Gas prices....

[daleduke17]

you don't need a pickup in bloomington(I'm originally from kankakee)

seriously though, the Dakota's a nice truck, I'm looking at getting a Tacoma, because I have friends who's houses I need a truck to get to in spring, and may end up in a cabin in the hills on a dirt road(extra wide ATV trail is more accurate) for cheap rent when i move out of the parents house, and I want to be able to transport ATVs and snowmobiles

Nice to see another Illinoisan on here (well, former that is).

Living in the part of town I do, yeah I do. Especially when it snows. I think we're just above cul de sacs on the priority level to get plowed. Also, with the way the city is "working" on potholes, we'll be on glorified field lanes soon. :-p

[tsar]

If only I'd get gas prices like that.
We're talking in the ballpark of 8 - 8,2 $/gallon here...

[edible_hat]

AU$1.429/liter (lowest price I saw today for regular unleaded) converts to AU$5.409/gallon, which is US$5.08.

It takes me AU$20-$30 a week to cover my weekly driving (last fill was $56, but that was 2 weeks worth of driving) in my 2002 Holden Barina. My boss drives a big honking Chrysler and this week it cost him AU$100 to fill.

[chops]

The one thing I actually did like about rising gas prices was the fact that it brought business into many car dealerships. We'd get people looking to get out from under Durangos, F-150s, Tahoes, you name it, and into a Vue or an Ion. They'd do just about anything to wipe out their negative equity.

Sadly, much of that has died off, and probably will stay that way until gas prices reach $4 a gallon. I used to be able to say "I'll believe it when I see it" but I have actually seen $4+ diesel, which is close enough in my book.

[ebonyknight]

As poster from Germany said, be happy
8.1$/gallon (about 63% of price is taxes) in Finland

If I am not mistaken (please correct me), but mass transit is much more developed in Europe. Few areas don't have access.

I live in the Metro DC area the "capital of the free world" and I am forced to drive, because there isn't a metro station near me.

Americans are more dependent on their cars, because our infrastructure isn't anywhere near as compact as Europe's.

[Peppergirl]

I have the same problem with booking airline tickets. Gas goes up, so does jet fuel, hence the price of a ticket goes up.

This, of course, is ALL my personal fault, don't ya know?

Prices here in Cincinnati jumped from 3.17 to 3.49 on Tuesday. My Jetta is on a quarter tank.

[tsar]

If I am not mistaken (please correct me), but mass transit is much more developed in Europe. Few areas don't have access.

I live in the Metro DC area the "capital of the free world" and I am forced to drive, because there isn't a metro station near me.

Americans are more dependent on their cars, because our infrastructure isn't anywhere near as compact as Europe's.

Welcome to Finland... I'm lucky to live near enough of my city-centre (well, according to any international standard, it's a town at most...) to be able to use bus for my trip to work. 10 to 15 minutes by car, about 45 minutes by bus - per direction. If I use my 26mpg car to go to work and back, it'll be about 90-100€ per week (~140-150$ /week) Including other driving as well, of course. If I worked anywhere else than in the absolute city centre, I would be forced to drive also.

My parents live only 10 km farther in the same direction from the city-centre, and any mass transport just doesn't exist there. For taxation reasons diesel is here actually cheaper at the pump, in the neighbourhood of 7,5 to 8$ per gallon, but they really do need two cars, and they have to use about 150$ to 200$ per week on the ~32mpg diesel, and some 70$ to 100$ per week on their ~30mpg petrol car.


And the bus service is a bit overrated, at least in this neck of the woods. Quite about the only place one can reasonably get-to by it is the city-centre, where one'll have to change to a different bus to get elsewhere, which can take up to ½-hour waiting time. This probably would be otherwise if I lived in a larger concentreation of humans, but I'm already living in the second largest "city" in the nation. (Or third, kinda changes every few years...)
Germany, France etc might be different, but in Finland the infrastructure is "a bit" scarce also.

[edit] please note that all conversions to miles, dollars, etc have been made via google, and I have no idea of their correctness[/edit]

[Nekojin]

Americans are more dependent on their cars, because our infrastructure isn't anywhere near as compact as Europe's.

Actually, it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. Americans enjoy the freedom that personal transportation gives, so public mass transit has a hard time getting a foothold and becoming financially self-sustaining, so people are less inclined to use the mass transit because it's not as convenient...

[TryNotToBeThatOne]

I've been riding the mass transit here since gas hit $2 (for reasons unrelated to gas prices, oddly enough). In the 1st six months of 2007, ridership went up by almost 4% (that's 13,000 people, give or take). By October it was 6% over October of 2006. I know people who commute over an hour by mass transit, just to avoid gas, etc.

[protege]

Actually, it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. Americans enjoy the freedom that personal transportation gives, so public mass transit has a hard time getting a foothold and becoming financially self-sustaining, so people are less inclined to use the mass transit because it's not as convenient...

It's partially that...but also because of the *massive* government subsidies given to our highway system. For years, Pittsburgh had a huge trolley system--you could go to Washington (about 25-30 miles south) and other places via trolley. Pittsburgh also had several commuter trains (on the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie RR, the Baltimore & Ohio, and the Pennsylvania RR). Then as cars started becoming more common, our highways and parkways were developed...eventually driving the trolley lines out of business. 30 years on, the remaining trolley service is run by the Port Authority, and only serves a handful of lines in the county, the commuter trains are gone...and everyone's bitching about the traffic on the highways. Now many residents are demanding changes in public transit

[Fiyero]

In the UK it is nearly $9 a gallon now (more tax than actual fuel cost now). We charge in litres and all the petrol stations had to get new signs so that they could display prices higher than 99.9p per litre ($7.68 / gallon), after that the prices jumped quite a bit to around 110.9p

[edible_hat]

all the petrol stations had to get new signs so that they could display prices higher than 99.9p per litre

Happened here about three years ago. At my workplace instead of getting new signs, they (I wasn't working there at the time) got some numbers greater than 9 made up. The boss thought 10s to 14s would do for at least ten years, but we've just ordered 15s and 16s.

[Ironclad Alibi]

If I am not mistaken (please correct me), but mass transit is much more developed in Europe. Few areas don't have access.

I live in the Metro DC area the "capital of the free world" and I am forced to drive, because there isn't a metro station near me.

Americans are more dependent on their cars, because our infrastructure isn't anywhere near as compact as Europe's.

Living near a metro station is only half the problem. (I live one mile from a metro station.) The other half is, does the metro go where you want to go? And if it does, how long does it take to get there? It used to take 20 minutes to drive to work. Using the metro took between 45 minutes and an hour.

And thanks to everyone in this thread for reminding me I forgot to get gas on the way home tonight. Guess I'll do it tomorrow. Hopefully the price will have dropped a little. (Yeah, when )

[onkko]

If I am not mistaken (please correct me), but mass transit is much more developed in Europe. Few areas don't have access.

I live in the Metro DC area the "capital of the free world" and I am forced to drive, because there isn't a metro station near me.

Americans are more dependent on their cars, because our infrastructure isn't anywhere near as compact as Europe's.

Well cannot comment about other european countries but as tsar said thats not true in Finland, mass transit "works" only in few largest cities.
If you live in major city and work in centre using bus will atleast double traveltime, if you work somewhere else then triple or so. Due to financial problems i had to sell my car and time to travel tripled, i live in one of largest cities
And if you live in smaller city then mass transit is basically for scooltransit only.
My childhood home is in much smaller city and you can go in city centre in 8/9am and return 2/3pm (if you want walk 2 miles then you can return in 5pm too).
So in finland car is necessary to most of population.
Wikipedia tells that population density in finland is 40/sq mi and in USA its 80/sq mi

[Andara Bledin]

Wikipedia tells that population density in finland is 40/sq mi and in USA its 80/sq mi

Actually, that figure for the US is extremely misleading. It's an average over the entire country. Our major cities are much denser.

I have one friend online whose closest town has a population density of 14/sq mi, and another nearby "city" has .28/sq mi

The city I live in, however, has a population density of over 9000/sq mi.

^-.-^