoline. That there's an electrical motor is barely significant to the fact that, for every mile the car moves, the energy required comes from gasoline. A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle gives the car owner the ability to have some of their miles come from a source other than gasoline. Of course a pure electric car gives total freedom from gasoline, but at the moment pure electric cars are hard to find. It's far easier to find a hybrid vehicle, but plug-in hybrid vehicles are not being made (today) by the car makers.

Later this week I'm taking a trip to Chicago for the weekend. To be clear, I'm flying to Chicago from San Jose CA, so that part of the trip is not oil-free, but I'm looking into how to arrange for the rest of the trip to be as oil-free as possible.