Suburbs aren't a wasteland — they even have brie out here

Child care, not soaring fuel costs, led to my recent, brief stint telecommuting, and the experiment was rewarding from a financial, parenting and policy standpoint.

Good news: I saved a half tank of gas!

Bad news: Reports of the demise of the automobile are greatly exaggerated.

I have discovered my car, my suburban lifestyle and I can coexist.

That's likely to be disappointing news to many. The New York Times recently published essays from writers expressing the national angst over skyrocketing gas prices. The mood was funereal.

One was titled "Goodbye to the Great American Road Trip," and needs no further explanation. "Ghosts of the Cul-de-sac" announced, a tad gleefully, a mass exodus from the suburbs and exurbs as people escape their cars for city living.

Blog postings on the subject ranged from expressions of schadenfreude to something more venal. Suburbanites are stereotyped as gas guzzlers commuting to McMansions, the values of which are dropping like granite countertops. One poster predicted rising gas prices will scatter suburbanites like rodents. OK, I like cheese — particularly soft brie — but comparing us to rats? Not as bad, however, as the poster who crowed that the rise of gas prices was for commuters, "the chickens coming home to roost."

I get the fear and pessimism. We're all reeling, and relief is not forthcoming. The World Petroleum Congress is meeting this week in Madrid, Spain. But the Saudis and other OPEC oil ministers are more likely to concur on the best tapas than agree to lower the price of crude oil.

Barring a change in price, we're going to have to change the level of demand. It has already started. Cruising is down, making the drive along West Seattle's Alki Beach doable in less than two hours. Farther from home, driving on empty is up. AAA reports a 7 percent increase in calls from Southern California motorists running out of gas.

Yet, the rise-and-fall-of-the-suburbs-type prognostications march on unchallenged. But jumping on the for-sale signs littering the landscape as symbolic of an American shift to living next door to work is premature. Right now, empty houses are more about the subprime-mortgage fallout than gas mileage.

The urge to blame someone — who better than affluent suburbanites and their cars? — is understandable, but a waste. Smart public policy will fail if its relies on emotional attempts to lure people back to the city or offer a bike for every garage.

Better solutions are to continue efforts belatedly launched around telecommuting, fuel-efficient vehicle standards and increasing funding for public transit.

Of course we should have seen this coming, whether we live in the city or a rural hamlet. Demand for fuel-efficient cars has resonance now, but Congress and Detroit automakers made sure we were slow getting to this point.

Now we'll have to dig into our collective pockets to pay for light rail, buses and additional lanes on our highways.

The need is dire. State transportation officials often present worse-case scenarios to get our attention, but one prediction is untenable at the lowest and highest ends. By 2030, the portion of Interstate 90 running through Issaquah will slow to 30 miles per hour as a rising population runs into stagnant road planning. Traffic is expected to increase from 43 percent to 72 percent in this area.

Similar predictions can be made about roadways from Mercer Street in Seattle to Route 202 on the Eastside. In the languid days of summer, it is easy to agree our problems will be eased by getting out of our cars, selling our homes for close-in condos or simply busing ourselves across Lake Washington. When the water sparkles like clear gems, as it has the last few days, I, too, am vulnerable to such fantasy.

Then I snap out of it.

The suburbs aren't dead. They're more vibrant than ever. Technology has pushed the work-at-home concept and large employers such as Microsoft have turned the burbs into employment centers. City dwellers aren't the only ones interested in doing errands on foot. Planning for suburban communities includes retail, employment and entertainment options that operate as mini-Seattles.

More creativity, less blame, can give us four-day work weeks, telecommutes and a viable school option across the street rather than across town.

Gas-guzzling suburbanites and sweaty bicycle-riding urbanites unite!

Lynne K. Varner's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is lvarner@seattletimes.com; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to www.seattletimes.com/edcetera