I’ve seen more and more Richmonders getting around on two wheels, both motorized and non-motorized. It makes me happy to see this. Personally, I’ve been walking as much as I can so as to stretch out my gas tank as long as possible. The last time I filled up my tank was at the end of April, and I’m aiming to have it last till the end of June.
It is kicking me in the ass already. No more bargain bin DVD’s at Walmart for me. When it costs me nearly 40 dollars to fill up my Honda Civic, it is time to change my ways.
Cold be worse. Here in Nashville, they’re cutting back public transit. MTA needs $3 million more, mostly due to higher oil prices, and instead Metro is cutting their budget by $400k.
Guess I’m going to have to get a car for the first time in my life, since my route is being eliminated. Yay, whee.
I’m much more worried about the incredible leap in Diesel prices. In the last 2-3 weeks, it’s gone from $4.39-ish to a high of $5.29 in my area. If the trucks cost that much more to run, the food they carry will leap in price…
Joe
The great thing about the UK, though, is that you have a fairly efficient train system. There is no passenger rail service to my city of 72,000. Freight comes through, but no passenger trains. The nearest station for passenger rail is 120 miles away. Comparing the UK to the US is apples and oranges.
Right now, it seems like it’s no big deal for many people to move thousands of miles away from home. Low fuel prices have made it relatively easy to get home to see Grandma twice a year. I expect that this will change in the future.
If the incentive is enough, people will. Something like this on a larger and more expensive scale is already happening in Fort mcMurray, isn’t it? People come out to the oil sands, make a ridiculous amount of money in a year or two, then go back home and buy a house.
A three-day weekend might make it possible to have a second job during the day, though, instead of in the evening. It’s almost large enough for a second shift, so to speak.
I think that rising energy costs will ultimately make us all effectively poorer. 
DeathLlama and I were talking about this just this morning. We are very grateful that our work commutes are nominal (mine is about 12 miles roundtrip, his about 5). Our adjustments are minor–we’re using hubby’s compact car more for pleasure drives, and I have to wonder if maybe we should switch vehicles for work commutes (even if they are small). My truck, used outside the work commute for horse-related chores and transport (as well as teransporting DeathLlama’s students’ instruments, chairs, stands, and such–he’s a music teacher), gets about 15mpg on surface streets. Hubby’s gets about 25-30.
It also made us rethink our holiday weekend plans. We’d considered driving the 2 hours to San Diego and getting a hotel, but decided to save the money, gas, and headache of packing and just opted to stay home and spend some money on a nice dinner out yesterday, and a trip to the museum today, and other close-to-home luxuries. Since we are members, it’s free, and heck…it was a blast anyway.
Actually in thinking about it that makes sense re the “wake up call” nature fof $ 4 a gallon.
My Scion is averaging 36 mpg with local driving, so I’m in a better position than many of my coworkers. I’d still like to cut down on my fuel usage, though. Instead of driving to the supermarket, I’ve been walking to the Publix down the street. If I have several errands in another part of town, I arrange to do them all at the same time so I don’t need to make multiple trips.
I would love to start a carpool at work. Unfortunately many of my coworkers are opposed to the idea – they want to come and go when they’re ready. I’m hoping they’ll be willing to reconsider now that gas has officially topped $4 a gallon in our area.
Last week in the British Isles, in an area very poorly served by public transport (ie one needs a car to work, shop etc), I paid slightly over $10 per US gallon. The US at $4 per gallon is absurdly cheap.
However, Australia is the size of the USA and petrol (gas) is well over $7 a gallon (roughly $1.50 a litre depending where you are). Prices are always rising due to “fuel costs” but I have not noticed a marked difference in life styles. People are, however, talking more of using public transport instead of driving to work- which is not a bad thing.
In my opinion the absolute cost of fuel doesn’t attract nearly as much attention at the rate of change. If the gas jumps stays steady at 4/g then after several month everyone will have adjusted. Commercial users will change their ways-it is a cost benefit calculation to them. But private drivers in the US are sensitive to rate of change, not the abslute value of the fuel.
Besides, the US election is coming up in a few months, no telling what will happen to gas prices in the US then.
When are people going to revolt already?
Against whom?
Furthermore, in order to succeed in revolt, one must have something planned and ready to go, to replace that which has been overthrown. Pitchforks and torches to the castle is the easy part.
But as I said in another thread:
I think you’re exaggerating a bit. The CAFE average for cars is 27.5 mpg and has been for 17 years. So it’s safe to say this is the average for the current fleet of cars (light trucks are 21 mpg). Averaging cars and trucks together, let’s call it 25 mpg for the fleet.
When gas was $2/gal, a 120 mile trip to the beach would therefore cost $9.60. With gas at $5/gal, the cost goes to $24, an increase of $14.40. I don’t think paying $14 more is going to kill the beaches - people spend more than that stopping at McDonald’s on the way.
And if you drive a fuel efficient vehicle that gets 35 mpg on the highway, the difference is even less.
Now, one difference will be RV travel. I expect to see RV sales slow down dramatically. A big RV might only get 5-10 mpg. Now THAT"s killer. A 200 mile trip in an RV could cost between $100-$200 in gas. If it’s 200 miles each way (probably a fairly typical RV trip), gas alone could cost $400. A lot of people are going to look at those numbers and say, “I don’t think buying an RV makes sense”.
Another industry that’s already being hit hard is taxicabs. These guys drive around all day in the city, whether they have fares or not. There was an article in the paper a couple of weeks ago which said that cab drivers already pay more than $100/day in gas, and it’s killing their profits. So not surprisingly, I’m seeing a LOT of hybrid taxicabs these days. Taxicabs are perfect for hybrid vehicles - they sit idling a lot, they drive a lot in slow, stop and go traffic, and they drive a lot of miles a year, almost all in the city where a hybrid provides the biggest advantage.
If gas prices remain high, I think you’ll see the cab fleet around North America largely convert to hybrid within the next three years (the fleet turns over about that often because of leases).
Sure, but it won’t necessarily be a painful change. Fleet vehicles will convert to hybrid like cabs are doing. The next five years will result in a major downsizing of the average car. Resale values for SUVs are already crumbling, which further inhibits people from buying them in the first place. it’s like anything - the price goes up, the market adapts.
We are currently looking at solutions for our employees, as many do not make very good money (we are a non-profit) and live a goodly distance away. I’m doing some work on cost-benefit of employer-subsidized van pooling and maybe some on-site housing. Hopefully, we will be able to get a good model for some of the large employers in our area. As soon as they start losing workers who can’t afford the gas, they might be willing to offer some company commuter benefits. Also going to talk to the cities at a round table meeting about what it would take to increase inter-city service for our really dismal mass-transit system.
For me, I’ve got a friend who is finally willing to carpool with me 3 days a week, since we sat down and did the numbers on a 40 mile RT at $6-$7 per gallon, the estimated cost by this time next year. Thank goodness my old tiny 4-banger truck gets great mileage.
It’s already happening. My friend’s parents parked their RV in Florida over the winter because renting the parking space for six months was cheaper than spending the $1500 in fuel to drive it to Toronto and back. And that was over a year ago.
Mind you, I expect some people in warmer climates to start living in their RVs and giving up their apartments. Might not be homeowners so much as renters; a month’s rent can still pay for a lot of diesel.
I should have been more clear. I was talking about my experience with my vehicle a 2003 GMC Denali which gets 12-15 MPG real world.
I really believe that speculation is driving up the price of oil at this point. What evidence is there of a shortage?
I have never been in line to wait to fill my car like I had to in 78-79.
The future crash is going to be hard on everyone. OPEC has squeezed so hard that I predict serious consequences before November.
I went to Walmart today and almost had a stroke seeing the grocery prices. No vacation for me this year.
There is no short-term shortage. In fact, inventories are growing. Which is a precursor to a price drop. So I don’t think we’ll continue to see gas increase in price. It’ll level off or even decline a bit in the short term.
However, part of what’s driving the price is the market betting that future demand will be greater than future supply. That’s certainly speculative, but it doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
One of the cool things about the market is that solutions often evolve that you weren’t expecting. I never even thought of having companies send around private vehicles to pick people up - For companies that employ hundreds or thousands of people, a couple of company buses could be a real possibility.
Maybe companies will open micro-offices or something. My company has about 150 people on site, organized generally into teams or functional groups of no more than 20 or so. Currently, it’s more efficient to keep everyone together, so we do it. But if transportation costs become prohibitive, you can imagine the company distributing into multiple offices of 10 or 20 people, located closer to where the people live. Other trends and technologies like HD broadcasting, better telepresence and high bandwidth communications might make it easier for companies to distribute themselves. I can imagine company buses moving from site to site to pull teams together when needed. Maybe electric buses.
If 20 years ago someone had said that a mail order company would form that was so big it threatened traditional stores, and people ordered a significant number of their goods online, people would have had all kinds of arguments why that couldn’t work - you couldn’t see the products, you had no idea if they were any good, there was no infrastructure to move those kinds of goods to your door. People would have been thinking of the Post Office, and how hard it would be for them to deliver everything.
But here we are. The internet allows us to to see the goods and the review culture that has built up on sites like Amazon help us figure out which stuff is crap. And a whole new delivery infrastructure has grown up from the grassroots with Fed Ex, UPS, Greyhound, and others being able to deliver packages across the continent overnight and deliver it to your door for a few bucks. Amazng.
There will be new Fed Exes and Amazons that rise up to meet the demands of the new markets created from the energy shortage. Solutions will happen which no one today can imagine. We can see some likely paths to a better infrastructure, but we could be wrong. The market is like an evolving organizm, or a self-organizing entity. It aborbs change and builds new pathways that better serve the new reality.
It’ll be fascinating to watch.