Faculty/staff feel crunch of rising gas prices
Commuters like Rene Dunnam, a business manager for the department of physics, are feeling the pain as gas pumps guzzle ever-growing portions of their take-home pay. Dunnam said that fuel costs for her and her husband, Jeff, have about doubled in recent months, and that they currently spend about $600 a month on gas to commute separately from their home near Gibson City to her job on campus and his job in Farmer City. Even though they drive fairly fuel-efficient vehicles, escalating fuel prices are taking a toll on their budget.
Kimber Blum, who is the associate director for identity assurance technology in the iCard Programs Office, estimated that she spends $17 per day for her and her son, Jon, a summer intern on campus, to commute from Mattoon. Although the Ford 500 they drive gets about 25 miles per gallon, Blum said she’s considering trading it for a more fuel-efficient model. She also plans to commute by Amtrak when possible; buying tickets in 10-packs would cut her commuting costs to $10 a day.
Dunnam and Blum also have posted notices on the Web site eRideShare.com, a free site that helps travelers connect with other people so they can share rides and expenses.
Donna Guzy, an administrative secretary and a co-worker of Dunnam, now carpools with two other employees from the St. Joseph area, adjusting her work schedule to accommodate theirs, and estimates she saves at least $80 a month on gas and another $20 by bringing her lunch more often.
“You have to adjust how you run errands, too,” Guzy said. “There’s a way of working it; you just have to think it through.”
High gas prices have prompted Dunnam to be more organized, keeping a list and doing as many errands as she can on her way home or on her lunch hour, reducing the number of trips she and her husband make to Champaign on the weekends.
“I used to go out to lunch four or five days a week,” Dunnam said. Now, she brings her lunch nearly every day.
And if gas prices continue their upward trend?
“I don’t have any place else to cut back,” Dunnam said.
Gas prices in the weeks leading up to Memorial Day prompted Guzy and her family to forgo a trip to Ohio for a grandnephew’s graduation.
Blum said that her annual trip to Alaska with her partner, Gail, and other family members this summer probably will cost $4,000 for fuel alone, a two-fold increase over their first trip two years ago. “It will be really tough to do it again this year,” Blum said.
Over a 10-week period, they will drive and tow a camper, selling handmade jewelry at markets and festivals, and will be participating in 15 shows instead of their usual three or four.
To save a few pennies at the pump, Dunnam subscribes to a text-messaging alert system that notifies her of impending price changes at her favorite gas station, and she circulates those alerts to co-workers.
Dunnam, who worked for a federal agency for 24 years before joining the UI’s staff eight years ago, said one of the perks at her previous job was a compressed work week that allowed employees to work 80 hours over a nine-day period and have an extra day off every two weeks. “That’s an option I’d really like to see them employ on campus,” Dunnam said, and added that employees with whom she discussed the idea were enthusiastic about it.
Campus officials said that currently there are no plans for a campuswide change to four-day work weeks. However, some units offer flexible work schedules and opportunities for faculty and staff members to work from home on occasion.
As rising fuel prices drive more motorists into hybrid and fuel-efficient vehicles, one commuter who’s way ahead of the pack is TWIKE owner Matt Childress. A research programmer in the Office of the Chancellor, Childress commutes from his home in southwest Champaign to campus in his TWIKE, a Swiss-designed, German-built human-electric hybrid vehicle that uses no gas.
The TWIKE, an acronym for “twin bikes,” is a three-wheeled, two-seater vehicle constructed of two side-by-side recumbent bicycles powered by pedaling and by nickel-cadmium batteries. The batteries can be recharged in less than two hours using a standard household outlet. Regenerative anti-lock brakes also capture energy from deceleration. Childress’ 10-year-old TWIKE, which is registered as a motorcycle and is one of about two dozen TWIKEs in the U.S., can travel 35-45 miles per charge with a top speed of 50-55 miles per hour.
A zero-point emissions vehicle, the TWIKE is eco-friendly, compact and easy to park, and pedaling helps Childress, an avid bicyclist, keep in shape.
Childress said he isn’t feeling smug though as he watches other motorists’ struggles with high fuel costs and sees them staring longingly at his TWIKE. “I just feel really sad for them, because even if they want to buy an electric vehicle, they’re really hard to come by,” Childress said.
To learn more about alternative fuels, the Environmental Protection Agency’s revised gas-mileage estimates for various vehicles and tax incentives for hybrid vehicles, visit t<>acronymhe U.S. Department of Energy’s Web site.
