COSTS DRIVE BEHAVIOR AND WE CAN EASILY IMPOSE THE COSTS:

High gas prices drive changes in California fuel consumption: Drivers are turning to alternative fuels and cutting consumption. (Ronald D. White, May 4, 2009, LA Times)

Gasoline consumption in California began falling in April 2006, and for 11 straight calendar quarters dropped below gas use in the year-earlier period even though the state added 790,000 new licensed drivers. First-quarter gasoline use hasn't yet been released by the California State Board of Equalization, which on Thursday said Californians consumed 1.21 billion gallons of gasoline in January, down 22 million gallons, or 1.8%, from the previous January.

Agency statistics show the pattern began between January and September 2005, when the average gas price climbed from $1.96 to $3.06.

That was California's first brush with $3-a-gallon gas. It lasted just two weeks in 2005, according to the Energy Department's weekly survey of filling stations, but it was long enough to trigger behavior changes.

For all of 2005, gasoline consumption rose by just 30 million gallons to 15.95 billion gallons, according to the state equalization board, which gathers the numbers from taxes paid by fuel distributors. The pace was well off the boom years from 2000 to 2004, when gas use grew by an average of 343 million gallons a year.

"The tipping point is $2," said Amy Myers Jaffe, senior energy analyst at Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy in Houston. "People start to respond to fuel prices and make changes at $2 a gallon. At $3 a gallon, it becomes noticeable. It really gains in momentum. The longer the price stays higher than $3, the deeper and more lasting the structural changes."

In 2007, with gasoline prices above $3 a gallon for 34 weeks, California consumption fell 270 million gallons below 2005 levels. In 2008, with gasoline topping $4.58 a gallon in July and the depth of the nation's economic crisis beginning to sink in, Californians used 910 million fewer gallons than they did in 2005.

Messer turned to a different fuel. Stephen Stone of Norwalk bought an all-electric Zap Xebra. Robert Cruz of Oxnard went back to a 1970 Volkswagen because it got better mileage than anything else he's driven. Alan Thomas of Oxnard adds a few gallons of transmission fluid to his tank to cut fuel costs.

"Sometimes I just used to go out and take a drive," Thomas said. "When was the last time you heard anyone say, 'I'm going out for a drive'? I don't drive any more than I have to now."

Millions of other Americans also are parking more. A 2008 Brookings Institution report called "The Road . . . Less Traveled" found that "consistent annual growth" in vehicle miles traveled in the U.S. leveled off in 2004. By 2007, miles driven declined for the first time since 1980 and at the fastest rate since the end of World War II, said Robert Puentes, senior fellow at Brookings' metropolitan policy program and a co-author of the report.

"Americans have simply been driving less. . . . At the same time driving has declined, transit use is at its highest level since the 1950s, and Amtrak ridership just set an annual ridership record in 2008," Puentes wrote.