Vital statistics:
Why high gas prices do not affect driving that much:
Over the last ten years gas and oil only amounted to 10-12 percent of total driving costs. This may well account for how little high gas taxes have impacted European driving habits where they are used to $5-$7 a gallon gas.

Teleworking's prospects more important than transit:
Back in October we quoted Reason Foundation's Ted Bala ker saying, "In some cities like San Diego, Dallas
and Phoenix, telecommuters now outnumber public transport commuters. In Oklahoma
City telecommuters outnumber transit commuters by nearly five to one."
And we commented, "Of
course, with market share for transit slowly declining while ratcheting up for
telecommuting, one does not need to ask what the government is encouraging."
The chart here below is further proof of the viability of teleworking/commuting. It is increasing all the time while the percentage of commuters using transit continues to decline.
One would think that if elected officials were to ever think beyond campaign contributions and the next election, they would encourage business to expand telecommuting opportunities.
For example, they could encourage tele-commuting by City and State employees.
They could encourage our high tech industry to stage a Telecommuting Conference where large and small businesses could see the latest advances in technology that make it possible for the increases that we are seeing in telecommuting.
Why high gas prices do not affect driving that much:
Over the last ten years gas and oil only amounted to 10-12 percent of total driving costs. This may well account for how little high gas taxes have impacted European driving habits where they are used to $5-$7 a gallon gas.

The 8-80 principle: A six slide presentation on why transit makes no difference to traffic congestion
Population totals for the 60 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) in the U.S. as of the 2000 Census
Comparison of various cities (MSA) cost per capita of their light rail lines.
U.S. use of public transportation, 1880-1992.
U.S. Census journey-to-work data summary sheet, 1960-2000.
Journey-to-work census data for 50 largest MSAs 1980-2000.
Changes in commuter use of public transit by MSA by year rail began operation.
Details of energy use by various modes of transit.
Bus ridership stats: An important data set is annual public transportation
ridership over the past 30 years and the trends that can be derived from them.
We have taken the official City data that they give to the State ofHawaii for inclusion in
the State Data Book. To these data we have addedOahu
population, also from the State Data Book, and then calculated bus passengers
divided by population, passengers per bus, and passengers per bus mile.
From all this we find that bus ridership peaked in 1994 and
is currently running about ten percent below that peak. Passengers per bus mile
peaked in 1984 at 4.5 and the latest in 2005 is 3.1. This along with passengers
per bus and passengers divided by population show us that we have had
significant increases in bus service and this has prevented ridership from
declining ever further than it might have done.
It is well worth a few minutes to review these data. READ MORE
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