Return of the Heavy Foot

Spring--the beginning of the American motoring season--has come, and every bit as welcome as the return of greenery and birds is the return of gasoline. The Federal Energy Office made it official last week: stocks are high and the first postembargo shipments of Arab oil will arrive within the month. But the FEO also issued a warning. Because domestic refineries do not have enough capacity to fill an unrestricted demand for gasoline there will be continuing shortages--4% in this quarter and up to 5% for the rest of 1974--unless drivers continue to conserve fuel.

Bad Dream. Last week TIME found in a national survey, drivers were doing anything but that. The general mood was to consider the whole energy crisis--and good conservation habits--as a bad dream that was over and done with. New Jersey and Washington, D.C., officially canceled their alternate-day rationing schemes, and other states unofficially stopped enforcing theirs. Sales of big, gas-guzzling cars are picking up. Motels and roadside restaurants are reporting a move back toward normal business. Highways are becoming crowded again, even on Sundays. "We're starting to see tourists again," says Bess Pursell, head of the state information center on the Massachusetts Turnpike, "not only people coming to visit relatives in the hospital."

Americans are also disregarding the national 55-m.p.h. speed limit, thus burning more gasoline. Police are concerned because they know that high speeds are linked to high-accident rates. "When gas became more available," laments Pennsylvania State Police Sergeant William Malzi, "that right foot began to get heavy again." But little can be done about it. If everybody speeds, points out Officer Kent Milton of California's highway patrol, "enforcement of the limit is more difficult."

Meantime, ridership on mass transit is dropping. After weeks of increased patronage, revenues have begun to dip on Boston's rail and bus systems. In San Francisco, a 5% decline in transit customers has been matched by an increase in auto traffic on the Bay and Golden Gate bridges. The same pattern holds for the Metro in Washington, B.C., where the number of bus riders is steadily dwindling from a peak of 2.6 million passengers a week at the height of the energy shortage in March. Another gas-saving alternative--car pooling--has caught on only in Washington, and there only because the Federal Government is actively promoting the habit. New rules for parking lots next to Government buildings give priority for coveted close-in spaces to cars with more than three riders.

All this leaves one thing that limits the profligate use of energy: high gasoline prices. To fill up the tank of a big car can run as much as $11 or $12 in places where gas costs more than 60-c- per gal. It remains uncertain whether such prices will cool the ardor of a nation for which freewheeling mobility has become a way of life. What is all too certain, on the other hand, are the consequences of the resumption of wasteful driving habits: the return of spot shortages, canceled trips, the whole headache of having to do without gasoline at least some of the time.

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