Originally Posted By X-san I had an interesting conversation with someone today who told me that he has decided to stop driving altogether and rely solely on public transportation if gas hits 200 yen per liter (a quick and rough estimate would put that at just under $8 a gallon). Right now it's at 180 yen per liter here (last year was around 120). He tells me that 200 yen per liter would amount to about $100 to fill the tank of his regular sized Toyota. So, at around $8, the guy is done. Parking the car. Gonna take the train. He mentioned that he loves driving, and puts up with the high price of gas and parking right now because it's so much more convenient. Granted, this question applies to city dwellers much better, since of course for people outside of the public transportation grid they have no real alternatives (maybe invest in a horse? lol). But anyway, at what price would you start to consider doing such a thing? Either abandoning your car entirely, or for those "I'll never abandon my car!" folks, at least curtailing any driving as best you can? $5? $8 (like my friend)? $11? $20?
Originally Posted By Mrs ElderP We have no firm cut off, but everytime the prices go up we drop certain behaviors. Like, now, we don't take as many DL trips as we would if gas was $2 a gallon. At a certain point, and I don't even know what that point would be $5? $6? we are going to have to take a loss on our house and move closer to ElderP's work. Depending on where we moved that has an excellent possability of putting ElderP on public transportation. Thats the big change we are contemplating, but it has more than the cost of gas involved, what can we get for our house? can we even sell the house at any price? what if ElderP gets a job signifigantly further from our house? (With the new MBA he's activly looking for a new job.) All that goes into it, but the price of gas is certainly one of those factors.
Originally Posted By mrkthompsn $8 and we'll park the Tahoe. $10 then I'll get a motorcycle. $12 then it's war.
Originally Posted By X-san Didn't mean for this to end up so personal (and only on the second post no less!), but I appreciate your detailed and thought provoking reply. This topic notwithstanding; I hope things work out well for you guys! Tough to make a call about selling your house in this market, that's for sure (though just another facet in the issue of rising prices and falling home values, of course...a real catch 22 to say the least!).
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Well, the first couple of responses are very real ones, and more representative of how it is affecting people here. The other thread that tells us to quit whining about gas prices misses the mark entirely, I believe, because the real world price right now is beginning to really hurt people, no matter how the price is adjusted. For example, my wife and I have no kids and we make a pretty good living. We can absorb price hikes. However, our income isn't infinite, hardly anyone's is, and there will come a time sooner or later that we'll have to cut back other activites as well. Which means,like the elderp's, fewer discretionary trips to DL, fewer discretionary things of all types, whether eating out to a weekend in the desert. THAT'S the type of domino effect I was talking about in the other thread. DL gets less of our and the elderp's money and others like us, the servers at restaurants in the desert don't see as many tips, the hotels don't get our business, all businesses we would normally patronize get less of our $$$ and then THEY cut back. Their employees do their own cutting back, and so it goes.
Originally Posted By LadyKluck We've already had to cut out LOTS of extras/luxuries. We used to have satellite TV & Netflix - we cancelled both of those. We used to go out to breakfast every Sunday morning, we don't do that anymore. We have only been to one or two yard sales this summer, normally we go every weekend, etc. We also used to just get in the car and go for a drive and just end up wherever. Needless to say we stay at home a lot. The up side to that is our yard looks really nice! I can't say when we'd actually STOP buying gas because we have to use it. We live 45 min away from where we work and no public transportation in a town of only 5,000 people. Yes, there's public transportation in Boise, but we don't want to move back there unless we absolutely have to. We moved to the country so we could have our animals and SPACE. It may get to the point where that's going to be considered a luxury that has to go too.
Originally Posted By Ursula I thought my price was $4 a gallon. I looked into public transportation and I'd have to get up an hour earlier, take two busses, and be late to work each day due to a flexible bus system on the second bus. I was going to do this then decided to cut back in other places for the convenience of having my car. I don't know what my price is now. I'm guessing $8.
Originally Posted By gottaluvdavillains Will always drive my SUV - it's paid for - Environmentalists love my suv it's a diesel My DH drives a motorcycle to work We are looking for a smaller used car since we have given DS19 the subaru - want used older car to drive for a year or 2 then will give that to DS17... In 2 years will look at hybrids probably. For now - we leave the house less - only going to DL once this summer instead of twice - not so many day trips anywhere... we run as many errands as we can at one time -
Originally Posted By hopemax As I've posted before, we have one car, a Civic. We've been living in a way that a tank of gas will last us 2+ weeks since when gas was $1.35. We've either lived close to DH's job or he has taken a bus. When his new job starts next week, he will be taking a bus from a block away from our apartment to across the street from his job. Grocery store is around the block, shopping center is 1.5 miles away, my craft store I like to visit is about 5 miles, but I don't go their daily...and that's all we really do. Oh, Costco is about 10, but we only go once a month. 20 miles round trip, is only a half gallon for us. I feel bad for people who live in places where there aren't transportation options. But for us, how far is it to job, grocery, shopping, etc has always been a factor in our living arrangements. So for us the rising fuel is an annoyance, not a major concern. I don't know what it would take to be a real issue...I don't think $10/gallon would even do it.
Originally Posted By LadyKluck Post #10 has given me a great idea!! I'll start riding my horse to the grocery store!!!
Originally Posted By wahooskipper I am in a community that lacks public transportation which severly limits our options. Fortunately I have a work provided vehicle for business travel. Our other car is a Tahoe...and it's eating through gas as you might expect. If I new gas prices were going to come to this I might have reconsidered the purchase...although it is very flexible for our needs. That said, we have already curbed our driving habits. We are trying to think about errands we need to take and postponing things so that we can be more frugal. We have held off on a trip up to Orlando that we intended to take, etc. What happens if prices go higher still? Good question. We bought the Tahoe only a year ago or so which means we will be upside down on it for a while. There isn't much of a market out there for used SUVs right now. So, we will likely grin and bear it.
Originally Posted By wonderingalice Like our "twins," the SingleParkPassholders, Mr. Alice and I are DINKs (Dual Income, No Kids). Although the gas prices are completely nuts, the situation hasn't yet affected our travel plans. We do, however, eat at home more often now and better plan the running of errands to save gas. Mr. Alice is a casino tip-earner and yes, we've noticed somewhat of a down turn in that area. So, we're just easing back a bit in case things really turn ugly. I've basically announced to my boss that if gas goes to $5 per gallon, he'd best expect to see me working from home two-three days a week. It's very hard to maintain any kind of optimism towards a future upswing these days, isn't it? Stupid government. :-(
Originally Posted By wahooskipper You can blame the government, to an extent. You can also blame the American people (like me) for buying gas guzzlers, relying too much on the automobile, not supporting public transportation initiatives, not utilizing available public transportation, resisting oil exploration alternatives in our own country, etc. We don't go without blame in all of this.
Originally Posted By mele Right now, I'm more worried about the toll that they're going to put on the bridge I use to get to work. I only work 11 miles from home and only work 3 days a week. (Sometimes I do work more often.) They are estimating the toll maybe as much as $9-12 each way. Ouch. Add that to the tank of gas I need to get to and from work and I'll be spending $500/mo. just to have my part time job.
Originally Posted By DAR For me driving is the only to go. I can be at work in ten minutes. If I were to take the bus I'd have to go twenty minutes out of the way to the ParkNRide then wait for the bus. Then do the same thing coming home. Plus I don't like being on the bus's schedule I like to be on my own when I'm traveling through town. There's a grocery store, Target and Home Depot within five minutes of my house. There's plenty of restraunts within the area. And hey with Amazon, Overstock, LP Store and other online shopping sites I don't have to worry about going 25 minutes to the nearest Borders Best Buy or mall.
Originally Posted By wonderingalice ^^ Yep... I posted the fully bus-use itinerary on another thread related to gas prices. I leave for work NOW at about 5:30 a.m. and it takes me 20 minutes to get there. If I started taking the bus, I'd have to leave the house (and walk 2+ miles to the first stop) no later than 4:15 a.m. just to make it to work 15 minutes - 1/2 an hour late. Nope... That is not acceptable public transportation. LV runs a great system for tourists, but we've got a long way to go before locals in any great number will be enticed to utilize it.
Originally Posted By X-san ***There's a grocery store, Target and Home Depot within five minutes of my house. There's plenty of restaurants within the area.*** That would mean they are within reasonable walking distance, no? Or at least no more than 15-20 minutes by bike. So, that's the point of the topic. At what price WOULD you change? To go completely hyperbolic here, for example if gas were $100 per gallon would you still fire up the engine and drive 5 minutes to Target?
Originally Posted By ChurroMonster If price goes up to $100 a gallon then Target (and all other retailers) would go out of business.
