While I genuinely feel bad for economically disadvantaged workers with long commutes in used vehicles, I can’t help but notice most of the complaints about fuel prices come from people who: A. Shout down anyone trying to improve public transportation infrastructure by saying it can’t work in rural areas (it can, and has), and B. Own outrageously large personal vehicles that guzzle gas and houses with 2+ stall garages.
I’ll listen to complaining from anyone who doesn’t fall into one or both of these two groups.
Personally I think gas is still too cheap.
Gas should be prohibitively expensive. It’s price should reflect its impact.
Unfortunately this would crumble the entire US and possibly western economy. It works in most of the rest of the world because the commutes are smaller and the alternative transit is plentiful.
Yeah, we need to build the infrastructure.
Or let me correct that: Rebuild the infrastructure.
Even here in lowly South Dakota where I live, there was once a network of buses and trains that traveled between even small towns. That was all abandoned to appease the automotive gods.
Manitoba Canada used to have a decent train network from what i can tell, and now it just has nothing outside of Winnipeg
The only times I see people like me, who prefer owning a car “shouting down” people adcovating for better public transport, is when people suggest I should get rid of my car and ride a bus instead. A good public transportation system is a net-good for everyone, and in no way inconveniences me especially if I never even use it. It’s not busses and trains I have an issue with - it’s the naive city dwellers who thinks that because they get around just fine without a car then anyone would.
Thanks for providing an example of the type of person I’m talking about. You sound just like their self-centered asses! Good satire.
Why even bother responding to me if, instead of addressing what exactly you take issue with in my statement, you just immediately resort to insults?
Your comment is NOT nice. Please, remember this in the future and enjoy your week long vacation.
The world and particularly the west desperately need to address their oil addiction. Business as usual is no longer acceptable.
Higher oil prices are motivating people to move away from oil, hopefully toward electrification & renewables. Or at the very least, motivating people to lower their fuel consumption.
Electric vehicles are better than sticking with internal combustion, but there’s still so much energy wasted in designing infrastructure around everyone getting around by cars in the first place. Everything gets spread further apart to accommodate them on roads and in parking lots, which means you have to travel farther to get where you’re going. Our city designs need to shift toward density way faster than they currently are.
All good points.
Regardless of the mean of transportation (bus, car, motorcycle, train) moving to electric typically reduce pollution and can be done relatively quickly, without much infrastructure change. Improving (public) transport infrastructure and reshaping cities to be more efficient is also needed, but it’ll take more time.
Sure, but if people are moving away from one thing and “hopefully toward” something, I’d hope it’s toward a situation where they don’t need a car at all. I think electric bikes and those electric scooters could be a revolution for transportation in this country, seeing as they’re great for making those less than 3 mile trips that make up half of all trips made by car (and if you expand that out to 6 miles, you’re at almost 70% of trips made by car). So maybe you don’t live in a huge dense city, but if you live within a few miles of everything you need, you could get this super cheap and efficient electric vehicle instead of a car, or at least downsize from a two-car household to a one-car household.
How much of a reduction has this caused? Is it even measurable? I’m talking about a much more systematic change. A dramatic departure from cars as the primary mode of transit and electrification of any remaining transport is what’s needed. As well as a phasing out of oil in the chemical industry.
I wonder if this will drive migrations patterns in the near future? Certainly US drivers tend to travel pretty far, every day, just to get to work. Will we see a trend of folks relocating to larger towns and cities for smaller or no automotive commute?
They say rich tech people fled to the suburbs during the pandemic so maybe this is how the vacuum fills? Though rents are going up in the city too and housing is pretty tight so maybe no vacuum anywhere:( Need more.
Maybe, but how the pressure of gas prices would interact with the cost of housing in areas where it would be possible to ditch or substantially reduce commutes by car is moot. Those areas are already expensive & oversubscribed, and are likely to become much more so as commuting by car becomes more costly.
If there is less need for city centre office space, cities could embark on building high density housing & amenities, but few cities will want to risk being earlier than others to go down that route.
I could more easily see an increase in the type of accommodation that exists in places like Hong Kong, with many people sharing a bunk-filled room, or many tiny rooms little bigger than a single bed all sharing a bathroom with the rest of the corridor.
oversubscribed
What an excellent point. I take that to mean infrastructure, specifically things like services. That would be a challenge to overcome especially if these new dwellers were not making more income. I hope bunkhouses do not become a standard, but I think the tiny room idea is pretty nice. I don’t need my own kitchen, either!
Have you seen the tiny rooms? They’re arguably more cramped & dangerous than the bunkhouses & a long way from traditional bedsits, though as a basic idea there’s no reason why they couldn’t be alright.
EDIT: no idea how this reply ended up here. Removing main body & hopefully can post it in the right place.EDIT EDIT: seems it was in the right place, so putting the main text back.
No, I actually had not heard of tiny rooms before so maybe I should be careful with what I wish for 😬 I have stayed in bunkhouses and had a mixed bag. Some were really nice, but one I remember being able to hold hands from our beds. It was pretty close. More like a barracks. I guess like anything else, good design matters!
I’ll look into the tiny rooms. I am now picturing those little pods on Tokyo…
☹️ that is so much worse than I thought
That’s making gas more expensive for US drivers
yeah no kidding lol
How much are you paying at a gas station?
Here in Germany it’s 2€/liter
Gas near me is about $3.25 per gallon, which (assuming my math is correct) is about 0.82 Euro per litre.
