ADAPTABLE CREATURES:

Many gas guzzlers are gathering dust (Don Aucoin, September 19, 2005, Boston Globe)

In May, Holly Kennedy bought an SUV. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

That very month, gasoline prices started to climb. And climb. And climb some more. By July, it was costing Kennedy $70 a week to fill her tank. Something had to give. So Kennedy parked her SUV and clambered aboard her mountain bike each day for her 10-mile commute from her Arlington home to the Burlington software company where she works. Even though her commute time lengthened from 15 minutes one way to 40, she found herself wishing she had tried the two-wheeled approach a lot sooner.

''It gives you time to unwind on the way home, and it gives you time to wake up on the way to work," she said. [...]

Of course, if you live in a suburb and work in a suburb, as many do in high-tech Massachusetts, mass transit can be an elusive option. That's where 24-year-old Matt Severance finds himself. Each day, he drives 45 miles from his home in Northborough to his job at Putnam Investments in Andover.

''I'm dropping 60 bucks a week just driving to work, not to mention going other places, which brings it to 85 bucks a week," said Severance. ''It's definitely hurting my bank account. You're spending an hour or two in a car, which is depressing enough. And then to pay through the nose for gas."

He is considering carpooling with a co-worker who lives in Uxbridge.

Darwinism may be false as regards evolution, but it remains true in the science that he borrowed it from, economics.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 19, 2005 12:00 AM