Has The Price Of Gas Changed Your Habits?

If there were grocery stores or pharmacies closer to where I live, I would definitely bike there with Little Man on the back. But this is Texas, home of the urban sprawl, so I don't have much choice BUT to drive. But I have, for a long time, tried to plan out my trips so I don't have to make unnecessary repeat drives.

And public transportation simply isn't offered up here, and my efforts to find a carpool here to work has failed miserably, especially since we all live in different locations and work different hours. I even used the company Want Ads.

 

My wife and I used to drive around town a lot more. We'd take the top off the Jeep and just drive around town.

We don't "just go for a drive" now.

 

I probably put all of 30 miles per week on my car, but last weekend I had to drive a lot (golf and seders) and I had my first $50 tank. If I had to drive often, I'd probably have to change my habits.

 

HC & I love going for drives into the country. Poke around small towns and check out the local pubs.

We'd drive up to Lake Huron for a day, and maybe the next time drive down to Lake Erie. Next on our list is Prince Edward County in Eastern Ontario which is on the way to Jones's house.

Won't be doing much of that anymore since they're predicting gas is gonna hit around $1.40 a litre this summer--that's about $5.30 a gallon.

If the Toronto transit system could get me to work in half an hour (it takes me fifteen minutes to drive), I'd switch in a heartbeat.

But from where we live, it's a bus, then a short subway ride and another bus. One hour, fifteen minutes. Screw that.

 

I'm a desker at an afternoon daily. I bike to work three times a week when I have desk-only duties. It's about a 30-35 minute ride.

I fill up about once a month. That's about $40/month in gas for my Civic.

The only regret is that I didn't do it earlier.

 

Yep. There are some back roads I might take every now and then for a different, not-exactly-direct route to work. I don't take those anymore. All Interstate, from home to work back home again.

And on days off, the same applies. I rarely stray too far on days off, opting to walk around town or take out my bike. If I don't have to drive, I don't drive.

 

But man, a warm spring evening, top down, curving blacktop road, third gear rumbling from the dual pipes as you hit the apex, sweet thing with a mischievous smile in the passenger seat and a driving CD in the player -- it's hard to beat.

Yeah, I don't do that much anymore.

 

I don't fill up and I'm getting my bike fixed so I can ride to work when I don't have an out-of-office assignment.

 

*honk* MOVE YOUR ASS WOMAN!!! *honk honk* FUCKIN SHIT LADY I'M IN A RUSH!!! *honk honk flip the bird honk honk* JESUS CHRIST WHAT ARE YOU 85?

 

I have no problem consolodating trips, biking, etc., to cut down my trips and my personal gasoline consumption, which, I might add, is down about 10 percent from a year ago in my state.

But truckers, who move most of the goods across this big country of ours, don't have much of an alternative. And the higher price they pay for diesel to transport their goods, the higher price we pay to purchase those goods, whether we're biking or walking to the store to do our shopping.

I don't think $4 a gallon gasoline helps anyone, except the oil companies.

 

Jones, I respect the hell out of you, but this argument is not only stereotypical, short-sided and wrong, but for many of us, it's just flat-out, fucking impossible.

I would LOVE to take public transportation. Nothing would make me happier than having a system like the El in Chicago or the T in Boston.

Instead, here in SoCal, we have Metrolink, which is a boondogglesque bag of crap. Unlike the El or the T, which go all over the cities they serve, the Metrolink trains go into Union Station in downtown LA, then go back.

They stop at various places along the way, but if you need to go to the San Fernando Valley or the Westside or Long Beach, you're fucked. Your only option is to take it to the nearest station, then either bus over (and here in LA, God help you) or park a car there and drive to where you need to be -- at extra expense across the board.

I drive 65 miles one way to work every day -- 130 round trip. That's morphed into a $500 montly gas bill if you're scoring at home and one reason why I've shelved my part-time university teaching gig after this semester. It just wasn't worth in in gas. After six years, that was a job I really enjoyed.

Why do I live so far? Because of the Southern California real estate market, where a starter home anywhere near the LA basin or SF Valley that isn't in a barrio starts at around 700k and heads sharply north from there.

My wife works two jobs five minutes from our house. It's important one of us works close by because of our two kids. We have a nice house in a nice neighborhood and given the fact we both work hard for it, there's no fucking reason why we shouldn't.

Some of us don't have a choice but to drive. Attitudes like yours that don't take circumstances into account not only do nothing to alleviate the problem, but they don't make any sense.

And I could care less about how much the French -- or any other country -- pays for gas. Most of those other countries are a heck of a lot smaller and have efficient public transportation.

 

Not even slightly.