Paying the Price for Gas

Without options, except extremely difficult ones, commuters are car-bound in the Triangle area of North Carolina. As a professor of urban planning at UNC-Chapel Hill indicates, "A gas-price increase would rarely detract you from driving."

"The Triangle grew up with the highway. As the region grew, it followed a suburban commuter model that relied on the automobile and interstates without much thought of mass transit." Some new developments in the Chapel Hill area are trying by zoning pedestrian-friendly districts. A commuter rail project in the area is underway, but is not scheduled for operation until early 2008.