Opinion: Ripple effect of cheap fuel reverses

Well, it has happened.

Cheap gasoline, like a stone tossed into a pond, created ripples of change that helped forge our modern lifestyle. Gas has been cheap until this year. Amazingly, it remained under $1 a gallon when the cost of living dictated higher prices.

Only recently have prices ventured very far beyond $1 a gallon. We were told that higher gas prices, prior to the drastic spikes following hurricanes Katrina and Rita, was due to increased demand by China and India.

The reliance on cheap gas began after World War II. In my opinion, a major impetus was the development of the interstate highway system in the 1950s.

Cheap gas made personal travel by automobile and long-haul truck transportation of goods economical. Likewise, cheap fuel allowed air travel to replace passenger trains as the chief means of long-distance commuting.

The outward ripple effect can be seen in multilane highways crowded with a bumper-to-bumper circus of cars and trucks. Giant airports are mostly located far from cities because cheap gas has made travel to and from inexpensive.

Expensive gas reverses the ripple effect. Auto, truck and air travel are no longer inexpensive, causing a negative effect on travelers, the airline industry and everyone affected by it. All around us are examples of how our lifestyle is caught in the reverse ripple effect of expensive gas.

The growth of cities has been aided by cheap gas. People once lived close to downtown, their workplaces and shops.

Consider Springfield: The business community was on or near the public square. Most people lived and worked fairly close to downtown. Sure, there were cars, but traffic was minuscule compared to the present. People mostly walked or rode trolleys to go to town to shop.

Ask any longtime Springfieldian to point out the boundaries of the city at the end of World War II; you will be amazed at the outward movement. When my family moved to Springfield, we lived in the Park Crest addition, which was at the very edge of town. That area is a long way from the present city limits.

Springfield’s story of growth, which is still in full bloom, is not unique. Ease of travel by auto has caused cities to expand toward surrounding towns. Suburbia was born. The end result: Metropolitan complexes with new highways jam-packed with drivers going in all directions.

Regardless of how massive, superhighways are often overcrowded.

Americans have bought homes farther and farther from the original core of the city because it didn’t cost much to commute. Streets and roads continue to encroach on former rural areas. All sorts of shopping centers and other ventures line these roads.

The cheap gas ripple effect has influenced residential design in suburbia – the evolution of the garage, for instance. Once, many houses had either no garage or it was detached. The role of the car caused one-car attached garages to be followed by two-car garages. Today’s three-car garage testifies to the role of the car in where and how we live.

Higher gas prices are reversing the ripples. Higher transportation costs raise prices. People spend more for gas and, therefore, can purchase fewer of the more expensive items. I guess no one knows what effect expensive gas might have on the auto industry that continues to fill dealers’ lots with acres of cars to sell.

I’ll leave it to economists to delve into that territory.

What I do know is that if we don’t create an alternative fuel to power our cars or produce more of our own oil, we will continue to rely on unstable sources of oil, including King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and have to arm wrestle China for what they produce.

We probably thought the cheap gas ripple effect would never end. I, for one, hope the reverse ripple ends much sooner.

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.