By Gareth McGrath from the Wilmington Star-News

As an environmental attorney trying to promote smart transportation practices in the South, David Farren often saw his overtures fall on deaf ears. Issues such as worsening air pollution, declining water quality and a drop in quality of life only went so far in persuading people to change development patterns, and they won him few friends in places like sprawl-happy Atlanta.

Then gas prices started to spike. Suddenly, people are knocking on Farren’s door, and they’re willing to listen.

“You talk about $4 gas and now you’ve got the average Joe scratching his head and asking questions,” said Farren, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “People suddenly are seeing all of the detrimental effects of our unsustainable growth patterns.”

Across the country, Americans are wondering: What happened at the gas station? Gas prices didn’t even cross the $1-per-gallon threshold in the South in April 1999. Just eight years later, they hover around $4, and many economists predict there’s more pain at the pump to come.

With surging fuel prices driving the cost of everything from food to home energy bills skyward, people are looking for financial relief.

An obvious choice is to change their driving patterns. But that is easier said than done here in the South, said Mark Cipolletti, vice president for Access America, a Richmond, Va.-based consumer travel company.

A national survey conducted earlier this month by Access America found nearly four times as many people would rather cut back on driving than try carpooling, mass transit or other alternative forms of transport.

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