Bonus1299
From Environmental Technology
Bonus Essay Number 2
The article "Rising gas prices hit cities, school districts" explores the effect that high gas prices has on cities and schools.
Because gas is almost at three dollars a gallon, it makes keeping police patrol cars and school buses fueled up rather hard. Some of the cities and school districts mentioned in this article do not have enough money budgeted for this fiscal year for gasoline. So on one side, there is not enough money, but on the other hand, they are forced to keep running school buses, for example. Without school buses, half of the kids in the school district would not be able to come to school each day. And patrol cars are very important to keep our roads and neighborhoods safe. You would not want to call the police about something and have them say, "We're sorry, we can't make it to your house because our police cars are out of gas" So what are they to do?
Well one option is to convert the buses and police cars over to ones that can use alternative fuels such as electricity and natural gas. Some of the cities mentioned have already started doing this, and are quoted as saying that it helped cut down their fuel costs tremendously. Also, vehicles that use alternative fuels are a lot cleaner and don't pollute the environment.
So some cities are going to exceed their budgets, and some are applying for grants to help them switch over to alternative vehicles. And I bet that all of them are praying for gas prices to go down.
