Running off the Road by Grover Kingsley 10 The long reign of the automobile in America is finally coming to an end—and it’s about time. According to a 2012 study done by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, rates of car ownership peaked in 2006 and are now declining. People are driving fewer miles per year than they did in the past. Most importantly, car ownership among young adults has become less popular than it was two decades ago, when 85% of 19-year olds owned cars. That number has dropped to 70%. 11 Reasons for this trend are not hard to find. Cars are expensive. The cost of owning a car averages $8,876 per year. Driving to and from work on a daily basis, especially in areas where traffic jams are part of the daily driving experience, is stressful. Commuting time is “lost time” if you’re driving. Using public transit, such as buses or trains, allows people to enjoy reading or spending time productively working on their mobile devices while they ride. 12 As U. S. metropolitan areas continue to grow, people now have access to public transit or live within a comfortable biking or walking distance to work. Furthermore, new, techsavvy businesses offer ways for people to avoid the costs and problems associated with owning a car in a big city, such as parking and sky-high insurance payments. New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Los Angeles are just a few of the big cities with thriving car-sharing and carpooling systems that use websites and mobile apps to hook customers up with a car when they need one. Taking cars completely out of the equation, bike-share programs attract thousands of commuters looking for a way to combine exercise with their commute. Even in the extreme-weather capital Minneapolis, Minnesota, a whopping 3,500 commuters bundle up and bike to work along the city’s Midtown Greenway. 13 A sense of responsibility about the environment, pollution, and greenhouse gases is also causing a move away from cars. The auto is a huge contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The EPA reports that in 2012, a whopping 28% of emissions came from transportation. With their largely petroleum-based fuel, cars constantly spew carbon monoxide into the air. 14 Gone are the days when owning and operating a car was either joyful or exciting. These days, the joy of the open road seems to exist only in a few remote areas and on television commercials for high-performance cars. The reality, however, is that cars no longer free us. Instead, they entrap us in their cost and maintenance, in the stress they produce, in their pollutants, and in their contribution to global warming. People are finally and rightly throwing off the chains of the automobile. ©Curriculum Associates, LLC Copying is not permitted. Assessment 1 71 62 It’s almost impossible to imagine our nation, or our nation’s history, without the automobile. But times change, and the benefits of the car may no longer outweigh some of its effects. Is the automobile still a good thing for America? Write an argumentative essay in which you take a position on whether the car needs to remain central in the lives of most Americans, or whether it is time to think in new ways about transportation. Make sure to include information from all the passages in your essay. Manage your time carefully so that you can • read the passages; • plan your essay; • write your essay; and • revise and edit your essay. Be sure to • include a claim; • address counterclaims; • use evidence from multiple sources; and • avoid overly relying on one source. Your writing should be in the form of a well-organized, multi-paragraph essay. Write your answer on the lines provided. You have 90 minutes to read the passages and plan, write, revise, and edit your essay.