But what are you comparing to? If gas were $1.50 it’d still be a $5 commute, and we wouldn’t be having this converstation. Besides, my point was that I read the OP as saying it wasn’t worth working at all. Granted, he clarified, but I hope you don’t think it’s worth quitting a job (and, presumably going on the dole) because your transportation costs are now $5/day more. Sure it bites, but not working at all bites a whole hell of a lot more, as well it should.
Dahoyda?
How is any of what you’ve laid out “right now”?
I mean, just getting together the plans for a single-city’s rail line system would take months of research into zoning, deciding which areas to service, deciding where to set stations and lat track, environmental impact studies, allocation of resources to build and buy trains, etc.
Cripes, even if we decided “Yes! Rails for all!”, and assuming that we could lay them out without NIMBY effects killing everything, and assuming that petty partisan politics didn’t kill the issue in its cradle, and assuming that environmentalists and business leaders joyously clasp hands and sing the praises of the project and its location, and assuming that taxpayers are fine with a doubling of local taxes to pay for the massive construction, it’ll still take three to five years for these things to get implemented at the earliest.
How the heck is that “right now”?
So why haven’t the people any most cities voted for this stuff? Simple. Because gas is still relatively cheap, even at $3/gal. It’s one thing to gripe on a message board, it’s another to agree to have one’s taxes rasied.
I have a good friend who lives near DC in one of those master planned communities. It’s a nice area with wide roads, bike paths, and shopping areas all conveniently located. Whenever I visit, the bike paths are empty and the parking lots are full. People prefer to drive. Period. Gas is going to have go a LOT higher before that changes. Until then, I don’t see any reason to build more transit systems like the one in San Jose (you should be familiar with that one) that basically no one uses.
There are some bike paths in cool places like along the Potomac out to Great Falls, but most of DC isn’t all that cyclist-friendly, IMO. At least, it wasn’t when I lived there.
The Metro, now, that’s a thing of beauty, no matter how ugly the stations are, and I and bajillions of other folks used it every day to commute.
Impeccable timing Askia. I got one of those idiotic ‘Don’t buy gas on Sept 1st and it will force them to lower gas prices’ e-mails that foolish people keep fowarding around. I replied with a cite from Snopes to the fool who sent it to me (the idiot brother of a friend of mine). To which I got this reply…
>Hmm…what do you think today Stone? You ready to pay 5 bucks a gallon?
So I replied with the following…
*What do I think?
I think people should drive less. If everyone car pooled, rode a bike, or took public tranportation, or even just stopped buying huge ass SUVs getting 15 MPG and instead tried to save gas instead of wasting it, it would have the desired effect of lowering gas prices.
If everyone used less gas, ALL THE TIME, not just for one day, then the price of gas would go down.
Not buying gas for one day only hurts the gas station owner because he has to pay employees the same hours pay. If you still use the same amount of gas, the price of gas will stay high.
I think if I were dictator for a day, I’d outlaw any personal vehicle that gets less than 30 MPG. Anyone caught driving one would have it taken away along with their license and given a bicycle in exchange. That’d drop gas prices in a hurry.*
He then sent me this…
>You obviously do not have a family or kids. The SUV, Caravan, or V6
>anything is a necessity. Funny that Bush just condemned the price
>gauging today, so I have not sympathy for the gas station owners.funny
>that you can buy gas in other countries for 70 cents…we are all just
>lemmings and big oil is pulling the strings…I think everyone agrees on
>the gas guzzlers but if car companies have yet to provide me with a
>hydrogen SUV yet…and if they do some day and it is comparable to
>gasoline…its a no brainer…but until that day…i have to commute for a
>living and the price of gas is impacting my family…
>I am not sure how your comments justify the high price of gas…
My jaw dropped at reading it (although I should have expected as much from him). He actually thinks it’s someone elses fault that he HAS to drive a big car, he thinks that big oil is pulling his strings, and he thinks that most other countries pay less for gas.
I wish I kept a copy of my reply to him, but I sent him multiple links with prices of gas in other countries, explained that SUVs didn’t exist until about 15 years ago but somehow our parents survived without them, my Saturn gets 33 MPG and seats 5 (if three kids are in the back seat), and that I deliberatly moved so that I’d have a short 15 minute commute. Essentially that there are a hundred different things he could do to make a difference and that if everyone did them, the price of gas would fall because we’d all be using less and the demand would be less. Of course he hasn’t replied to it and I’ll be shocked if he does.
He’d rather sit on his comfortable ass and complain that it’s someone elses fault than give up any of his ‘deserved’ comforts.
So to answer your question Askia, I’m quite sure that most fat spoiled Americans will moan, complain, and whine… all the while they shell out more for gas and won’t do diddly squat about reducing their consumption in the long run.
That’s qualified by ‘most’. I’m sure some will change their habits for a short while, until they get used to it and go back to their old ways, and a few will change their habits for good.
True, but the reason that a lot of people use it to commute is that parking is too expensive where they work. A buddy of mine is a good example. He used to live in Rosslyn and his job was somewhere about three blocks from the Metro in DC. When he could park for about five bucks a day, he would still drive to work about half the time. It wasn’t until he switched jobs to a place near Dupont Circle where there was no parking to be had that he started driving.
I never said it’s not worth working at all. Given that there is no assistance available of any kind to childless able-bodied adults with any sort of savings, not working would be suicidal.
That said, many of my friends consider transit costs (public and private) to be major issues when it comes to deciding where to live and work. Many people are at the point where any additional expenses cuts in to food money, and it’s despiriting as hell= to the point of being willing to take your chances at finding a new job- to work all day and still have to skip meals.
I would imagine that where you live , the whole public transportation thing would have to come under a state or provincial aegis. For me , for example I can’t use mass transit to get to work , simply because the end destination has no public transit system to hook up to the provincial transit hub, so in effect , 5 bucks each way and then its a 10 dollar cab ride each way , assuming that for the second shift , if there is a return bus available.
It would be actually easier to commute to toronto , and hook up with the muncipal system. Since southern ontario has a developed mass transit system, the only real thing would be for all the politicians to agree to harmonize fares so a one pass gets me from barrie to niagra falls , for example , the same as some one going from kipling station to kennedy station, and make it affordable for the lowest common denominator.
A short term , say a couple of years , may be for owners of the larger SUV’s to act like bus’s, charge 50 bucks a week , and hope the insurance companys dont find out. But public transportation is not a reasonable panacea ,especially after hurricane katrina , when politicians of all walks go hat in hand to the feds for infrastructur pay outs.
The best that can be reasonably expected is places with existing mass transit systems ,actually cut prices to the bone and look for bulk ridership.
My guess , no
Other posts have stated the price of street gas is derived from the availabily of refinery capacity, I can see buying up Iraqs crude oil , refine it there and ship it stateside, and sell it at a discount, leveraging the oil biz to drop prices to meet the cost of the fed subsidized gas.
Declan
My guess: this will cause a long-term change in every part of society. If fuel is high for you, it’s also high for the trucker that brings your food, the machines that make your clothes, the people who produce your stuff, the ships that import finished goods and raw materials, and the machines that extract the raw materials from the ground. Every step of the process will go up in price and the net effect is that everything will be more expensive, some more than others. The states will have to raise taxes to cover the shortfalls and that takes even more out of your pocket. There will be upward pressure on wages, and as a result companies will find it easier to outsource and eat the fuel bills for transportation. The good news: with less discretionary income the housing bubble will burst (well, that’s good for some of us, but not overall). Inflation will go high, although it probably won’t go hyper, and interest rates will be high, although again not double digits. This is, of course, the worst-case scenario.
Ever wonder how Jimmy Carter could have screwed it up so badly? This is how, and he didn’t have to do a damn thing for it to happen.
Eh. Yes and no.
If your destination is certain areas of the city, then you’re usually golden. (Going to Georgetown, the major upscale shopping area, is still impossible.)
But for those of us who live in the suburbs, the Metro is only good for getting us into the city. And the city ain’t that big or that useful compared to all of the suburbs around. Quite frankly, in fifteen years of being employed in the D.C. area, I’ve only had one job (my current one) where I could actually take Metro to my destination. All of the others involved cross-suburb commuting, which Metro not merely sucks at, but sucks ass at.
That’s why I’m much more cynical about the idea of mass rail lines than even sven is- I’ve been listening to local officials discuss the possibility of a “purple line” to connect the major suburbs for I guess ten years now. Everybody thinks it’s a good idea. Everybody thinks it’d make Metro more popular, and that it’d take cars off of already congested roads.
But nobody is willing to allow construction in their back yard. And Metro is already cash-strapped just trying to operate its current system, and can’t afford to outlay a few hundred million for new lines. And nobody agrees on which suburbs should be connected where.
I deliver medications to nursing homes, using my own car. I drive between 90 and 110 miles daily and don’t have much choice but to continue. I will show a profit until gas goes over $4.00 per gallon—it won’t be worth it after that.
Huh. I guess I was lucky. I walked about four blocks to Dupont Circle, jumped on the Red Line, got off at NIH. Or I went to various interesting places around the Mall, or the Zoo, stuff like that. If I wanted to go to G’town, I got off at Foggy Bottom and walked ten or fifteen minutes. Didn’t kill me, last I checked. My friends and an Uncle who still live there all commute in from No. VA or MD, by Metro, and their offices are no more than a few bocks from Metro Center, L’Enfant Plaza, McPherson, Farragut, stations thereabouts. You can get to Gee Dub, Cath. U, Howard, UMD, with little or no trouble. Hop on, go to Union Station or Reagan (then Natl) to get outta town. It was clean, timely, comfortable, about the only thing in DC virtually everyone appeared to respect.
Well, that’s the “yes” part. If you need to go to downtown D.C. and don’t mind occasionally having to walk 3-4 blocks, it’s fabulous. If you want to go to downtown D.C. to see a museum, or go to a specific club, or catch a Nationals game, it’s just as good.
But for regular weekend activities, like shopping at a mall or seeing a movie? Notso hotso. In the barren lower-middle-class wasteland that is Laurel, I have two choices if I want to do medium-high-end shopping or catch a new movie. I can drive fifteen minutes to a Metro stop, take an hour long ride into the city, and then pay 20% more because everything in the city costs more; or I can drive half-an-hour to Rockville.
As for jobs, my commutes have so far been:
Lived in Silver Spring, worked in Bailey’s Crossroads (1 yr)
Lived in Burke, worked in Fairfax (2 yrs)
Lived in Silver Spring, worked in Fairfax (1 yr)
Lived in Laurel, worked in Rockville (6 yrs)
Lived in Laurel, worked in Columbia (2 yrs)
Lived in Laurel, worked in D.C. (1 yr)
Technically, all but two of those commutes could have been done on the Metro. They just would have involved Metroing into the city, then switching lines to Metro out to a different suburb- two or three hours, and $10-11 including parking.
Isn’t that sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy, though, John?
You’re essentially saying that because the ring-city grew due to cars they continue to be necessary. But it might be just as easy to say that had the beltway not been put together the Washington DC might be a much better and accessible place to live with more entertainment options (in the form of movies and such) and shopping malls.
The Georgetown thing is no one’s fauly but their own, however. I’ve seen the original Metro plans and they include a Georgetown station. As I recall the locals shot it down due to the increase in traffic it would bring about.
Sure, and if fish quacked they’d be ducks.
Yeah, if we had never depended on cars, we wouldn’t need cars right now. But that’s not the case- we learned to depend on cars, and developed land and cities in order to best meet that dependency. I’m not saying that moving to a point without cars is somehow inherently bad or wrong or impossible. What I am saying is that it isn’t going to be something we can switch over to within a month. Hell, even a decade would be surprising. Our current modes of public transportation are focused on suburb-to-urban transit, when surburb-to-suburb transit has become nearly or more necessary.
Of course, DC is more fucked-up than most in terms of these things, given forced limits on development (buildings not being able to be above fifteen stories makes office space way too expensive) and a completely dysfunctional government (which is often held hostage by Congressional mandates and funding).
It was also- and possibly moreso- about crime, which is unfortunately true. My friend Gordon waited to sell his house in Springfield until the Metro station nearby was built, which the realtor assured him would boost the value of his property (easy commuting and all that). In fact, once the station was finished, the crime rate rose so much that he has to sell his house for less than it was worth before the station was opened.
Per what the good John Corrado said, if there were traffic priorities, they were to some extent specious ones, as car traffic and parking in Georgetown can be a nightmare. (Wisconson Ave. or M St. or sometimes getting onto the Key Bridge can be…gaah!). The main G’town issue was “riff-raff”, plain and simple, for which there is some justification. The big thing I didn’t like about the Metro was being besieged by panhandlers at every stop. At times they could get pretty aggressive and intimidating, especially the crazier-looking ones. Don’t know if that’s still a big problem, but I’m guessing it is.
Once you’re down the escalator, though, life is good, IMO. And cool. Nothing beats cool in DC.
Another problem is that to an extent, a lot of the jobs have shifted to the some of the western suburbs in DC. I have a good number of friends who work in Tyson’s Corner or Reston, which are places which just aren’t metro accessible and probably won’t be.
The problem with the DC area and I suspect that this would apply to the rest of the country is that the suburbs were designed to be car-centric. A lot more people live in the suburbs than do in the city. A lot of the jobs have shifted to the suburbs. While I would love a mass transit system that took the suburbs into account, it will be a long time before such can be put in. As John Corrado mentioned, there has been talk of the Purple Line for ages, but it is no closer to being built now than it was years ago. My wife is lucky enough that her job allows her to take the Metro to work and that I can drop her off at the station in the mornings allowing her to skip a 10 minute bus ride. For my job, I can either make the commute in about an hour and 10 minutes by public transportation or I can make it in about 28 minutes by car. Guess which one I choose.
I think for any transit system to work, there has to be coordination. I live a very reasonable distance from the Trinity Rail Express which I can use to get to work.
OK, it takes 90 minutes as opposed to the 30-45 mins driving does.
But, for most of the walking route, there are no sidewalks! The street is far too busy to walk on, leaving the only option of walking in the grass. No one wants to show up at work with muddy or grass stained shoes.
Yeah, but I’m going with the ‘will higher gas prices cause a sea change’ reasoning and I saw you as arguing that ‘no, because we NEED cars’.
The question becomes ‘will >$3 per gallon gasoline change habits sufficiently to provide that change?’
John, you knew where I used to live. (Folks, I used to live in the Blue Ridge about 60 miles NW of Washington.) Lady Chance and I had to drive into DC seperately because we drove to different sides of the city and worked very different schedules. I did the math at $2.50 per gallon and determined that, given the rate at which we had to refuel those cars (a Jeep and a Kia) we would have been spending roughly $75-$100 per day just for the commute. We had to fill up each every two days to make the back and forth.
Meanwhile, the land behind our old farm house got broken up into $500,000 houses. So what happens to those people if their commutes are similar to ours?
- The drop the SUV for a Prius.
- They start van pools
- They scream for mass transit
- They move back into town.
In addition, firms located in car-dependent locations will find that potential employees would be put off by their location. This provides and incentive to locate near mass transit.
I agree with you that it’s not a fast change. But it’s a potential one. And it’ll be interesting to watch it play out. Simply put, the American economy is not designed for $5 per gallon gasoline. The effect of such is unpredictable.
Are you getting 10 miles per gallon per vehicle or something? I don’t get it. If you drive 70 miles, and you get 15 m.p.g. (a horrible amount even for city driving in the vehicles you described), that seems like it would be under $50 per day. And that’s using some pretty worse-case scenario level calculations. I don’t get it, what am I missing?