Coming to the Tipping Point: Gas is Just too Expensive!

[SlickTony]

I never thought I'd come to it, but I've taken to riding the bus to and from work. It doesn't suck nearly as bad as I'd thought it it would. It costs me $2 a day, whereas it costs me about $41 a week to gas up the car. And the stops are just across the street from my subdivision, and a block away from my work. The only bad thing is being so tightly bound to someone else's schedule. I'd hate to have to get all over town this way.

There have always been two kinds of people in the world: those who have to punch a clock (sometimes literally) and those who can saunter in at 9+ and it's Ok. We could always kind of ignore those differences as long as people--at least, in the south--had a car that didn't break down to often and that they could afford to feed.. Now that there are all kinds of people who have to get up Earlier Than God in order to get to work on time--Because in the south the buses are still kind of chancy (I found that the 7:04 bus really arrive about 7:12)--who didn't have to before, i wonder what's going to happen when enough of them get pissed?

 

[AvoidingRealWork]

I'm lucky enough to be less than five miles from work. I've taken to biking. Save gas, save depreciation, and it will probably do wonders for my ass .

 

[The_Fool]

I've been going downstairs to work rather than going downtown. Saves about $6 a day in gas, $5-$10 a day in lunches and about an hour in commute time.

 

[JagFarlane]

I've been going downstairs to work rather than going downtown. Saves about $6 a day in gas, $5-$10 a day in lunches and about an hour in commute time.

Lucky you

 

[SlickTony]

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/111/299067094_d55759324a.jpg?v=0

is what I'd have to cross, if I had to walk or bike to work, even though I only live about 10 or so miles away...

 

[rgraham666]

I've been going downstairs to work rather than going downtown. Saves about $6 a day in gas, $5-$10 a day in lunches and about an hour in commute time.

Same here.

Although Toronto has great public transit.

 

[AvoidingRealWork]

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/111/299067094_d55759324a.jpg?v=0

is what I'd have to cross, if I had to walk or bike to work, even though I only live about 10 or so miles away...

Might not be bad to walk if it has a pedestrian path... but 10 miles would take about 3 hours to hoof, give or take.

 

[AvoidingRealWork]

Same here.

Although Toronto has great public transit.

Yeah, you ferriners with your "public transit" can bite me.

We have public transit... if I want to walk a mile to the bus station and then hop a bus, get a transfer, and finally take 45 minutes to get the 3 miles to work.

 

[rgraham666]

Two hours for me. Still too long.

Could be worse though. GuluWalk

 

[Weird Harold]

It costs me $2 a day, whereas it costs me about $41 a week to gas up the car. And the stops are just across the street from my subdivision, and a block away from my work. The only bad thing is being so tightly bound to someone else's schedule. I'd hate to have to get all over town this way.

Does your transit authority/bus company have monthly passes? If they do, that's definitelythe way to go. CAT (the Las Vegas bus system) sells 30 day passes for $40 as opposed to $1.25 for a single ride (no transfers) or $2.50 for a 24 hour "residential" transfer pass. so a monthly pass is just about half price (sixteen days of 24 hour residential passes or eight days of the all access/Strip routes 24 hour pass.)

Second, don't let your car just sit -- I let mine sit for just over three months while I rode the bus and whenI finally did need to drive it, it cost me nearly $600 to tow it to the shop and get the dried out seals in the throttle body and fuel injectors replaced.

 

[al_Ussa]

But look on the bright side. Oil companies are making record profit, at your expense. Still, isn't it more important that their CEOs get another new house, new jets, and money to pay for their mistresses than you saving a few hundred dollars a month? I know I'm feeling much better now that they are putting us in our place.

 

[where]

Two hours for me. Still too long.

Could be worse though. GuluWalk

puts bitching about public transport and price of gas into perspective doesn't it? Sometimes we have no idea how lucky we are

 

[S-Des]

Public transportation can be good, but sometimes it depends on where the routes go through on your way. If you're going a long way, it can sometimes get dicey. I work in that sector, so it's good to see more people using it (job security is a good thing ). Unfortunately, I drive 700-800 miles a week for work, so the gas prices do take a pretty big chunk. Everytime I hear Obama say that the gas tax holiday is a bad idea because it'll only save $.30/day, I have to wonder where the hell he got that number.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Okay... I will begin with a short story from my personal history about "Public Transportaion." I rode the bus when I went to college. Rose City Transit had stinky, cold, old, rattle trap buses and charged $.25 to ride everywhere.

After I graduated from college I always drove. However, sometime after I got out of college, Portland fired Rose City Transit and set up "MAX"

A couple years ago, I had to go downtown and my car was in the shop so I took a Max Bus. As I got on I asked the drive how much the fare cost.

He was a smart ass and, as he pulled away from the curb, said, "Same as you paid last time." So, naturally, I dropped a quarter in the box and sat down.

The driver went nuts. He slammed on the breaks in the middle of the street and got rear-ended. He jumped up, grabbed me by the arm and physically threw me off the bus into the street, screaming about me being a smart-ass bytch, etc.

I haven't ridden public transportaion since and FUCKING WON'T EVER AGAIN. So it cost $18 every two weeks to fill my truck five years ago. Now it costs about twice that. It's bloody worth it.

 

[JagFarlane]

Okay... I will begin with a short story from my personal history about "Public Transportaion." I rode the bus when I went to college. Rose City Transit had stinky, cold, old, rattle trap buses and charged $.25 to ride everywhere.

After I graduated from college I always drove. However, sometime after I got out of college, Portland fired Rose City Transit and set up "MAX"

A couple years ago, I had to go downtown and my car was in the shop so I took a Max Bus. As I got on I asked the drive how much the fare cost.

He was a smart ass and, as he pulled away from the curb, said, "Same as you paid last time." So, naturally, I dropped a quarter in the box and sat down.

The driver went nuts. He slammed on the breaks in the middle of the street and got rear-ended. He jumped up, grabbed me by the arm and physically threw me off the bus into the street, screaming about me being a smart-ass bytch, etc.

I haven't ridden public transportaion since and FUCKING WON'T EVER AGAIN. So it cost $18 every two weeks to fill my truck five years ago. Now it costs about twice that. It's bloody worth it.

Mmmm yea fortunatly HRT is a little better than that. Though the driver went way overboard with that. -smirks- Makes ya wonder how often he's done that before

 

[Katyusha]

I'm lucky enough to be less than five miles from work. I've taken to biking. Save gas, save depreciation, and it will probably do wonders for my ass .

Fairly soon I'm probably going to start biking to work myself. It costs me $60 to fill up my car now, when six months ago it cost me $42. I live eight and a half miles away but it'd be good for me to bike that on a regular basis so that I can get strong and ride much larger distances anyway.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Mmmm yea fortunatly HRT is a little better than that. Though the driver went way overboard with that. -smirks- Makes ya wonder how often he's done that before

The MAX drivers have a really bad rep for that kind of thing, actually. Now they have added commuter trains and I believe one of the requirements to drive those is KAMAKAZE training. They've killed a number of people over the past couple of years - in cars and pedestrians.

 

[JagFarlane]

The MAX drivers have a really bad rep for that kind of thing, actually. Now they have added commuter trains and I believe one of the requirements to drive those is KAMAKAZE training. They've killed a number of people over the past couple of years - in cars and pedestrians.

Mmmm well trains are hard to stop and sometimes heh...pedestrians will commit suicide by train...as you can see by my postings regarding my weekend at Amtrack

 

[only_more_so]

The coldly analytical part of me thinks that increased gas prices are actually a good thing, especially in the long term. It encourages people to seek out public transportation, ride share, and live closer to their work site. It also encourages auto manufacturers to come up with move efficient cars and alternative fuel sources. Eventually the shift in people's attitudes and the technological advances will mean less pollution in cities. There will also be a drastic change in the politics of the Middle East, among other places.

But in the short term it sucks.

 

[only_more_so]

The MAX drivers have a really bad rep for that kind of thing, actually. Now they have added commuter trains and I believe one of the requirements to drive those is KAMAKAZE training. They've killed a number of people over the past couple of years - in cars and pedestrians.

One of my friends told me an interesting statistic about the train conductors in Boston. Apparently the average conductor who works a full career will end up killing at least one person, mostly suicides. Apparently they have a program in place to help the conductors deal with this because it happens often enough. Basically if you are driving a train and someone is standing on the tracks, there is nothing you can do.

 

[JagFarlane]

One of my friends told me an interesting statistic about the train conductors in Boston. Apparently the average conductor who works a full career will end up killing at least one person, mostly suicides. Apparently they have a program in place to help the conductors deal with this because it happens often enough. Basically if you are driving a train and someone is standing on the tracks, there is nothing you can do.

Thats very much true. Consider a train powered by electricty usually goes up to 60mph...with all the mass behind it, the limited friction of wheel upon track...the physics are just not there to stop before a determined person kills themselves.

 

[Katyusha]

Thats very much true. Consider a train powered by electricty usually goes up to 60mph...with all the mass behind it, the limited friction of wheel upon track...the physics are just not there to stop before a determined person kills themselves.

We have light and heavy rail here and most of the heavy rail lines are powered by diesel engines, same as Amtrak and freight trains. I don't know how fast the engineers are allowed to go but I do know that I've seen and ridden some Metra trains that were just booking it between stops, whether they were behind schedule or not. The amount of time it can take one of the Metra trains to stop when it's going that fast is staggering.

There have been enough people killed by Metra that state and local jurisdictions and even the RTA have been working on various measures to try and keep people off the tracks, such as fences and pedestrian crossbars and what-not, but those have had limited success partially because of the amount of track there is in the area, and for other reasons as well. And Metra also has all the same problems with road crossings that Amtrak and the freight lines have; there was one 4th of July that we were taking Metra home from the fireworks display downtown and we got stuck on the tracks for almost two hours because another train had hit a car at a road crossing somewhere ahead of us; the driver of that car was killed.

But the bottom line in a situation like this is that you're right, there's just too much weight, too much inertia, too much momentum and not enough friction even on the brakes to stop before hitting someone who's that determined, or that stupid.

 

[R. Richard]

Around where I live, people have been fighting the increasing cost of gas by the use of Oklahoma credit cards.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Okay... let me throw in another two cents. What everyone is talking about is saving energy and moving to alternate sources. That's fine. We need to do that.

However, that does not confront the basic problem that created the gas price problem. That has a whole lot to do with -

1. Failure of government to adiquately control the oil industry. While Oil Companies are reaping record profits, congress was giving them bloody tax breaks. Does that make sense? Can you say "Greed and Stupidity," Virginia?

2. The Bush administration is spending a $Trillion dollars per year on a useless war that is doing nothing but pissing off the arab, oil producing countries.

3. The war has destroyed the value of the U.S. dollar with respect to world wide currencies, making oil more expensive for us.

4. The bickering between the Bush administration and Congress has hogtied our government so that nothing can be done to correct the situation. Note, Congress passed a bill last week killing $17 BILLION in tax breaks for Oil Companies, which Bush will veto while hiding behind the hoopla of Jenna Bush's wedding.

 

[Carnevil9]

Okay... let me throw in another two cents. What everyone is talking about is saving energy and moving to alternate sources. That's fine. We need to do that.

However, that does not confront the basic problem that created the gas price problem. That has a whole lot to do with -

1. Failure of government to adiquately control the oil industry. While Oil Companies are reaping record profits, congress was giving them bloody tax breaks. Does that make sense? Can you say "Greed and Stupidity," Virginia?

2. The Bush administration is spending a $Trillion dollars per year on a useless war that is doing nothing but pissing off the arab, oil producing countries.

3. The war has destroyed the value of the U.S. dollar with respect to world wide currencies, making oil more expensive for us.

4. The bickering between the Bush administration and Congress has hogtied our government so that nothing can be done to correct the situation. Note, Congress passed a bill last week killing $17 BILLION in tax breaks for Oil Companies, which Bush will veto while hiding behind the hoopla of Jenna Bush's wedding.

You crack me up with your BDS*. Everything is the fault of the Bush administration. I suppose if you stubbed your toe or broke your arm, that would be his fault, too?

Oil prices are as simple as supply and demand. The supply is getting smaller and smaller, and the demand is mushrooming as China and India are moving into the industrialized world.

You don't need to demonize somebody every time something unfortunate happens.......Carney

*Bush Derangement Syndrome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_Derangement_Syndrome