My 64 year old father and my 57 year old mother are capable undertaking a 4 mile walk with me every morning when they visit me. And they do. My relatives in India, many of whom are ANCIENT, walk a 10 mile roundtrip (5 each way) to work in sweltering weather every day.
People do what they have to do to make it work, whether it’s for their health or for their finances or because the resources available at any given time dictate a certain action.
Barring genuine health reasons, or inclement weather during certain seasons, there’s no good reason for an adult to be unable to walk 4 miles. That’s freaking 27 minutes! I consider it downright shameful that people would think that’s anywhere close to exertion, or difficult to accomplish.
ETA: sorry, I can walk 2 miles in about 27 minutes. So I guess 54. If I lived 4 miles from work, I’d definitely walk it, though, and give up my fucking gym membership. As it is, I’m one of the few (though increasing in number) people in L.A. who does ride the metro to work everyday-including, GASP, walking to the fucking station.
Cost of livign in the suburb you work in is much much higher than the one you live in
Prefer the suburb/location you live in more than the one you work in for outside of work reasons (recreation, nightlife, hobbies, etc)
Location of family
Location of friends
For some people, moving to the suburb they work in would result in giving up hobbies, friends, closeness to family members, and possible could raise your cost of living by a very significant amount. That or an hour in a car and bit more in gas? Its a decision everyone makes for themselves, and it doens’t have to be “stooopid”
Yes, many just don’t understand how hard the “just move closer to where you work” can be for some.
My girlfriends father used to tell us that all the time. Then I showed him something like this:
Cheapest house in the town that I work in (and I am not even sure if it would be walking/biking distance) is $369K on Realtor.com - that is for a 2 bedroom 1 bath small house.
Typical houses in the neighborhood (walking/riding distance) around my building are proabably anywhere from $3M to $15M - Phil Simms and various celebrities live around the corner.
Whereas, I live 25 miles away and for that same $369K I could get a very nice 3/2 house with a nice yard, quiet mountain views and be closer to my parents house.
Her family had moved from one end of the city to the other during the gas crisis of the 1970s so her Dad could shorten his commute.
Within two years, they closed the location he was at, he was transferred, and the new location was six blocks from the old house.
Living near your job is great, if you expect to be in the same job in the same location for years. But if you move around - which is the current norm - you’d won’t necessarily manage to break even on closing costs and moving expenses - much less the difference in the commute in gas.
I’ve yet to see one of these concept cars, smart cars, or other very-low-gas usage vehicles that can carry my family of 5. I’m 6’3", most of them can’t even seat me.
…and the first person to say, “Well, you shouldn’t have had three children” can bite me… Your parent didn’t have to have you, either.
Sure, my ex-wife’s old Kia Spectra could hold all five of us, if the kids (all under 11 years old) were shoulder-to-shoulder across the back. It worked for a short trip to the store or similar but wasn’t exactly practical to drive the 1000 miles to my parents’ house or the 1400 miles to my sisters’ town. (No luggage room, either). There’s no way three-across seating is even going to work in 5 years when my 95th-percentile children have grown more. It only works now because my 11-year old is only 5 feet tall.
My wife works 6 miles to the west, I work 13 miles to the north. My children’s school is on the way to my workplace, a three-block side-trip, so I drop them at school on my way to work.
We’re considering our next car will be a little gas-efficient five-seater much like my Ex’s Spectra. Something we can cram into in if we need to but not necessarily comfortablely. Most of the time, my trip to work with the kids, four seats is fine, my wife headed the other way to work. For road trips, we could take our current mini-van and just deal with the gas inefficiency.
My wife’s current car ('97 wagon) gets 16 MPG in the city and I get around 20 MPG in city driving with my '05 mini-van. Even at 20 to 25 cents per mile, it’s still much cheaper than a new car payment so we’re eating the gas cost increase for now. We’re just discussing the “next car” in the context of “when this car gets too old to maintain”. Meanwhile we’re just trying to combine trips when possible.
Oh, and Anu-la1979, your ideas work great with healthy people & people that have lots of free time to spend commuting on foot. I look forward to your solution to my family’s situation. I’m sure it’ll be entertaining. Don’t suggest moving closer to my office unless you’re willing to fund the $400k increase in housing costs for me, too. Question: How many of your relatives’ peers in India are isolated because they can’t walk 5 miles?
Oh - and a follow-up question to you UK dopers that don’t understand us “lazy” Americans: What’s the farthest you’ve driven for a trip? I’m pretty sure you can’t go more than a couple hundred miles an any direction without getting wet.
My parents, mentioned above, live 1024 miles from me, my threee sisters are between 1267 & 1486 miles away. All but one live in rural areas so there’s no flying to see them. They’re all fly-then-drive locations. It’s prohibitively expensive to do it, too, with a family of five.
America (most UK-ers don’t seem to get this) is a very big place.
I have a road trip planned to see them all next week (I do this about every other year) and I know I’ll use nearly 100 gallons of gas for the round trip. Add a motel stay en-route and it’s a $600 trip.
There’s no moving close to my extended family either unless I want to give up my custodial time with my children. My ex-wife and I share custody of the children, every other week custody, and moving from Denver means moving from my children - a price too high to pay.
Why on earth should I fund or figure out anything for you? I can afford to drive, yet choose not to, live in dorky Pasadena instead of on the West side with kids my age, and bank all the money I save on gas/parking costs. I can also afford to buy scads of designer purses yet I choose not to, and have a lot more money than I would otherwise. See…I practice this thing…it’s called fiscal discipline.
I just can’t stand the crybaby attitude of but “I caaaaaaan’t”. Suck it up. People around the world manage. What do you want, subsidised gas? WALK or figure out a way to make more money. Why is it my responsibility to help you pay your gas bill, anyway?
When I read about people in Myanmar hunting through mud filled with dead people to scavenge stray grains of rice and then read about people complaining/saying they’re unable to walk 4 miles…it’s kind of sickening. Wake up earlier or make money to afford your commute, those are your choices.
As far as my relative’s peers go…it’s amazing how many people in other parts of the world manage to be healthy enough to walk.
You’ve got a common on-size-fits-all attitude that fades fast in the light of a different situation. I didn’t say “I can’t”. You were the one with the attitude and answers earlier where you very blithely said “Just walk” and “Just bike”. You’re full of answers that work for you but don’t work for others.
Obviously young. Obviously childless. Obviously self-centered enough to think that what works for you must be good enough for all.
The situation is one size fits all. The price of gas does not discriminate. Either pay up or make the sacrifices required to reorganize your life. I am sure it will be difficult, but in general, I am equally sure that everyone will get over it.
You (or others) may not like the alternatives to gasoline use, but that does not mean that they won’t work for you. The sacrifices they require might not be worth making now, but I imagine there will come a point (or a price) when they will. I do not think this is very complicated.
By the way, if you Americans somehow do come up with a viable solution that doesn’t require you to drive less in smaller cars, I imagine Europeans would love to get in on the secret.
I’m sure there are plenty of Britons who would like to live in Portsmouth and commute to London everyday, Germans who would like to live in Hamburg and commute to Berlin, and Parisians who would like to take annual driving holidays to Moscow or Istanbul, all in vehicles larger than most municipal garbage trucks.
My point is that one solution is not going to fit all situation. Yes, I can walk more - the store is conveniently four blocks away and I tend to drive over when I need a loaf of bread. That could be walked. I’m sure we’ll be making more choices like that in our future.
The think that rankles about some poster’s comments here is that they think that what works for them will work for all. Public transportation is cheaper than driving if you’re the only one traveling. Walking and biking are good if you’re single again. Getting a smart car is a good idea if you’re no more than two traveling (and probably under 5’10").
What has been bothering me about this thread is all the “all you gotta do” answers: All you gotta do is walk. All you gotta do is ride the bus. All you gotta do is move.
We’ve got a complex society - a complex problem - and there is no “All you gotta do” answers to increasing gas prices. It’s going to take a combination of answers, mixed in varying ratios for different families.
There’s no “All you gotta do” to it.
ETA: TM - I’ll drive whatever car is small enough to fit five large (and getting larger) people and enough luggage for a week. I’m not in love with large cars, I’m in love with functionality.
We’re living in the US that we have. We didn’t choose to build interstate highways rather than a rail system. We didn’t cause a farm crisis in the 70’s that killed small towns in rural areas. We didn’t flee to the suburbs and neglect the inner city. We’re living with the results of policy decisions made in the 40’s and 50’s. They seemed like good ideas at the time, when oil was probably $20 a barrel and we had friends in the Middle East.
I have no doubt that we’ll adapt. Just let us whine a little in the meantime, okay?
But the thing is, these are all true. There is only one way to diminish the effects of gasoline prices, and that is to stop consuming gasoline. How to fit the various solutions into our lives is for each individual and family to figure out. These solutions may not be easy or ready-made for each individual’s lifestyle, but more or less, they exist. Either use them or don’t.
I think everyone agrees with this. But if you are not willing to pay the price of gasoline, then you have no choice but to pay the price of rearranging your life. That is what is simple about fixing this complicated problem. The answer is not going to be handed to anyone. The more dependent you are on your own personal transportation, the more difficult and revolutionary your changes will have to be. C’est la vie.
Yes, though, yes there is. It is not easy. It may not be cheap in the long term. But all you gotta do is, one way or another, stop consuming.
I don’t necessarily want to hop into the middle of something, but here’s a question for you based on the quoted statement. How often is this necessary for you? Do you often drive around with 5 people and luggage for a week?
Because I think a lot of people think that way, but really, how often are you road tripping? Sometimes the answer might be a small car for 51 weeks of the year, and renting something that will seat 5 for the 52nd week.
Anyway, presumably you’ve already thought of that and I’m just shouting into the wind, but it seemed like a good question to ask.
[QUOTE=HeyHomie]
Wow, thanks for those links! The Venture car looks especially promising; too bad there’s nothing on the website about the price.
QUOTE]
“Venture Vehicles plans to initially offer two propulsion packages for the VentureOne: the hybrids E50 and Q100, and all-electric Venture EV model. Prices will range from $20,000 for the E50, to $25,000 for the all-electric EV model.”
I’d think it would be longer than that. Average walking speed is 2 to 3 miles per hour. (Wikipedia). My husband walks to work…it’s about one mile, and it takes him about 20 minutes.
The need to fit 5 people into a car happens semi-weekly - on my custody weeks. The luggage is just an occaisional problem, probably three times a year. But there’s often groceries, football gear, picnic stuff, etc that has to fit. Having carrying capacity is always a need.
The problem I have with compact & mid-size sedans is their three across seating is usually fine for kids and tiny people. While I have kids today, they won’t be kids in 5 years, and I try to keep cars for at least 10 years. There’s nothing to suggest that my kids today won’t be the size of an adult in 5 years and likely even larger.
Trying to find a car that’ll fit 5 large adults (and be fuel efficient) is a bit of a challenge. This is where I think industry still hasn’t met need. There seems to be lots happening in “city vehicles”, little pint-sized two-person jobbers. There seems to be half-assed attempts at retrofitting hybrid tech into gas-guzzling SUVs. There are very few vehicles that I can fit my XXL frame into initially and even fewer of these that’ll sit 5 adults easily. The Colt Vista, a rebadged Mitsubishi, (now off the market) was a good start, a ground-up design with three rows, two butts per row. The 3rd row was somewhat vestigial, though. In general, I think we need stretch versions of compact cars. We may be getting them with them with some of the new cross-over designs but they’re still leaning too far to the SUV side to be fuel efficient.
More things missing from Denver, IMO, is efficient public transit system. RTD is designed to get people into and out-of downtown. Going cross-town or from mid-to-edge is not a good experience. I rode the bus for years when I worked in the tall buildings downtown. Now, working on the NW corner has made the bus impractical. Atlanta, I always thought, had a pretty good system. A rail core with buses running loops connecting to it. Start to finish was bus to rail to bus - often just two transfers. Not as fast as driving, but at least fairly usable. By the way, every try to shop for groceries using the bus? I have - not fun. Again, fine for one, not good for a family.
We need more affordable housing distributed near workplaces. One reason for not moving stated over and over in this thread has been unaffordable housing near workplaces. We’re back to ground-up design, though. Office parks surrounded by varying neighborhood types. Good urban planning would help in this - the focus on livability and energy usage versus simply tax base.
We need more research into alternative energy - including nuclear. All these electric vehicles on the drawing board need something to plug into. Ignoring nuclear is foolish, IMO.
We need affordable ways to retrofit housing and industry with energy saving technologies. It’s one thing to build a green home - it’s another to retrofit my 1940’s constructed house to be more energy efficient, and do it without tearing the walls down to put insulation in. More efficient industry & housing would free energy to be used in transportation.
We need to change the culture to reduce the NIMBY problem with much of these technologies - make it somehow chic to have a wind generator on the corner of your house.
I guess what I’m saying here is that we don’t have all the pieces today to address this problem. I think there’s a lot of missing pieces, pieces we didn’t need at $1 a gallon but we would be a big help at $4 a gallon. They’re almost essentials if we hit a $8 a gallon - something likely on the horizon.
