If you had asked me five years ago which would come first: 1) my turning 60 years of age, or 2) my paying $3.50 a gallon for gasoline, I would have said with all the certainty I could have mustered that it would be my 60th birthday.

And I would have been wrong.

Yesterday, I paid $3.50 a gallon for 11.4 gallons of gasoline. It cost me $40 for three-quarters of a tank. A full tank would have cost $56.

It's outrageous.

So what's my solution to that problem? Well, I decided two years ago that I'd limit my driving as much as possible -- the bare necessities. Last year, I drove between 4,000 and 5,000 miles -- that's less than 100 miles a week for the entire year. I'm on pace to do that again this year.

At that rate, I can make a tank of gasoline last for about three weeks.

I understand, however, that everyone is not so fortunate as to be able to do that. I know my solution will not be everyone's solution.

Frankly, I'm not sure there are very many solutions to this particular problem. Let's see: Drive fewer miles. Don't drive at all. Or, buy a car that gets more miles to the gallon. That's about it.

Other solutions -- car pooling, for example -- are simply a variation of driving less or not driving at all.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has a solution, but it's not a solution designed to reduce this country's dependence on gasoline or fossil fuels; it's intended to cut the cost of gasoline. He's proposed a gas tax holiday. One whole summer

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during which the federal gas tax wouldn't be collected.

That means 18.4 cents per gallon for the federal gas tax and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel tax lopped off the top between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

That's not really solving the problem.

In fact, it only perpetuates the problem because it doesn't discourage consumers from buying or using gas. Actually, it encourages people to buy more gas at a slightly reduced price.

So it would make more sense to adopt Gov. Ed Rendell's proposal of 18 months ago, wherein the state's liquid fuels tax would increase by 12.5 cents a gallon -- on top of 31.2 cents a gallon, one of the highest in the nation. But that went nowhere because of the public outcry. Still, that might have discouraged people from buying gasoline.

Yes, McCain's plan might temporarily ease the financial burden on low- and middle-income consumers. There'd be a tiny bit of relief for some folks, I suppose -- a few dollars a week, about enough to buy a half-dozen 43-cent stamps. But on a tank of gasoline, there wouldn't be enough savings to buy a McDonald's Happy Meal.

And that's hardly worth the downside of such a proposal -- it would deprive the federal Highway Trust
Fund of $8 billion to $10 billion a year in revenue. That's money that would be used to maintain roads and bridges across this country.

America's roads and bridges deserve better than that. Especially those located in Pennsylvania and, specifically, in York County.

And if Congress decides to simply replace the money missing from the Highway Trust Fund with dollars from the general fund, that only creates a huge hole in another area of the budget.

That's not the answer. Not in the short term. And surely not in the long term.

Columns by Larry A. Hicks, Dispatch columnist, run Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. E-mail: lhicks@yorkdispatch.com.