Post-Auto America?

The Wall Street Journal reports this morning (in the print edition) that Americans drove 14% fewer miles in June 2011 than June 2010. This marks the fourth consecutive year-over-year reduction in driving mileage.

The bad economy explains much of the decline: unemployed people don't commute to work, and economically distressed people don't take long driving vacations.

The surge in gasoline prices earlier in 2011 no doubt also contributes.

Will the trend reverse itself when the economy recovers? Maybe not, or anyway not so fast. The oil shock of the 1970s prompted permanent changes in the patterns of American energy use: the houses that converted from oil burners to gas never converted back. The electrical utilities that retired their oil-fired generators never returned those generators to service. The switch from trucking to rail transport continues to chug ahead.

Likewise, the recession-induced preference for smaller homes closer to work may prove an enduring trend.

I wrote at longer length about these social changes last week in my column for The Week.

Perhaps our next chapter of energy progress will feature some over-the-horizon new engine or alternative fuel. But more likely, we'll achieve the next generation of efficiencies the same way as we achieved the last — more by changing the way we use fuel than by changing the fuel we use.

The point is: energy markets work. If we don't like the results those markets deliver - if we want specifically to "end our addiction to oil" as George W. Bush phrased it - then we must institute the incentives and disincentives necessary to achieve that result.

A protracted recession is one way. Surely less painful ways can be devised and adopted?