Cost of gasoline, worldwide- Good thing we bike

[Koronin]

Good luck with hoping for better public transportation. As gas prices went up so did the cost of tickets for the public transportation system in Charlotte. They also have cut both routes and stops for their public transportation due to the higher cost of gas.

[bmccasland]

The price you pay at the pump is more than the cost of crude, refining, and transportation to your local station. It includes a whole variety of taxes - state and local. I know in some countries the price per gallon (or liter) includes hefty taxes to subsidize public transportation.

[Koronin]

It's not just the cost of public transportation, but also the convenient of it. If it's not convenient it's also not worthwhile or just flatly impossible to use. The public transportation system (the buses) in Charlotte started at around 8am and were back in their base by 10pm. Where my husband worked he couldn't have used it if he wanted to. Day shift started at 4:45am and ended at 3:45pm. 2nd shift started at 3:45pm and ended at 2:45am. No way to use the public transportation system. Charlotte did built one light rail line (southern part of the city) which is has been successful. However they want to build two more lines. The 1 will most likely eventually get built, but right now they can't get funding for it. The 2nd line is never going to get built for two reasons that I am aware of. First several towns that it will run through near will not help fund it because the return they will see to them does not give them enough return for their investment. The 2nd is because the freight railroads that use and actually own the tracks have said no you aren't going to use our lines and interfere with our schedules.

[Koronin]

Also in NC they have been stealing from the transportation fund for years to fund other projects at the expense of roads, bridges and other infrastructure that needs to be fixed. Then of course they are great at building roads to only have to go back and fix them in a handful of years because they didn't built them properly in the first place. Or you get roads like Independence Blvd in Charlotte that is nightmare and at this point is totally hopeless to fix. They need other routes for people to take and get traffic off that road, but instead they keep wanting to expand it or who knows what is the latest idea.

[Crankin]

I've gone from filling up my car every 2 weeks and cycling to work 2X a week for part of the year, to driving for my job and having to work hard to get just a weekly fill up. My car gets very average mileage (18 mpg), it's almost 9 years old, and has AWD, which is necessary where I live. I get reimbursed a decent amount for my mileage, which comes to about 200-300 dollars a month.
I try to do minor errands (drugstore, fish market, bakery) by bike for about 8 months out of the year, but major stuff, like grocery shopping, no.
My dilemma is that while frankly, I can afford to absorb the increased gas prices, it is a huge change from my former lifestyle, where first I lived 6.7 miles from work and then about 13.8 miles. While my clients are all around 5-15 miles from my house, my office is about 26 miles, and I have 2 clients near there. I only go to the office 2-3 days a week and I rarely drive my car on the weekends, as we use DH's. My intention is to stay at my job until I am licensed (at least until the end of June 2013, probably longer), but I recently had a talk with the physician at my office, who also works at the clinic 5 miles from my house. He said he could help me get a job there. The only way I could justify leaving my clients would be the "gas prices" argument. And, I would probably have to work a little more in terms of hours. It's a problem for me at this point.

[marni]

when we left the Netherlands in 2004, one Euro was equal to $1.00. Gas at that point was $5.00 or 5 Euros a liter ( 1 gallon =3.87 liter.)

There is a very strong infrastructure of alternate transportation including feet in the Netherlands and always has been. We survived 15 years and three kids with scouting, sports, after school and school activities with 1 car that was used primarily for weekend touristing excursions or if my husband had to drive to the work site in Belgium.

My own little pontiac vibe sits in the driveways several days in a row several times a week. I am very lucky that we live where the only paces I go to on a regular basis are within a 10-12 mile radius, and that the gym is understanding and lets me bring my "bebe" inside and park it next to the reception desk instead of having to leave it chained out in the parking lot of the strip mall where the gym is located.

I cannot see how people like my neighbor (a self employed painting contractor) who have to drive all over , pay for their gas and have to have a larger vehicle for equipment
manage.Nor can I see the city of Houston actually using any of the gasoline taxes for their designated purposes except to build more freeways to empty fields waiting to be filled with ticky tacky houses of suburbia.

Not *****ing, just wondering where all of this is going.

marni

Just sayin-

[shootingstar]

The public transportation system (the buses) in Charlotte started at around 8am and were back in their base by 10pm. Where my husband worked he couldn't have used it if he wanted to. Day shift started at 4:45am and ended at 3:45pm. 2nd shift started at 3:45pm and ended at 2:45am. No way to use the public transportation system. Charlotte did built one light rail line (southern part of the city) which is has been successful. However they want to build two more lines.

Koronin, I'm just going by my personal experience on light rail commuter local transit for Toronto and Vancouver:

I believe their lines open up (except for Sunday which is later) @ 5:00am and close aroun 1:00am. That is the norm. In Toronto there are a few bus lines that run 24 hrs., but not many.

I believe those are the best open available hrs. for any major Canadian city transit system. Maybe the U.S. has a city that runs 24 hrs. service but highly doubtful for all their major lines? Somehow I would doubt that. No one is saying ban cars since night shift workers need to drive.

Metro Vancouver and Metro Toronto have high VERY vocal large number of citizens who express their ongoing need for expanded transit.
Citizen voice en masse and persistent must be there with ongoing participation at every opportunity in open houses, open forums. This is why transit issues in those 2 cities are discussed. People don't give up entirely.

In fact just 1.5 wks. ago , the chief head for Toronto Transit was fired by the commission. He did nothing wrong, he spoke up against the Mayor. He received huge public support....goes to show you the citizens cannot sit back and complain privately.

Vancouver continues to press onward even when their transit authority mistakenly dipped into their reserve fund and left a bit of a deficit. Still the lines are being planned now. In Calgary, there continues to be media coverage for the construction woes. Whatever. But in the end, there will be expanded service.

Controversy is part of the birthing process. Can't back down. I don't know what car drivers expect: do they think they can still drive safety @ 82 yrs. old, 90 yrs. old? Walkable sustainable communities close to services becomes very important over time. Liviing out in rural areas is great...if you have lots of reliable, helpful friends for life. The birth rate is dropping, less people are having children. (Of course, not all children look after their elders, ie. drive them around..)

[shootingstar]

There is a very strong infrastructure of alternate transportation including feet in the Netherlands and always has been. We survived 15 years and three kids with scouting, sports, after school and school activities with 1 car that was used primarily for weekend touristing excursions or if my husband had to drive to the work site in Belgium.

My own little pontiac vibe sits in the driveways several days in a row several times a week. I am very lucky that we live where the only paces I go to on a regular basis are within a 10-12 mile radius, and that the gym is understanding and lets me bring my "bebe" inside and park it next to the reception desk instead of having to leave it chained out in the parking lot of the strip mall where the gym is located.

Marni, since you lived in the Netherlands and had the great experience of raising a family without super heavy use of cars, now living in Texas, you're a poster family of how it is possible to adapt. If the community is properly designed with transportation alternatives.

[Koronin]

Shootingstar, I remember Toronto's rail system about 15-20 years ago being very accessible as far as tourists go. I went there with my dad for a weekend for vacation and we used the subway/rail system while we were there. Most US cities don't have any public transportation and if they do it pretty much is useless to the majority of citizens. New York City and Washington DC are the exceptions of having decent to good public transportation. I know Boston and Chicago also have public transportation, but I've never used either of their systems.

[Crankin]

Our public transportation system is in the throes of financial crisis, at the same time that ridership is increasing quite quickly. There have been all kinds of public forums where riders and now major employers are speaking out about the cuts being proposed. People are willing to absorb a fare increase at this point. Our transit system is quite inexpensive compared to other major cities. This morning I actually heard that one of the proposed cuts would be on one of the lines that serves the Longwood Medical area, i.e. Brigham and Woman's, Dana Farber, Children's Hospital. Those employers have a ton of clout, so we shall see.
Change happens very slowly here. There are a lot of people who depend entirely on public transportation, too. Not sure what's going to happen in the end.

[shootingstar]

Even when my parents finally bought a car, they made sure each time they moved from 1 home to another, that the home was within a 15-min. to public transit.

All of my siblings have acquired homes in very different areas of Metro Toronto and even for those who have cars(1-2 cars per family), they each bought a home within 15-min. walk of local transit. Of course, being accessible, in Metro Toronto and Vancouver to transit, can add value to your home property.

Parents' decison-making on home location, can influence way down the road of the type of lifestyle, home location a person chooses later in life...amongst others factors, housing market value, location of job, etc.

Someone at work here, told me she met a woman whose 2 children (now young adults) had never used local public transit in their life. And they live within our city. In the city where I live and knowing its configuration, it's almost unimaginable (to me). Light rail transit has existed in our city for the past 20 yrs., bus service longer than that. (We used to have streetcars running through downtown core.)

[Koronin]

The one light rail line in Charlotte was built within the last 5 years. They've had bus service longer. However, get outside the major metro areas and public transportation is non existent. I never did use the public transportation in Charlotte, but we lived outside of Charlotte and with hubby's work hours it wasn't available and I worked in the town we lived in the most part. When I did work in Charlotte I had the same issues, the hours I worked were not compatible to public transportation. The city I grew up in never has and does not have public transportation. It's a city of around 50,000. I have no issues using public transportation as long as it's convenient and well actually useful.

[smilingcat]

For those who just can't give up a car, there are lot of interest and push in new class of cars for urban transportation.

Cars similar to Smart Car. Cars with exceptional MPG. These cars are ultra small, has very small footprint, and uses very little material. This would be the first step toward weaning people off "OWN YOUR OWN CAR" and into mass transit. http://gizmodo.com/5879489/mits-fold...ally-a-reality. This car folds up to half the size for smaller parking space. It's not for highway use though.

And if you want go lighter and smaller then there is this an electric assisted velomobile http://www.aerorider.com/en/aerorider.html Too bad you can't buy one in US and trying to import one would cost you over $15,000. It does have small storage space behind the seat.

I don't see why we can't have a fully enclosed electric scooter like the aerorider and without the speed restriction of electric assisted bicycle/velomobile. Gosh it would consume less than 1kW of electricity to commute. toaster oven of electricity for an hour.

Just think, amount of space needed for a car versus amount of space needed for velomobile and bicycles. How many more people could commute on the same road!! and how much less energy and money we would be burning up.

Well I am biased since this is what I am working on when I get all the software on my computer up and running. I want to build volksfahrrad costing $2,000 or less and powered by electric motor for those too lazy to pedal.

[Koronin]

Interesting, but they look like they aren't very safe and have no storage, cargo room at all. About all they'd be useful for is commuting. It doesn't even look like you could make stops on your way home from work to pick up something you may have forgotten on a shopping trip, which they'd also be useless for.

[marni]

Marni, since you lived in the Netherlands and had the great experience of raising a family without super heavy use of cars, now living in Texas, you're a poster family of how it is possible to adapt. If the community is properly designed with transportation alternatives.

ahh but the if is the biggest part of the deal. I am not foreseeing any transportation alternatives in the near future of any Houston suburb.

In the Netherlands we lived in a row house (the Dutch equivalent of a town house) and had a pocket front garden that was 15 feet square and a back yard that was 25 by 75.

easy to keep clean, mowed, take care of, and if the kids needed a place to play, there was a playground within 1/4 mile in either direction and school playgrounds and community sport fields about 1/2 mile away.

As in the Netherlands, we lived on the edge of burbs on the borderline between farmland and development yet here, the closest school playground is 1.5 miles away, a community playground about 3/4 mile away. If I had young kids still they would find no obstacle in walking or biking that far, but I never see young kids in our neighborhood out, playing in the very not busy streets, playgrounds or sport fields. Yeah, I know it gets hot and humid here, but that's not for the whole year nor early mornings or late afternoons.

It's all about lifestyles and what people are prepared to embrace.

but thanks for the back pat.

marni