10 things to like about $4 gas

[emeleel]

Interesting tidbits to chew on....

10 Things You Can Like About $4 Gas - 10 Things You Can Like About $4 Gas - TIME

[frazzledspice]

When I was on Long Island visiting my Dad in March, I could see the benefits of higher gas prices right away.

And they were so good they were worth repeating ten times: Less traffic! Less traffic! Less traffic! Etc., etc.

It was so wonderful to go back to NY without getting fight or flight syndrome on the parkways. What a joy to be able to go the speed limit without being cut off right and left by daredevils.

And I can only remember being in stop and go traffic once.

The change was substantial enough that I think New Yorkers may actually be paying about the same for gas, because they're not stuck in traffic with the engine running nearly as much.

I would say traffic is slightly lower where I live. We don't have as much public transportation, but it seems as if people are just driving more sensibly, combining trips, etc.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Wow. Where were you driving? 'Cause it took me two hours to get home from the dentist last Saturday.

[Prepoia[$]]

I really liked the list.
That being said, the drivers around here (this is truck & car country), go around pretty angry all the time. There is no public transportation where I'm at and it's hard to find even a taxi in bigger places like Detroit. Michigan produced all those gas guzzlers; the producers and cast have lost their jobs, their homes, their dignity and so we have a lot of road/unemployment/foreclosed house rage.

[lynnzop[$]]

I read that list yesterday, and it's an interesting spin.

I do find myself saying "no" to things that I would have otherwise signed up for without thinking before gas got so expensive. So I'll have to say that in a roundabout way, it's helped my stress level.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

I really like some of the items. Hubby and I had been thinking a few good things were going to come out of it, some of which are mentioned in the list:
- people will stop buying the huge trucks/SUVs/Hummers that they have no earthly use for and will buy more fuel-efficient vehicles, making the roads safer for little cars like ours and cutting down on pollution
- industries will start looking into alternative fuel technologies, the public will start to support renewable energy more (like the wind farm that people complained would "ruin the view" at Jones Beach) and society might finally invest in things to break oil dependence
- suburban areas like Long Island will finally have to bolster their public transportation systems to serve more residents (which is a bonus for the elderly who hold on to their cars too long because there's not much alternative out here)

[drmomentum[$]]

I like the fact that there is a better class of drivers on the road, now that the unwashed masses aren't driving around.

- Robber-Baron JP

[frazzledspice]

Mostly on the Southern State, MJ, between Wantagh, where my sister lives, and East Islip, where my brother lives, and Franklin Square, where my Dad was going through his post-surgical rehabilitation.

But I also ventured into Queens, Huntington, and, of course, back and forth to LaGuardia (but I have that down to a science.....I always leave on the first flight out, thereby avoiding traffic, and come in at night, thereby avoiding traffic.)

[pluckyduck]

I have a hard time having this conversation. I am genuinely upset about the hardship (to the point of actual survival threatening) the recent increases are to the most vulnerable. I can't fathom how people who are just making it are going to be able to "make it" when the economy is not expanding to increase their income at the same time. I keep flashing to seniors who cut their own prescriptions in half to try to stretch their drug dollars and wonder who is going to have to cut what to just be able to get back and forth to work.

Pulling the emotions out, stepping back objectively a sec.....wow. I'm an economics geek! I can't recall another time in my life where I've had the opportunity to see basic economic theories work so quickly and efficiently to transform behavior.

An environmentalist can preach "eat locally" until he or she is blue in the face, but people will actually eat locally when the cost of transportation adds too much to the cost of goods. (Of course, I live in a farm state, so easy for me to say, right?)

Stopping the exurb sprawl? Did it seem as if *anything* could stop the exurb sprawl? Between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, in thirty or so years of my being conscious of it I can't say how much family farmland has been given over to McMansion developments but the answer is somewhere around a whole frickin' lot.

There are a bunch of good things to come from exhorbitantly priced oil. If we had a way to not make the overwhelming part of the burden fall on the vulnerable, I'd almost be happy about it.

[mtbat]

the guy who delivers the chinese food made a good poing-people are b*tching about paying $4 a gallon for gas, but don't even blink about paying more than that for designer water or for a cup of coffee.

since I don't have a car, I drive my mom's when I need to go somewhere-and I try to do that as little as possible because it's a gas guzzler. but my bus pass still costs me $144 a month, dd's another $30. so for transportation I still pay out nearly $200 a month if I drive or not.

[pluckyduck]

mtbat said

the guy who delivers the chinese food made a good poing-people are b*tching about paying $4 a gallon for gas, but don't even blink about paying more than that for designer water or for a cup of coffee.

since I don't have a car, I drive my mom's when I need to go somewhere-and I try to do that as little as possible because it's a gas guzzler. but my bus pass still costs me $144 a month, dd's another $30. so for transportation I still pay out nearly $200 a month if I drive or not.

And here's the part where I start to sound like a socialist instead of the true blue capitalist that I am. (Really, I am!)

The cost of fuel adds to everything and touches everybody. If it only hit the designer water and Starbucks latte people, fine, trade off a coffee for another 20 miles.

I'm looking at wholesale prices from China going up 40%, 60% in just a few months. The cost of plastic pellets to be molded in the US, with US jobs, doubling in a 12 month span. That's basic, building block material that touches the cost of a frickload of products, not just plastic play toys.

I. Am. Worried.

We can use a general lifestyle adjustment in the U.S., god knows I can. Is anybody watching out for the people who won't be able to weather this?

(And why the hell didn't we fund public transportation way better to begin with. Rhetorical question. No need to answer.)

[frazzledspice]

The traffic changes I noticed in NY could have been due to people carpooling (a good thing,) people running errands more thoughtfully (a boon for time management as well as gas management,) people shopping locally instead of driving an extra ten miles to Wal-Mart (another boon for small business,) or people using public transportation (hopefully they can get some work done on their laptops on the LIRR.)

Maybe companies let people telecommute one day a week (how great would that be?)

Maybe teens are taking the school bus instead of driving to school (how do you spell S-A-F-E-T-Y?)

Not all of the decreased driving is due to desperation, and I, too, feel concern for those who don't have enough money to do what they have to do.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

I think as the middle-middle class and lower-middle class turn more to public transportation, they won't like what they see and they'll demand some changes... which benefits the lower class, whose protests are unfortunately often ignored until some white-collar folks show up to add their voices. It won't happen overnight, but it's more likely to happen if the economy gets/stays bad enough so that the middle class gets hit.

[drmomentum[$]]

I'd love to take the commuter train into work. Catching the commuter train is not super-easy from where I live; it's nearly 20 minute drive.

The problem is, since the train goes to Boston and I work in the opposite direction, it'll be difficult to explain to my boss why I am no longer showing up at the office, and why I am spending the workday hanging out in the North End eating pizza and gelato.

But you have to go where the commuter train takes you. Am I right, or am I right?

-JP

[pluckyduck]

drmomentum said

I'd love to take the commuter train into work. Catching the commuter train is not super-easy from where I live; it's nearly 20 minute drive.

The problem is, since the train goes to Boston and I work in the opposite direction, it'll be difficult to explain to my boss why I am no longer showing up at the office, and why I am spending the workday hanging out in the North End eating pizza and gelato.

But you have to go where the commuter train takes you. Am I right, or am I right?

-JP

God, you are on a roll lately.

The point, though, is real. IMHO, decent public transportation is the mark of a civilized society. I'm a city girl who didn't even drive until she was 27, and then only because she took a job that required a car. I remember going to visit family in Maryland and saying, "oh don't worry about picking me up, I'll just take transit from the Amtrak station". And then silence. (There was no "transit" that got anywhere close to their house. I argued for ten minutes that they must be wrong because of course there is transit to get places. )

We can't have public transportation *everywhere* in this big country. (I'm imagining a subway stop next to Slick's place.) But we can do a lot better. Right now, I live in a Jersey suburb that is not far from Philly & Camden at all, not far at all, but the public transportation is pretty much non-existent.

MJ's point about public transportation being seen as mostly a "poor people" problem is well taken. $4 and $5 (it's coming) gas will hopefully adjust thinking but.....public transit infrastructure and improvements aren't going to be fast. This is the government.

[frazzledspice]

MJ, your story reminds me of an event that occurred during a LIRR strike in the early 1970's. I lived in Queens at the time, and commuted to Manhattan by subway.

During the LIRR strike all the businesspeople from Long Island were riding the subways. So I get on the subway one evening with my co-workers, heading towards Queens. The subway is, of course, crowded.

There is a small gang of boys smoking not far from us. A small group of businessmen (LIRR commuters) go up to them and demand they put their cigarettes out. My friends and I all held our breaths--we weren't sure whether they'd be punched, knifed, or whut!

But sure enough, they put their cigarettes out...

Fast forward twenty-five years....my sister commutes to the city via LIRR and subway, and wears sunglasses on the subway in case someone sees her accidentally looking at him and believes he's being "dissed."

Maybe it would be good if a greater cross-section of people used public transportation.

[jgibson2[$]]

Personally, I'm hoping that they'll restore bus service to my part of the county. It was stopped 10 years or so ago due to low ridership. I'm thinking that won't be a problem with the current cost of gas. There are no longer enough parking spaces at the light rail lots on typical workdays. Used to be that was only on O's/Yankees days at the ball park.

[theworm[$]]

I haven't lived in NY for over 10 years, but I commuted on the subway and thought it was great. When I visit NY now, I still love to take the subway. It's fast, cheap, and a lot cleaner than it used to be.

[amykhar]

Buses have their own problem. Bob takes the bus to work when he can't carpool, and it costs $30 a day. I don't even pay that much with gas and tolls to get back and forth to work.

[jgibson2[$]]

Buses aren't perfect, but around here, you can get a transit pass that's good for bus, light rail, the weenie bit of subway. It beats driving into Baltimore and paying $25 for parking. Cheap compared to Manhattan, I know, but still annoying.

The bus service wouldn't get me to work in a reasonable amount of time, but it would be an alternative for getting downtown. Unless someone decided to beat me up -- a problem around here recently.

[emeleel]

$30 a DAY?! Good grief, back a couple years ago when we were considering having Joseph switch to the bus for work, a MONTH pass was like $35 back in Montgomery. That's highway robbery! (Well, city street robbery. )