Does it seem like every other car on the road these days is a Prius or some other hybrid that uses both gas and electric power to get around? If so, there’s a good reason for it: The Washington region has twice the number of these vehicles than the national average. Price William County leads the way with more than 15 hybrids per thousand households or a whopping four times the national average. Northern Virginia has three times as many hybrids as either the District or suburban Maryland. The reason for that seems simple and it’s spelled “H-O-V.” By allowing hybrids to use the HOV lanes with only the driver inside, Virginia has given car buyers another reason for paying extra to go hybrid in addition to the gas savings and the reduced emissions. It will be interesting to see what happens to sales of thesecars and SUVs when the HOV incentive goes away in the near future. Of course it’s likely the price of gas will still be sky-high. One thing to note is that hybrids really aren’t the cars to buy if you tend to drive long distances on the highway and at highway speed. In fact, the hybrids generally get worse gas mileage at highway speeds than many other conventional models available. Hybrids are made for city driving or for stop-and-go traffic and we have more than enough to convince drivers to give them a look.
There were some other interesting car facts in the just-released report by the Council of Governments‚ Transportation Planning Board, including that there are more than 3.3 million vehicles in this region, or just about 1.8 per household (I guess that doesn’t include the backseat and the trunk on the second car). Sixty percent of these are passenger cars and 35 percent are light trucks, which used to just include pickups and SUVs, but now I believe also includes minivans. The rest are heavy trucks and buses, and I hope you have neither parked in your driveway. COG collects this information as part of the process of estimating the quality of our air. I imagine that all those hybrids would bode well for future air quality studies as will the reduced sales of SUVs.
Bike to work
I want to mention once again that Friday is National Bike to Work Day and early numbers indicate that this year’s events, thanks to the gas crunch, will be bigger than ever. Registrations for the official events are well above record levels already. Around the region, there will be 21 different points where officials will gather and make perfunctory speeches about all that they have done to make biking easier. If nothing else, there is nothing more entertaining than seeing local government officials dressed up in their biking gear. One of the biggest will be down on Freedom Plaza and the sight of hundreds of bikes gathered on the marble is a site to behold. If you want more information, visit the Web site of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association at waba.org. Have fun but also realize that you’re still sharing the road.
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