New Search
TRANSPORTATION TRANSACTIONS <br /> Table 3 on page five contains highlights of modestly. In calendar year 2008, motor fuel <br /> annual rates of change in a number of volumes declined by 3.5 percent from 2007. <br /> <br /> transactions for the major transportation The second half of the year witnessed a <br /> variables in the current forecast. A supporting particularly large drop. From the peak <br /> narrative of the Motor Fuels, Motor Carrier, volumes established in late 2006, usage is <br /> and Driver and Motor Vehicles forecasts is only off by about nearly 4 percent for the 25- <br /> <br /> providedbelow. month span since. <br /> All in all, the drop off is not quite as bad as <br /> elsewhere and nationwide. For the nation as a <br /> whole, the reports indicate declines on the <br /> Mofor Fuels Usage order of 5 percent; or about four-tenths more <br /> dramatic as what we are witnessing in Oregon <br /> With the price of regular unleaded cracking so far into this business cycle. <br /> <br /> the $4 per gallon barrier this past spring, we <br /> have a ood indication of the oint at which Several factors account for this contrast and <br /> g p the relativel muted dro -offs in Ore on. <br /> "demand destruction" in the market for y p g <br /> <br /> transportation fuelsl occurs. Heretofore, <br /> lin n i 1 f 1 r m First, while the price hikes have been sizeable <br /> gaso e a d d ese ue uses see ed to <br /> n in 11 f x i n f r h in -and on an-inflation-adjusted basis, at all <br /> cot ua y de y e pectat o s o t e po tat <br /> which travel demand atterns would chan e time highs - we can be sure that the decline m <br /> p g fuels demand is not entirel due to rice <br /> measurably. It didn't materialize at $3 in the y p <br /> immediate after-effects of Hurricanes Katrina sensitivity. <br /> and Rita in 2005, nor during the driving Second the ace of economic activit in the <br /> season of 2006. B the summer of 2007 p y <br /> y state is a far more potent driver for usage than <br /> <br /> prices persistently in the neighborhood of $3 rice effects themselves within reasonable <br /> and more seemed to have finall taken hold of p ' <br /> y limits of course. Two elements surface in this <br /> drivers' attitudes somewhat. re and in so far as the rice elasticit is <br /> g p y <br /> This is rett much as we have maintained in concerned. The first is that job gains <br /> p y disa eared statewide be innin in the s rin <br /> our past narratives: prices affect drivers' pp g g p g <br /> behavior with a la and moreover transitor quarter of 2008. Moreover, this is not <br /> g' y ex ected to be reversed until well into the <br /> <br /> price spikes have only a fleeting impact in p <br /> alterin asoline and diesel fuel usa e. When later part of 2009, at the soonest. Second, as <br /> g g g develo ed in more detail immediatel below, <br /> <br /> the price hikes are perceived to be long p y <br /> lastin drivers' shifts in reducin overall what may be occurring is that the gas price <br /> g' g ressures on the state's econom are affectin <br /> usage start to occur with more permanency. p y g <br /> transportation fuel sales m a multifaceted <br /> From almost an vanta e oint, the dro in way. Drivers continue to make short-run <br /> y g p p ad'ustments in their drivin and trans ortation <br /> <br /> the demand for transportation fuels is ~ g p <br /> unmistakable. For the first art of 2008, mode habits, they start to make choices over <br /> p the fuel efficienc of their vehicles and the <br /> motor fuels sales were lower, althou h onl Y , , y <br /> g y have to do considerable belt ti htenin and <br /> g g <br /> 1 And indeed, closer to $4.75 for diesel fuel. <br /> 6 <br /> <br />