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The American Energy Consumer
Table 7-17.Miles per Gallon Estimated
for Local Driving, by Race, 1973 (percent of households with
cars)
| Miles per
gallon |
Black |
Other |
|
(percent) |
| All households with
cars |
100 |
100 |
| Less than 15 mi. per
gal. |
39 |
54 |
| 15-19 |
47 |
30 |
| 20 or more |
15 |
16 |
| Source: Washington
Center for Metropolitan Studies' Lifestyles and Energy
Surveys. |
one-car households) (see Table 7-16). This indicates increasing
use of second vehicles for long weekends or vacations on the
road.
Only 30
percent of black household heads reported long auto trips (200
miles or more) in 1973 compared with twice that among others. This
also contributes to blacks' low gasoline consumption. Indeed they
were much less likely to take long trips by any means of
transportation—railroad, bus, or airplane as well as by car
(Table 7-18). Long trips are expensive. When black household heads
take long trips they pay for them themselves. The long trips others
take are more often work related.
Commuting
About eight
in ten of the chief earners in black households get to work in a
private automobile and seven in ten own one. Many black household
heads ride with someone else—in fact the proportion is twice
as large as for others. Among nonblacks, almost 90 percent commute
in a private car, mostly by themselves.
Of the
remaining black household heads who commute to a job, twice as
large a proportion use some form of public transit—14 percent
compared to 7 percent for others (Table 7-19). Black workers report
the same reasons as everyone else for using a car to get to and
from the job: no convenient public transportation. Black workers
average about the same distance to work as others, but, mainly
because a larger proportion use the more time consuming public
transit, their trip takes a little longer. A number of studies
document how public transportation fails to meet the needs of
central city residents, and especially of black central city
residents, many of whose jobs are in places where commuting by
public transit would be very time consuming. Some studies go into
both time lost in waiting and transfers on particular bus
systems.
A larger
proportion of black men's wives than white men's wives work outside
the home (45 percent compared to 35 percent). Wives seldom
get