The market forces of supply and demand are slugging it out while metro Atlanta motorists watch the fuel gauge with trepidation. The fuel shortage brought on by Hurricane Ike more than two weeks ago is squeezing commuters and employers alike. And it may still be another two weeks before the situation improves. It's a helpless feeling as commuters wait in long lines at the pump and employers wonder if their employees will make it to work.

Fortunately, The Clean Air Campaign and its partners in the region can connect you with resources to help you cope with the fuel shortage.

For Commuters:
1. Share the ride with other commuters who live and work near you to save gas. RideSmart, the region's carpool ridematching service, can give you an instant match list of potential carpool partners. When you receive your match list, a simple phone call is all it takes to broker the deal.

2. If your job is conducive to telework, talk to your boss about working from home for a couple of weeks until the gas shortage abates. Approach it as a business continuity arrangement, so your boss understands that you're trying to keep your workload moving forward.

3. If it's available near you, ride a bus or train to and from work. Click here for links to all the major transit providers operating in the region, like the GRTA Xpress Bus, Cobb County Transit, MARTA and others.

For Employers:
1. Consider allowing your employees to shift their work schedules so they can avoid rush hour traffic and fill up. Another option would be temporarily instituting a compressed work schedule in which employees work four 10-hour days and take the fifth day off to avoid commuting.

2. Encourage your employees to brown bag their lunches to avoid driving over the lunch hour. Use the opportunity to set up a lunch and learn mini-series at your worksite and have company leadership come in and speak on topics related to your organization's mission.

3. Put your business continuity plan into effect now. If you have drafted a plan that includes a contingency for employees that are unable to travel to your worksite, use it for the next two weeks. If nothing else, the gas shortage makes a good proving ground for the effectiveness of your continuity plan.

This latest chapter in the Great Gas Crunch of 2008 underscores the importance of alternatives to driving alone and driving at all. This year's sharp increase in enrollment in The Clean Air Campaign's incentive programs (up three times over last year) -- and the spike in new employer Partners (double last year's effort) -- is a sign that changes to our driving culture can be made to stick.

So, what has this latest wrinkle done to change your commuting habits? Do you foresee the need to burn a vacation day if you can't get to work? Have any employers come up with creative solutions to keep their operations moving forward? Let us know what you're doing.

Gas prices this year have been a wild ride.

The average price of a gallon of gas in Atlanta rose 33% between January 1 and June 30. And with each painful trip to the pump, our vocabulary was enriched through phrases like "light sweet crude," "E85" and "petroleum reserves" ... and a few words that cannot be repeated here.

Certainly, crossing the $4-a-gallon threshold has motivated people to drive less. Nationwide, June marked the eighth consecutive month that the number of miles driven on our interstates declined. And from May through July, The Clean Air Campaign experienced a 1,800% spike in the number of commuters who currently drive alone who were ready to make the switch (and earn an incentive) compared to the same period last year.

But in August, the price at the pump began to retreat. The marquees at the gas stations have rolled back from $3.99 to $3.69 in the past two weeks. And while we recognize the cost of gas is still hurting our wallets, many commuters are preconditioned to feel like the recent slide in prices is providing significant relief.

How do you feel about gasoline’s wild ride? Is the latest decline causing you to change your commute behavior and drive solo again? Or are you sticking with an alternative mode? Let us know what’s different for you – or what remains the same – in the wake of lower prices at the pump.

Welcome to our new blog. We’ll use this forum to address a variety of topics central to our mission of clearing the air and improving traffic; topics we hear about every day, affecting our wallets, our health and our quality of life.

Read any paper or watch any newscast and, chances are, the lead stories cover the subjects The Clean Air Campaign team works on every day: Traffic congestion is causing delays. Gas prices are eating into our budgets. Smog is affecting our health and the health of our children. Georgia’s transportation funds are shrinking while the costs of improvements continue to skyrocket.

Over the coming months, we’ll share our thoughts about how best to address these challenges. We’ll also invite some guest bloggers – employers and commuters – to contribute their thoughts and their success stories. But most importantly, we’re looking forward to hearing from you.

The first thing I’d like to hear about is something that's already on everyone’s mind – gas prices. Analysts predict that gas may hit $5 a gallon in our current economy and may even go as high as $7 a gallon within four years. While we're not there yet, we're certainly on the way. What effect is $4 a gallon gas really having on you? We know it’s making a difference to thousands of people – June was a record month for us, with more than 1,700 people signing up for our incentive program, Cash for Commuters (demand was so high we burnt up a fax machine!).

Are you making changes to your driving habits? What are you doing? If you’re not changing your ways, why not? Have you found any creative ways to improve gas mileage?

We have a few recommendations to get the best MPG possible, but we’re curious to hear more from you. Let us know. Until then, bookmark us and join the conversation. You can also connect to us on MySpace and through our new homepage poll.