Rarely a day goes by that I don’t hear people complaining about how much money they’re spending on gasoline. Indeed, filling up costs three times what it did just a couple years ago; it’s understandable that people are upset.

So how can we reduce our costs of getting around? This week, I’ll address the best strategy—driving less. Next week, we’ll look at how to get better mileage from our cars.

一些建议：

电信。我很幸运能在我的工作中，我每周两天都可以在家工作。那些是两天的，我不开车那个14英里的往返。显然，这种“电信”不是大多数工人的选择，而是想想你的工作是否可以从家里完成。如果它甚至远程实用，请与您的主管交谈并解释一周几天从家工作可能会提高您的生产力。

在家附近找到娱乐。靠近家而不是出去。在家里度过家庭，并参观距离休闲或骑自行车距离的近邻。

结合旅行。当你需要开车,做个小等优点ce planning to figure out how you can satisfy multiple needs on the same trip. Do your grocery shopping on your way home from work, rather than making a special trip into town. Aggregate your errands; instead of driving into town to pick up that can of paint, start a list and wait until your have three or four errands to run. Building contractors who drive to the jobsite can do the same; don’t make a separate trip for every item needed at the building supply center.

从家里购物。最近在纽约时报的一篇文章报告说，在线销售额快速上升，而在店内销售额正在下降。例如，在今年第一季度，差距在线销售额增加了21％，而商店销售额下降11％;消费者愿意为汽油30美元交易10美元的运费，以便到商场。通过相同的标记，通过Netflix订购您的租赁电影而不是驱动到视频商店。当您必须驾驶时，请光顾附近（本地拥有的）业务。

骑自行车。如果天气好的，你不需要走得太远，请考虑一辆自行车。每当天气适合骑自行车，我踏上七英里上班，我可以每种额外的20分钟。我不是在艰难的事情;我很容易骑自行车。但是，当我骑行时，我发现了一个额外的奖金：这是我对自己的看法的唯一时期 - 没有电话，没有收音机，没有说话。骑行让我的思绪有机会徘徊，这是一件好事。这没有伤害我也锻炼身体！

走路，不要开车。当我在镇上的办公室并且需要去市中心吃午饭或跑一个差事时，我试着留下足够的时间走路。如果你的形状相当好，散步一英里应该需要15或20分钟。在工作日，新鲜空气将善良。步行也将使您的孩子受益 - 当然，沿着道路的安全也是一次考虑因素。

搭巴士。Unfortunately, this is a classic Catch-22. In a place like Vermont, taking public transit often doesn’t make sense because the buses aren’t frequent enough to be convenient. But the frequency of buses won’t improve until demand increases—until more people take the bus. There isn’t an easy solution to this quandary; it often helps to subsidize bus fares or even make busses free to build ridership, but then the riders may not cover the costs of operating the busses. Around here, bus services are being cut back because of rising fuel costs.

拼车或股票游乐设施。If you can share rides to work with a neighbor, alternating the driving, you can halve your commuting energy use. That’s equivalent to dropping the price of gasoline back to $2 per gallon. Not bad! Park-and-ride locations make ride-sharing easier by providing designated places to park and leave a car; we need more of these in the Brattleboro area. Sure, ride sharing is a hassle; you have to coordinate your schedule with someone else’s; your flexibility drops. But as gasoline prices rise, that inconvenience is more and more acceptable.