Where's the outrage?

Take public transportation, walk or ride a bike, people. Save some money and with some of those options, get a bit healthier.

 

I really, really hate that answer.

If there were any public fucking transit available at 1 a.m. when I get off work, I'd use it. But there's not.

There's really not any reliable public transit at 3 p.m. when I go to work, either. The bus doesn't come around on most streets in my town, and the places it does go, it's on a haphazard schedule.

And when you live in the 16th most-dangerous city in the U.S. (actually, I think we're down to 24th now :) ... riding my bike 8 miles home at 1 a.m. isn't an option, either.

 

Did America somehow expect a different outcome when they elected oilmen to the highest offices in the country?

Not all european college educations are free. There are perhaps a dozen countries in which tuition is paid. In about 14 others, students are responsible for up to 6000 EU per year of their own costs. And again, I'm not sure that those funds are derived from gasoline taxes in any case. More likely from their astronomical income tax.

I didn't do it intentionally, but the point remains, fuel there is twice as expensive at the pump as it is here. We drive too much. We drive too much without anyone else in the car. We've made our economy entirely dependent on the price of gasoline. Then we complain about the high cost of gas when demand rises and prices go up? We've done this. We make ourselves hostages to Exxon and Conoco and BP. With or without government taxes, other developed countries seem to be able to accommodate higher gas prices without resorting to war.

 

Buck -

The next time a referendum on a public transit bond issue rolls around, you'll have every reason in the world to vote for it. Political action like that is the only way to get ourselves unstuck.

 

If you want to know how underhanded this shit is, read this transcript from Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal's testimony at a Judiciary hearing last week:

 

Last summer when I traveled, gas was around $3; when I left town in January, I filled up in Kentucky for $1.99. Gas prices will go down again.

As for mass transit, I was without a license my first year out of high school and had to take the bus to and from work every day (and of course to get anywhere on my days off). I'll pay $5 gallon or ride a damn bike to work before I regularly use mass transit again.

 

I have no problem outing myself in a case like this. I live in Conroe, Texas, a town way too small to have a public transit bond vote, yet I work in The Woodlands, a town entirely too far away for me to ride a bike.

Public transportation and biking and car-pooling and all these other concepts are great, as are many of the energy-saving ideas Al Gore spouted. Unfortunately, these ideas don't work in every locale, with every person.

That's why such a glib answer pisses people off.

 

The problem is DEMAND DIDN'T GO UP. At least, it didn't go up at a rate high enough to force gas prices to triple. The demand has risen at roughly the same rate every year for the last 30 years. The supply's still there. The refining capacity is still the same, which is somewhat of a problem but not a major one.

So, everything's the same except the price. And the oil companies are raking in hundreds of billions. And you're telling me that my non-carpooling ass is to blame for that? Horseshit. They're gouging the hell out of us and the people in charge are allowing it to happen. I guarantee you that gas prices will be at least a dollar cheaper at this time next year. Save this shit. If they're not, I'll send you a dollar.

Yeah, we drive too much. But there are a whole helluva lot of people who drive because they've got to. I have to get to work so I depend on gas. The guy delivering the mail depends on gas. The company shipping produce has to use gas. The company shipping medical supplies has to use gas. The companies that produce any sort of tangible product that leaves their plant is reliant upon gas.

The guys driving around in Hummers just killing time, they account for about 2 percent of the gas purchased in this country.

And yeah, the gas in Europe is roughly two times more expensive than here. But they're buying their barrels of oil for the same price. So the markup is coming somewhere on their end, whether its taxes, refining specifications or something else. It's their problem, and the people of those countries are conditioned to accept it. It didn't cost two-thirds less five years ago.

 

I don't think Claws was trying to be glib, Alley. OK, maybe a little. But you're right, not every remedy is going to work for everybody.

In Buck's case, maybe agitating for a better mass transit system makes sense. In yours, maybe the only thing you can do to fight the good fight against the gas pirates is to drive a more efficient car.

I'm lucky enough to live in a city with terrific mass transit. But that comes with costs, too. We pay outrageous state and city taxes here. So what I save on gas goes in part to subsidize the buses and subways. But I would never elect not to subsidize them simply because I'd much prefer riding in a car by myself to being sneezed on by my 8,000,000 neighbors on their way to work.

 

I meant the demand that comes around every year at Memorial Day. Prices always go up beginning the month before Memorial Day. They'll start to come down again after Labor Day.

And no, I didn't mean to imply that you not carpooling was bringing the nation to its knees. I'm saying that we're all complicit in underwriting a system that exercises this kind of influence over the economy and over government.

The people in charge?

I thought that was us.

 

jgmacg --

Been a voter for seven years now. The issue hasn't come up once, in the three places I've lived. When it does, I'll vote for it. But I'm not holding my breath.

Public transit is great in a city with the density of New York or Chicago, or a country with the density of England or France. But for the rest of us, who live in this amazingly spread-out country of ours? Doesn't matter what we get to vote on, it doesn't make social or economic sense to put a mass transit system here. Our jobs are spread out, our homes are spread out, our lives are spread out.

I'm "lucky" enough to be able to live in the same town I have a job in -- public transit might work for me, if it were available. (Even if it were, it likely wouldn't be at 1 a.m. when I get off work, rendering this moot.) Most people have to commute, and not always by choice. They either don't get paid enough to live where they work, or live in a place where good jobs aren't available, or work in a place where they wouldn't want to live ... but they make do, because everybody has to pay the bills, right?

Unless the entire economic foundation of this country is overhauled, mass transit doesn't make sense ... for most people ... in most places.