Tom Keane

Bring on the gas hikes

Until we feel pain at the pump, sermons on conservation ring hollow

THE LAST time I thought about buying a more fuel-efficient car was in June 2008, when the per-gallon cost of gas spiked above $4. There was a sense of panic amongst us drivers back then, with some experts warning prices would climb even higher — to $6 or more.

But I hesitated, and my vacillation was well-rewarded. Three months later, prices fell like a rock, dropping to $1.59 by the end of the year. All of you who had paid a premium for a new Prius had been fooled. Meanwhile I kept driving my 18 mpg Honda Pilot. Lousy fuel economy, true, but really, why should I care? Gas was cheap. Some people fondly remember when gas was under 50 cents, but — adjusted for inflation — the $2 or less I was paying was actually as low as it had ever been.

Nowadays, admittedly, I’m starting to get nervous again. The average price of gas in the United States has climbed to $3.90 a gallon. In Boston — according to GasBuddy.com — it’s higher: $3.93 at a Hess in South Boston; $4.29 at the Shell at Massachusetts and Columbus avenues. A fill-up costing over $70 can definitely leave one nonplussed. I find myself spending more time than usual poring over the automotive pages, reading reviews and getting prices for hybrids and other small cars. I’m even wondering whether it might make sense to invest in an all-electric like the Volt.

But I think, like before, I’m going to wait it out. “Peak oil’’ theorists argue that someday soon — maybe even now — we’re going to run out of new oil supplies and prices will rise permanently. Maybe. But today’s rise seems more ephemeral, a consequence of the Arab Spring, the newly reviving economy, and speculation by oil traders. Indeed, a week ago per-barrel prices were almost $105. Now they are down in the high $90s. Gas, I’m betting, will soon be inexpensive again.

Some probably find this anti-green attitude appalling. There is, many would likely point out, a real cost to oil that I’m missing. Our dependence on imports from the Middle East means that our economic interests are inextricably tied to that deeply troubled part of the world, embroiling us in wars that — absent oil — we almost certainly wouldn’t be fighting. Moreover, carbon-based fuels such as petroleum emit CO2, the cause of global climate change. Motor fuels account for 47 percent of the 19.1 million barrels the United States consumes every day. If we could just double our fuel efficiency from today’s average of 22.6 mpg (easy to do if everyone drove a hybrid), we’d consume 1.6 billion barrels less annually — almost equal to the amount we import each year. That alone would dramatically cut carbon emissions and would probably give us the political latitude to manage our relationships in the Middle East far differently than we do now.

All of that may be true. But economics is the principal driver of our behavior. War and global climate change are no doubt a true cost of oil, but they’re not reflected at the pump. And as long as the pump price for gas is cheap, I — and millions of other Americans — will continue to act as if it is, in fact, cheap. In other words, we’ll be wasteful.

To change that, the price of gas would have to be higher. But the reaction from Washington to the recent price rise has gone in exactly the opposite direction. Far from being happy about expensive gas and the energy conservation that it would induce, Democrats and Republicans alike are trying to push prices down. There are proposals to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Pols are saying they’ll get tough on price gougers. And President Obama has just announced he’ll be pushing for more domestic drilling.

“Drill, baby, drill’’ is apparently now a bipartisan slogan.

Of course, they are simply responding to what we, the public, are telling them. We may say we favor cutting oil use, but we still want cheap gas. The two notions are incompatible. Sermons about conserving and gauzy ads about being green don’t work. If you really want me to reduce my gasoline consumption, you have to make it worth my while.

Originally published in the Boston Globe.

Menino’s top-down vision gives Kenmore a boost

A DECADE ago, Kenmore Square woke up only on Red Sox game days. The other 284 days a year it felt sleepy and decrepit, like some beach town in midwinter. No more. Along with Boylston Street in the West Fenway, the area is transforming into an entertainment mecca bustling with a mix of restaurants, retailers, and new residents drawn in by its newfound exuberance. Compare that to Kendall Square, just two miles away in Cambridge. That area is as sterile as the biotech labs that have made it their home, an arid and lifeless patch that at night can sometimes seem positively scary.

The destiny of neither place was foreordained. Indeed, the contrast between the two is striking precisely because they are both so similar. Each is the result of the intersection of several major roads — Broadway and Main Street in Kendall Square, and Commonwealth Avenue, Brookline Avenue, and Beacon Street in Kenmore Square. Each is anchored by an MBTA stop. MIT abuts Kendall Square; Boston University half-surrounds Kenmore. Each is close to residential areas. Historically, the commercial building stock near both squares was dominated by warehouses. Each too has its own movie theater nearby — mass market in Boston and, as befits its image, art-house in Cambridge. In fact, each has its own brewpub.

So why the difference? In large measure, it comes down to the way each city is run.

Cambridge is more a town than a city, with an elected council that squabbles about issues (as is typical of city and town legislative bodies) and a hired city manager — Robert Healy — who actually administers the place. There is a mayor, of sorts, elected by the members of the council, but the position is largely ceremonial.

Boston, on the other hand, has the classic form of big-city governance: strong mayor, weak council. Tom Menino has clout not only because he’s mastered the levers of power during his 18-year tenure, but because the city charter gives him extraordinary latitude to hire, fire, and push through whatever he wants. The City Council’s principal check on him is its power to approve the annual budget. But even here, its influence is limited: It can cut the budget, but not increase it, nor can it reallocate spending among different departments. The vote is essentially up or down and — as Republicans in Washington recently discovered — voting no and shutting down a government is politically dangerous.

Cambridge represents a bottom-up model of ideas bubbling to the surface from a wide variety of sources. It’s small-d democracy in action. Boston is the reverse: a top-down model where the mayor’s office is in near absolute control. If Cambridge is a democracy, Boston is an autocracy.

The difference is clearest when it comes to real estate development. Good development requires two things: a single vision and the political power to push that vision through to reality. Cambridge has no lack of great ideas, but its system gives no one person the authority to pick and choose. Moreover, its surfeit of democracy emboldens the great killer of development — the NIMBY attitude of those who oppose any change. Kendall Square seems a consequence of the aimlessness that results from this formula: lots of good pieces, but nothing that holds together into a coherent whole.

Kenmore Square, conversely, reflects vision and power. The official fiction is the Boston Redevelopment Authority bears responsibility for all development. That’s true, but with a major caveat: The BRA is controlled by the mayor — meaning that the vision and power ultimately stem from Menino’s office. That’s not to say the plans taking shape in the area are all Menino’s; the ideas come from the BRA, developers, and community groups such as the Fenway Community Development Corporation. But ultimately they have to pass the mayor’s muster and secure his backing.

There are downsides to this, of course, many of them well known. Developers on the mayor’s good side get their projects through. Those who have angered him — such as Don Chiofaro, who wants to build a tower on the waterfront — find their proposals sidelined, merit notwithstanding. And of course, making development into something political can mean that a mediocre vision gets built or that great ideas are watered down.

All of these criticisms are true. But in city-building, results matter. Cambridge’s governance feels good. Boston’s gets things done.

Originally published in the Boston Globe.