joyce pellino crane

by Joyce Pellino Crane

                    The car salesman’s name in Tewksbury was Ed, but I kept calling him Jerry, who was actually the car salesman I’d visited in Acton a week or two before.

                    I’d made the circuit up to Nashua, NH, and out to Lawrence, Mass., test-driving small-sized, foreign SUVs, and I was bamboozled, not just by the salespeople I was encountering, but by the sudden shift in demand to small, gas efficient vehicles.            

                     Last month, as I bought a new car, I found myself teetering on a precipice. Hybrid or gas guzzler?                       

                    The auto industry is in flux and with it so was my decision. In May I was sure the gasoline-powered vehicle would suit me fine. But as sales of SUVs were plummeting and hybrids rising, I was having second thoughts.

                    At over $4 per gallon, the price of gasoline is soaring with no end in sight. This throws the resale value of cars powered solely by fossil fuels in the unknown category. But hybrids offer no better assurances. Aside from tax incentives, new hybrid cars are selling at a premium today and the wait for one can take a few months. As other energy options surface, will they be as desirable in used condition a few years from now, I wondered?

                   I sought the opinion of the recycling coordinator in a nearby town. She said she had almost purchased a hybrid recently until she learned more about the battery composition and the environmental conditions of the manufacturing plants, and ultimately backed off. But another friend who sits on a local recycling committee, bought a hybrid in April and said she averages 55 miles per gallon, voicing satisfaction with the car.             

                  Hybrid cars represent the imperfect transition of an industry that’s made few strides in more than half a century. While communication leapt from the middle-ages to the space age over these last two decades, transportation has been lollygagging. The Internet, WiFi, and cell phones rewired how we communicate, but nothing has changed much for the transportation industry. Air travel is the same as it was in the 1950`s. Railroads are still sleek lines of steel traversing countrysides. Subway cars continue to zip through dank and dark underground tunnels. And automobiles? They are nothing more than metal hunks propelling bodies at higher speeds than the horse and buggy…as always.                    

                 Whatever happened to the concept of molecular transmission? I realize that’s how the fly ended up as half a human and vice versa, but the concept shows some real out-of-the-box thinking. How about hydrogen-powered cars? Electric? Solar conversion? Fred Flinstone footpower? Can’t something change? New technologies are on the horizon, but by the time they become perfected for automobiles, I’m likely to be turning in my driver’s license for the Council On Aging shuttlebus.            

                 I view a car as a necessary evil but one that gives me boundless freedom to hike in the mountains, swim in the ocean, and dine in the city at the spur of the moment. I live for road trips, so it would be deceitful to imply I’m willing to resize my carbon footprint in any meaningful way.            

                But if I could change my lifestyle, I’d eschew this northwest suburb of rolling hills and apple orchards, for the semi-urban streets of Arlington or Cambridge where pubic transportation is accessible and shops are clustered.            

                 Perhaps these rising gas prices will spur necessary change. Towns, even Podunk ones, need public transportation and centers with shops and schools within walking distance. I grew up in a town with such features. My children, by contrast, have poor options for getting to school if they miss the bus. Between home and school are several miles of narrow and winding streets with no sidewalks.            

                 Even a forthcoming bike path in surrounding towns, commendable and wanted, will not solve these issues, as access requires miles of riding on public roadways.            

                 America can do better than this by rethinking community layouts, similar to what the town of Tyngsborough, a bedroom community south of Nashua, is endeavoring to do. For several years, town officials there have been laying the seeds to create a downtown section with sidewalks and shops. Other municipalities could follow Tyngsborough’s lead. By encouraging walkers, we can become less dependent on fossil fuels.            

               I ended up buying the car from Ed, with my fingers crossed, settling on a gas-powered Toyota Rav 4 with decent gas mileage.             

               In the meantime, I’ve got my eye out for a town center with a coffee shop, a grocery store, and a bus stop.