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From Cruising to Commuting

Waterbury, Vermont - November 4, 2009

A recent transportation survey in Chittenden County showed that the vast majority of people who have a job also have access to a car to get to work. For many people in Vermont and the rural North Country, the car is an absolute necessity, including Elaine Young of Waterbury.

She gets up early for the morning commute to Burlington. She's not thrilled with the extra time and expense of driving sixty miles to and from work, but says this is nothing like her former drive to a job in Washington, D.C. She says Vermont is easy in comparison.

"For me, the commute's really not an inconvenience," she said, "because compared with what I know from before, it's just part of my every day. And it's highway driving."

Young made one important change three years ago. She bought a Honda Civic hybrid. Even though this car is an older hybrid, she says the electric mode has saved a lot on gasoline -- especially when it was closing in on four dollars a gallon. "And even now, gas prices kind of go up a little bit," she noted. "It does make a difference for me. I don't fill up nearly as much as I used to with my other cars. So that has an impact when you're not spending twenty dollars or almost thirty dollars every couple of days. I'm doing it once a week, and it works really well."

She says the hybrid was her contribution to the environment, as well as a way to save on the pocketbook. Sometimes she carpools with friends. She says the other alternative, the bus, would not give her enough flexibility.

That's one reason that people keep on buying cars, in spite of the expense and uncertainty around future gasoline prices. Tom Clark, the general manager at Shearer GMC in South Burlington, said, "In rural areas you got to have a way to get around. And I don't know what else you'd use."

Clark is a veteran car dealer who got into the business over thirty years ago. Those were the days when people bought cars, not just out of necessity but for fun. Such as the muscle car. And nowadays, given a certain air of political incorrectness around oil, some people find an escape -- at car shows like the one in Stowe every August.

Ricky Barnard, who drives from New Hampshire every year for the show with his wife, said, "You don't know what the cars today -- you can't tell one car from another. But back then they changed year by year and each had their own distinct personality to 'em. That's when they made cars."

But muscle cars were not known for their fuel economy. Over the next three decades the country struggled with gasoline shocks, which began to drive peoples' decisions at the showroom like never before. "For sure, that affects how people buy cars," Clark said. "When they buy cars, if they buy cars. It's a very emotional thing, buying a car."

It's also the single largest transportation choice in Vermont, by far. A Chittenden County Metropolitan Planning Organization survey in 2006 found more than 80% of residents believe that "traffic congestion gets noticeably worse every year," but 94% have access to a car to get to work.

Still, for Elaine Young, it comes down to a necessity, although as a seasoned commuter she says there are limits to how long or far she would drive to a job. "There's a threshold there where it does become overwhelming," she said. "And I think if you commute over an hour every day, that's really difficult to do."

The commuter cruises down Main Street and makes a turn toward her job at Champlain College. Of course, commuter trips must be repeated at the end of the day. For the foreseeable future, this is how most people will get to work. The car will continue to be a driver of the economy.

Andy Potter - WCAX News

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