Canadians love their cars so much that high fuel prices won't make most of us change our ways

If you are expecting clear sailing on the highways this coming long weekend because soaring gas prices have forcedall the other drivers except you, of course to leave their cars at home, you might want to think again.

Some motorists insist that $2-a-litre gasoline means they'll drive a lot less, but people who studyCanadians' love affair with their cars are skeptical and they have the research to back themup.

Canadian economists who have investigated the subject saythere are rationaleconomic reasons why people keep driving despite the rising cost of fuel.

And except for those on the tightest of budgets and with the most convenient alternatives, gas and diesel prices must be not just much higherbut predicted to stay high in order to convince most motorists to change their ways. People are willing to give up other things before they give up driving.

Still motoring

"The whole idea of the traditional economic 'the price goes up, people buy less' doesn't really apply when it comes to gas," Clarence Woudsmasaid from his vanat 8 a.m. oneday last week as he negotiated the roughly 60 kilometresfrom his home in Woodstock, Ont.,to the campus of the University of Waterloo, where he wasrunning aworkshop on how municipalitiesadapt toclimate change.

After the lessons of working from home during the pandemic,Woudsma, an associate professor at the southwestern Ontario university'sSchool of Planning and author of a book onfreight transport, makes the trip only when he needs to be at the campus.

But as withso many Canadians,there issimply nopracticalalternative. Commercial traffic, dependent on soaring diesel, has even fewer options, Woudsma said.

Statistics Canada said it doesn't have hard figures relating fuelprices to road traffic. U.S. data assembled by transport researcher Michael Sivak, while skewed by pandemic effects and an increase in commercial shipping, showed that even asprices went from the lowest in yearsto the highest, traffic did not fall as prices rose.

As economist Noha Razek explained on the phone last week, the economic principle is called elasticity, which she defines as "the responsiveness of consumption to the change in price."

In 2012, Razek, who is now an assistant professor of economics atthe University of Regina, co-authored a research report looking into how effective future carbon taxeswould be on fuel consumption. The report noted that the demand for fuel wasinelastic.

"If fuel went up to $10 a litre tomorrow, we would probably see a pretty dramatic change in behaviour," said Bruce Hellinga, a University of Waterloo engineeringprofessor who specializes in transportation. But, he noted,currentincreases simply aren't enough to compensatefor the perceived costs of switching to another mode of travel, especially in the short term.

Non-discretionary, no alternative

As with Woudsma's commute, many trips are what Hellinga calls "non-discretionary" such as getting towork, to the doctor or shopping for groceries and alternative modesof transportare unavailable, expensive or inconvenient.

Even when there are alternatives, Hellinga pointed tostudies looking at how to convince drivers to take public transit that show people think of time as a cost. And weekends away? They are also precious.

"People place a very high value on their recreational trips," Hellinga said, something confirmed by the Canadian Index ofWellbeing, which shows jaunts out into nature make people feel healthy and satisfied.

That means people who can afford the cost are willing to pay more. Even those on tight budgets will give up other expenditures for the continued convenience of driving, which is already expensive apart from gas,said Colleen Kaiser, a low carbon transportation specialist with the Smart Prosperity Institute, an environmentalthink-tank based at the University of Ottawa.

Buying less fuel doesn't cutthe high fixed costs invested in running a vehicle, such as purchase price or lease or loan payments andinsurance, she said. Depending on your vehicle and how much you're on the road, fuel costs may be a relatively small portion of total driving costs.

"The signal that carbon pricing will send your average person as it is related to driving behaviours is very weak," Kaiser said, addingthat is why many experts are looking for alternativemethods, beyondcarbon taxes, of convincing people to move away from fossil-fuelled transport.

Seductive and addictive

Research by economistsSumeet Gulatiand Werner Antweilerat the University of British Columbia in Vancouver shows that the advantages of personal mobility are seductive, even addictive.

"People don't seem to be able to make switches to either driving less or changing transportation modes," Antweilersaid. "But the research I've done with my colleague ... points to a somewhat different picture in the long term."

WATCH | Canadians face sticker shock at the gas pump:

Canadians face sticker shock at gas pumps

2 years ago

Duration 3:50

Canadians continue to contend with record-high gas prices. Meanwhile, rising fuel costs are also driving up the price of everything else as transport costs get passed on to consumers.

Those deciding whether to start driving may concludeit is too expensive. If people believeprices are likely tostay high, they are willing to make changes in their lifestyle, such as movingcloser to work or to somewhere with good public transit, but thosekinds of decisions take time.

Antweiler says the most common option for those already hooked onthe pleasures of driving seen in Europe and following the 1970s oil crisis in North America is toswitchto amore fuel-efficient vehicle.

In the modern context, that may be a hybrid or an electric vehicle. Although such vehicles are currently in short supply, he expects that switch to happen again.

"First, people need to believe these pricechanges are permanent, not temporary," Antweilersaid, and then the change will come gradually as drivers replace their aging cars."People see that prices are higher and say, 'OK, maybe the next car I'm going to buy isn't going to consume 12 litres per hundred kilometres, but maybe only eight or six."

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