Who’s guzzling gas?

TriMet ridership is up. Bike commuting is up. But gasoline use is up, too. County fuel data defies state trend

By peter korn

The Portland Tribune, Jul 31, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (14 Reader comments)

L.E. BASKOW / Portland Tribune

Tammy Lewis (right) rides the Portland streetcar with husband Craig and son Calvin, 6. Because of rising gas prices, Lewis is participating in a Zipcar challenge to give up driving for a month. She hopes it will serve as incentive to make a more permanent lifestyle change in which she will rarely drive.

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With $4 a gallon gas, we have to be driving less. Don’t we?

TriMet has set new ridership records in each of the last three months — much of it from a stampede of new commuters.

Morning Portland bridge counts by city Office of Transportation spotters show that bicycle commuting has risen dramatically.

Dealers report that high-mileage vehicles from scooters to hybrid cars are almost impossible to buy, because local inventories have been depleted.

Every indication is we’re driving less.

Every indication, that is, except data from the Oregon Department of Transportation. The data shows that in the first five months of this year, even with gas prices hitting record levels, the number of gallons of gas purchased in Multnomah County has gone up, over the same months in 2007.

More gallons of gas are being consumed, and taxed. And that little bit of information has state economists and analysts scratching their heads — especially since statewide, gasoline consumption has dropped about 4 percent this year.

In May of 2008, the most recent month for which data is available, 21.7 million gallons were sold, compared to 21.3 million gallons sold in May last year. Figures for March and April are similar — more gas was purchased this year than last.

David Kavanaugh, chief transportation economist for the Oregon Department of Transportation, compiled the gas consumption figures for the Portland Tribune, and he says he expected to find that gas consumption has dropped in Multnomah County. Statewide, Kavanaugh says, “gas prices in excess of $4 a gallon have finally brought demand destruction.”

“People are finally starting to believe these price increases are permanent, so they’re making more permanent changes in their travel habits,” Kavanaugh says.

Jobs boost gas consumption

Even more significant, Kavanaugh says, is that as people are forced to spend more on gas, they have less to spend on other items. That, Kavanaugh says, is slowing the statewide economy, which is leading to fewer jobs created, which leads to lower demand for gas.

“It’s jobs that create travel demands,” Kavanaugh says.

And that may be the explanation for Multnomah County’s rising gasoline consumption, Kavanaugh says, since there were more jobs in the county in March, April and May of 2008 than there were in those same months in 2007.

According to Oregon Employment Department statistics, despite a national economic downturn, there were approximately 7,800 more jobs in Multnomah County in the spring of 2008 than there had been in spring 2007.

That’s only a 1.7 percent year-to-year increase, but Kavanaugh says that economic activity is five to six times more potent as a driver of gasoline usage than the price of gas. In other words, a few more jobs can easily offset the reduced driving habits of a lot of people.

More jobs might explain the increase in Multnomah County gas usage, except for the fact that employment is up 0.8 percent in Oregon as a whole for the first five months of 2008 compared with the first five months of 2007. So gas usage statistics should reflect more consumption statewide — but they don’t. Statewide, gas consumption is down 4 percent.

Another possibility, according to Amy Vander Vliet, economist for the state employment department, is that with gas prices high, Multnomah County residents are staying close to home rather than going on vacations. And while here, they are driving around the county and buying gas around the county, rather than buying gas elsewhere.