Two dollars and thirty-three cents a gallon. I won't pay that much for wine, but that's the statewide average drivers currently pay at the pump. My own neglected gas-guzzler has a 40-gallon tank. When I drive the beast, I have to fill her up at least once a week at $93.20 a pop.
All of this was running through my head as I pedaled home in rush-hour traffic. Reality tapped me on the shoulder in the form of a frat boy leaning out his window as he swerved to avoid me.
"Get the hell out of the street you friggin' scumbag!" When I flipped off the meathead in the Escalade, he braked suddenly and waited in the parking lot of the Circle K. He had either taken offense to one of my columns and wanted to talk about it or I was looking at a beating.
I turned around and frantically sped off in the other direction, occasionally glancing over my shoulder in a frightened, yet distinctly manly way.
It began to dawn on me (as I rode home to Scottsdale via Mesa) that with inflated gas prices, congested traffic, noxious air and no room on the road for a wee bicycle, maybe the time has arrived for some other way to get from point A to point B.
Who better to ask about getting from A to B than a geographer? I called associate professor Michael Kuby of ASU's Department of Geography to whine. Dr. Kuby has done extensive research on location analysis, energy and transportation.
He shared a story he had just heard from Cal Marsella, the director of Denver's Regional Transportation District (the Rocky Mountain equivalent to our own Valley Metro).
"Before they built the first light rail lines," Kuby recounted, "everyone was saying, 'This won't work in Denver. Denver's not New York, Boston or Philadelphia. We're not like that; people in Denver depend on their cars; they're married to their cars.' And then, within six weeks of opening the lines, people are yelling at [Marsella] for not buying enough trains because ridership was higher than they expected."
Could light rail in the Valley go from being perceived as a waste of time and money to a useful, even cool transportation option and tear Phoenicians away from their own beloved cars? Kuby thinks so.
Even if people stick to the perception that public transportation is for slightly crazy, homeless passengers, Kuby believes that this addiction to petroleum might have to be overcome anyway.
"By 2050, there are going to be a lot of hydrogen cars. And by 2100, the only fossil fuel cars will be historic vehicles," he stated.
Wait ... Hydrogen, as in "H-Bomb?" Even us propeller-heads know to check our facts, so I dialed up Mesa's Alt Fuel Systems, the largest supplier of this type of technology in the state. I spoke with Darrel Essary about the viability of ditching gasoline.
"Have you ever been to Europe," he asked me. "It's five, six dollars a gallon, but it's the imperial gallon there, so it's even higher. We just [converted] a motor home, which we shipped from here to England, to run on propane because propane over there is like $1.60."
Just as the Spice Girls and ecstasy, alternative fuel is taking hold here. "We're getting calls daily [asking], 'What will it cost to convert my vehicle?' " Essary confirms.
Perhaps we'll soon be gliding to work on trains, or hydrogen will find its way out of the military arsenal and into fuel tanks.
One thing's for certain. If I see that dude in the Escalade again, I'm kicking him in the nuts and pedaling like hell.
Arthur Martori is a journalism junior. The dude in the Escalade can send his apology to arthur.martori@asu.edu.
