Kiss My Gass and Dump the Pump

Dump the Pump Day, sponsored by the American Public Transportation Assn., happens Thurs., June 19. No news about Dump the Pump celebrations from Metro or Big Blue Bus as of yet, but Foothill Transit riders can get a coupon for free rides all day Thursday by filling out a short survey.

Going a step further, the Orange County Transportation Authority's declared this week Dump the Pump Week. What you get out of it: A free OCTA bus pass valid any day this week and a chance to win prizes by entering a drawing for gift certificates, movie tickets, Dump the Pump T-shirts or Metrolink Tickets.

Relatedly, the Kiss My Gass protest kicked off yesterday (via LAist). The campaign basically asks people to avoid a chosen oil company -- at the moment, ExxonMobil -- for a month. The point is to simultaneously protest high gas prices while encouraging people to rethink their dependency on gasoline.

The only good news about driving has to do with cars that aren't available yet. For example, hydrogen cars are getting celebrity drivers behind their wheels -- though layperson ownership remains very impractical: BMW's Hydrogen 7 "can be filled only by a trained professional, who takes it to Oxnard and refuels it with liquid hydrogen cooled to 423 degrees below zero, a round trip that can take three hours."

Lastly, the Big Three U.S. automakers will get $30 million in federal funding to research and develop plug-in hybrids. (via grist)

Comments

[LAofAnaheim]

Why don't people stop asking for widening lanes (405 project), new freeways (desert corridor express) and start asking for transit projects (downtown connector, purple line to the sea, foothill extension, crenshaw corridor, etc...). That'll really stick it to the oil companies! Dumping the pump is stupid and does nothing (long-term or short-term)