Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< That would mean they are within reasonable walking distance, no? Or at least no more than 15-20 minutes by bike. >>> I'd take a taxi.
Originally Posted By mele I'm already doing a lot less driving because our gas is more than $4. I'm not too far from only driving to work and walking everywhere else. I try to stay home more anyway, just to avoid spending $ for crap I don't need.
Originally Posted By DAR Walking distance it's about 25-30 minutes. But for these purposes I'll take the car.
Originally Posted By mele Walking to most things is a great idea. It gets less appealing when you have to do it in the near-constant rain.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< At what price WOULD you change? >>> <<< If price goes up to $100 a gallon then Target (and all other retailers) would go out of business. >>> I think that's the answer for me. I don't drive a whole lot (4000 miles a year), and my commute is about 1 mile, so most of the 4000 is leisure. So, if gas was $10 or $15 a gallon, I don't think I'd change my driving much. The indirect affect of what gas that expensive would do to the economy and my bottom line would affect me far greater than what I paid at the pump, so I'm much more worried about the affect of gas prices on the country as a whole.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<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.>> That is exactly our situation. We moved from the "prestigious southwestern suburbs" of the Twin Cities to a first ring suburb of Mpls/St.Paul about 2-1/2 years ago. I cannot say that we were at all prescient about the price of gas going up, because we weren't. We were just danged tired of spending an hour each day driving to work and another hour driving home from work. So we moved to where we don't even get on a freeway to get to work. We live about 2 miles away... we are usually there in 5 minutes or 10 minutes if traffic is bad. We fill our tank once every two-three weeks. Most everywhere we shop or go out to eat is within one or two miles of where we live. If we had to, we could probably get by with walking on most trips. So no, I can't imagine a gas price that would make us stop buying the small amount of gas that we currently do.
Originally Posted By oc_dean How did it get so bad .. So fast ... and who are those to blame for a real serious problem in our country?! Anyway ... I think it was too much when it hit 3 bucks a gallon. And for many .. like myself ... It's not a situation where there's some cut-off in my head ... "Oh, I'll dump the car, and go public transportation .. when it gets to...." It's a situation for some where there is not enough public transportation that is PRACTICAL .. and the car is the only choice .. next to just staying at home. Especially in the LA basin which is spread out so widely (guess where George Lucas got his inspiration for the planet Corruscant?! LOL) ....... getting around by bus is NOT really an answer .. just re-read Ursula's post. I'm never going to forget one time I wanted to use the bus to get from Buena Park .. to the South Coast Plaza before I got my first car .. around 1983. A distance by car .. of 20 minutes. By bus ... I would have had to transfer to 3 bus lines .. and the journey would have taken 3 hours. Busses here in Southern Ca. are simply not a solution. Unless your home .. and your work is close enough to each other .. where some kind of bus routine is WORKABLE. You know .... it's utterly ridiculous how the gas price situation is out of control. It's one thing for the gas prices to grow incremintally over time .... but at this rate .. this fast ... There's just no reasonable justification for this. And those who only have the automobile to get around .. and are only medium income earners (which is most of this country!) .. are the ones who are made to suffer the most.
Originally Posted By oc_dean And to add to the lack of public transportation ........ It's really an irony how Orange Co. has not a single rail system. Not one! To help out. Here .... in the center of it all... was the first daily operating Monorail in the western hemisphere which began service in 1959. In 1967 began the world's first "daily operating" Peoplemover ........ And the very county that Disneyland resides in .......can't get it's frikin act together ... with ANYTHING ..... 40-50 years later! YET .. most major cities in the US now .. have something going ... which I'm sure had some inspiration by Walt's two genious transporation ideas. Other places had the "get up and go" ... OC though ....... backward, backward, BACKWARD! And I blame the political climate, for the last 30 years, for that!
Originally Posted By oc_dean And now .... 34 cities in OC ... 8 years into the 21st Century.... is so crippled ... even the Peoplemover track remains defunct .. and look at the current situation with Mark VII monorails. They may never come into service this year .. with the remaining "1" Mark V limping along. Inside AND outside the "berm"... are so crippled ... so bad ....... you have to laugh at it! Disneyland .. and the surrounding OC must have some curse over it! Is it Endora? Is it Sauron? Who put a hex over these lands???
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "It's really an irony how Orange Co. has not a single rail system. Not one! To help out." Once my brother went blind four years ago, he became very dependent on public transit. He got a job working at a Marriott Call Center, taking reservations and what not. He wanted to continue to earn his way through life. The call center was in Costa Mesa, and he was and still is in Aliso Viejo, a 20-25 ride by car. We discovered there was no direct bus from point A to point B at any time. He would have to be driven to a transit center in Laguna Hills, about two to three miles from his apartment, and then the bus would go all the way into Anaheim before veering towards Costa Mesa two hours later. Going home, reverse the route. Nothing that just went a straight shot up the 405. He actually tried that for a while, but was late to work a lot, and also exhausted from the extra four hours of travel each day. Combined with being newly blind, it served to give him ulcers and he lost a lot of weight. To preserve his health and sanity, he quit. He's back in school now, getting re-trained yet again, but he's on section 8 housing and SSI, a comfortable enough living really for him being a single guy, but he'd much rather not be on "handouts", as he puts it. The bus routes, due to budget cuts and despite Measure M, which promised to improve things, have only gotten worse since then.
Originally Posted By X-san Public Transit aside, I'm surprised that there are no assistance programs for handicapped and elderly folks, such as "theride" which is a program in Boston that I think would be very useful for your bro. Something along these lines... <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paratransit" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paratransit</a>
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan I think this latest wave of gas price increases happened so quickly that it really hit people even harder than had it been a slower increase over time. There's a psychological component in addition to the actual price when gas is going for $4.55 a gallon. If we'd gone from $3.50 to $4.50 in baby steps rather than practically overnight, the impact wouldn't have been so immediate nor so shocking. So as to what "too much" for gas might be, I can't say. A lot of it depends on if it happens gradually, or a sudden spike. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, weekday and weekend ridership on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) subway system has gone WAY up.
Originally Posted By X-san I love BART. In fact, it's the subway system that in my mind comes the closest to the Tokyo ideal in American (actual posted schedules and clocks in the stations, ANNOUNCEMENTS when things are late and why...stuff like that...antithema to my hometown of Boston sad to say). K2M, not to sound too gloomy but I've spoken to a couple of experts recently (one involved in the oil biz, another who is a desk trader of commodities in Tokyo), and they BOTH say without hesitation that oil will hit $200 this year without question (I grilled them on it...they both seem quite convinced). I sure hope not (who does? except maybe the oil barons), but if so you can expect more in the way of spikes to say the least.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan I too hope they're wrong, of course, but at this point, it wouldn't surprise me. I am very concerned as to what such a price leap would do to the already struggling economy. Obama or McCain is going to take office with things in quite a state, aren't they? : p
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <I think that's the answer for me. I don't drive a whole lot (4000 miles a year), and my commute is about 1 mile, so most of the 4000 is leisure. So, if gas was $10 or $15 a gallon, I don't think I'd change my driving much. The indirect affect of what gas that expensive would do to the economy and my bottom line would affect me far greater than what I paid at the pump, so I'm much more worried about the affect of gas prices on the country as a whole.> That's our situation too, living in Brooklyn where everything is walking distance, and Manhattan is a subway ride away. We really only use the car if we're going to friends' houses or away for the weekend; and yet, we're still hit by rising prices on food, airfare, anything that has to be transported, and of course the hit the stock market has taken. So although we're lucky compared to a lot of people, it really is a truism that an energy crunch affects the economy as a whole like few other things. What's really nuts (and misleading) is that energy rates are not even included in the official rate of inflation.
Originally Posted By DyGDisney I've noticed almost every day I hear oil has hit an all time high (again) per barrell, yet the steep climb in gas prices we were seeing a month ago has stopped. Gas where I live has stayed at about $4.49/gallonn for at least 2 to 3 weeks. I wonder why?
Originally Posted By DyGDisney On that note, anyone want to buy a 4 door, 2006 pickup? It's super nice and comfy inside!!!!!
Originally Posted By Walter Elias Any price over about $1.40 is too much. They've got me though, I have no public transportation anywhere within 5 miles of my home. Gas prices are high all over--higher in some other countries. Hopefully McCain can help get us away from our dependence on foreign oil. Bush has been saying since he took office, we need to make big changes but I guess Congress didn't see it as such a big problem. I'd like to see us develop a very reliable electric car.
