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gas prices

#21
Yeah, its just a shame N. American cities are designed the way they are. the Europeans are much more advanced in this way.

When I bought my condo two years ago I purposely bought in an area where everything is close by. Light Rail Transit is a 5 min. walk. Large university (SFU) is 10 minute bus ride for my son when he gets older. Large mall and grocery stores are about a 10 minute walk. Basically everything is close. The trade-off is that I am living in an urban environment and many prefer rural which I understand. I guess its just going to cost more to live in a rural area... at least for transportation.

Again my ideal is cycling to work. I want to get a job in the local school district so I could cycle no more than 18km across the district. I cycled 17km each way in University and was better off for it physically than I am now. It gets a little cold in the winter but with the right clothing, its bearable. After 5 minutes the sweat starts and you're not cold anymore anyway. Ah, memories...
 
#23
mike_v_s said:
That was the point of TheBigO's post....the two situations are nearly incomparable. Our country is more spread out and our mass transit system is nearly useless for most of the people in a given metropolitan area. Europeans get by because they don't drive as much on the whole as we do and they don't have to.

Aside from my sporadic driving schedule, my office is 37 miles away. My daughters' school is one mile and they sure as hell aren't walking there. The closest grocer to me is 2 miles away. As far as other shops, I have to go no less than a mile for beer, a haircut, etc. Walking isn't impossible and I do it on occassion, but it is highly inconvenient. My situation is probably average for most Americans.

I agree, there might be a bit more bitching than necessary, but many people are being pinched and aren't in a situation where they can alter their driving habits much.

Mike
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Europe as a whole is roughly the same size in land as the US. It's Americans own fault for basing their lives around cheap gas. I'm currently setting up my situation where I don't have to have a car. Americans should use Europeans as examples and beging changing their lifestyles.
 
#24
Bad Brains said:
Europe as a whole is roughly the same size in land as the US. It's Americans own fault for basing their lives around cheap gas. I'm currently setting up my situation where I don't have to have a car. Americans should use Europeans as examples and beging changing their lifestyles.
Click to expand...

As much of a troll post as this is, I can't help but agree. I really don't feel sorry when I see people driving their SUVs, trucks etc. and then complaining about gas prices. I do feel bad for the select few who genuinely need a truck to haul things, but 95% of the pickups I see on the road have an empty bed. Most people would be better off buying smaller cars and then renting a truck for the one day of the year they actually need to haul something. Or just have an old work truck on the side rather than daily driving an F150 or an Explorer. Good for you if you actually use your truck though.
 
#25
My solution:

Kawasaki-Ninja-250R-1.jpg
 
#28
Bad Brains said:
Europe as a whole is roughly the same size in land as the US.
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I wasn't arguing the physical size of the continent. The size comparison does not address the disparity in mass transit. Let's not even get into the lack of sidewalks and bike paths to make those modes of transportation more viable. The US is not Europe and we can't really model our lifestyle after them without a lot of change in the infrastructure.
It's Americans own fault for basing their lives around cheap gas.
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Hey, it's a paradigm that much of America has lived with since you were born. I think their spending habits reflect what they've come to expect. No blood no foul up to this point in my opinion. Now that we've seen that this trend is unlikely to revert itself, I'm more inclined to be less compassionate about the situation some people put themselves in. HOWEVER, some people simply can't drop the gas guzzler they've owned for a while and get a decent value on a trade in that will do the same thing and get decent gas mileage. For these people, I feel sorry.

If a product has been X percent of your budget for 15 years with little movement aside from the expected gradual increase, you tend to assume it will stay there. I don't fault people for thinking this.
I'm currently setting up my situation where I don't have to have a car. Americans should use Europeans as examples and beging changing their lifestyles.
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Again, great idea, but just not practical for most of the country. I hunted jobs for 9 months before I found one that paid what I needed it to and didn't require me to sell my soul. That job is 37 miles from my home. I'm not moving closer because the cost of living, crime rate, etc are higher than I like. I'm not going to bike to work. There is no mass transit system to take me there. Hell, even I live IN New Orleans, there's no mass transit system set up to get me anywhere close to the office. It's just not feasible. I'm glad you're working it out, just understand the limitations of your idea.

Mike
 
#29
I don't know about "troll" so much as misinformed.

Yes, Europe as a whole is bigger than the contiguous US. Then again, it has 2.5 times the population and many of its towns and villages have existed for hundreds of years before the advent of the automobile.

I've lived in Europe. I've lived in the US. It's FAR easier to get by without a car in the former.

I don't have sympathy for SUV mom's either, but that's not the end of the cultural differences. Even with a gas efficient car in the US, you are driving a lot more than in Europe. Like it or not, we are a car culture.

And it's very easy to say that people should change their lives, but very difficult in practice. My stepfather is a salesman. Without getting a new job at his age (he's 54), how exactly can he mitigate the effects of rising gas prices?
 
#31
Brad Barker said:
i'm really interested in learning about when america will start building plants that'll convert our vast coal reserves into (diesel) oil via the fischer-tropsch process.



considering that the cost of oil is around $120/barrel and showing no sign of decreasing, this option looks economically enticing. i think there's also work being done to help with the carbon dioxide emissions, which is a bit of a concern. :/
Click to expand...
Very good post! The FT process has been around a long time. The company that I work for is building a powerplant based on coal gasification, which sounds similar. It will produce lots of megawatts from coal without polluting nearly as much as the current coal plants do. I'll look for an article on it...

Edit- Here you go: Invalid Link Removed
 
#33
My whole point is, yes it's going to be difficult to change our lifestyles, and it's not going to be done overnight, at it may be impracticle for some, but it's something we are going to HAVE to do whether we like it or not.

Gas prices are never going back down to the way they were. They are most likley going to increase. So this doesn't leave us with a lot of options.
 
#36
mike_v_s said:
My daughters' school is one mile and they sure as hell aren't walking there
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Why not? A mile is nothing. When I was at school, I walked slightly more than a mile there, and the same back every day. Even at primary school. 2 miles a day, 5 days a week for 14 years. Never did me any harm. In fact it did me a hell of a lot of good! My gf used to live 2 miles away, and I would walk it regularly. She now lives 1.5 miles away, which is nicer I guess, but it is all uphill to get there...
 
#38
We have very large untapped reserves within the USA and more is found every year, enough to supply our own need for decades. We aren't drilling for any of it because the environmentalists object. Their goal seems to me to be not mainly environmental so much as political. They have also prevented us building any new refineries in the last thirty years, contributing to the high prices. Also, no nuclear and no coal, which is very plentifull. In short the high prices are our own fault.
 
#39
This is America reaping what it sowed with stuff like single-use zoning regulations, basically necessitating driving everywhere. As a British expat, I do miss being able to actually walk places or take a bus instead of having to drive everywhere.

People are definitely downsizing their cars though - when I go past car dealerships, I've been seeing quite a difference lately... look at a Honda dealership, there's loads of Ridgelines, Elements, etc, but no Civics or Fits. Go past a Toyota dealership, and I see loads of Highlanders, Tundras, Sequoias, etc, but no Yarises, Priuses or Corollas (and definitely no Scions)... seems they must be having a bit of a run on them! Even the fugly new Ford Focus seems to be selling out everywhere... all of a sudden, anything that gets over 30mpg is in big demand.
 

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