Washington Gasoline Use Declining

The Sightline Institute's Cascadia Scorecard was released last week and while British Columbia continues to show us how it's done on almost every environmental front (live longer, less energy use, less sprawl, more Canadian), the news ain't all bad for Washington. Gasoline consumption in our state declined again to 15.3 gallons a person a week, the lowest usage we've seen since 1967. Hybrids haven't really been in wide enough circulation to account for this, particularly since our downward trend stretches back to the late Eighties, but more fuel efficient vehicles have got to factor in there somewhere. Sightline is also reporting that we are actually driving less.

You can see from the graph that Canadians are still outpacing us by about a third and it's not shown here, but Germans use half the gasoline we do. Meanwhile our energy spending is going through the roof.