Gas Prices

[hkellick]

So.. a question (and another public entry!)

They're predicting gas prices to go up to $5 again for a while.

How much do you have to pay to fill up your vehicle before the price of gas outweighs the convenience of having your own vehicle? How much until you switch to biking/walking/mass transport?

If gas does go up to $5 or more per gallon, what do you intend to do?

Comments

[zaph.livejournal.com]

We do? Metro is the worst mass transportation system I've ever encountered. It's only useful if you're going from outside the city to inside the city or vice versa. If you want to go from one part of the city to another or one suburb to another, it's beyond useless.

It's also expensive enough that for any commute less than about half a gallon round trip, it still won't worth it, even with gas prices at $5/gallon. In most cars, that's at least 10-12 miles, which I'm sure covers quite a lot of the commuters in the area. Round trip metro fare for that would be $2.70 minimum, and probably $3.70 minimum if you're crossing the beltway.

[lite.livejournal.com]

I couldn't disagree more. Maybe it's about background, as I was born and raised in Buffalo, with a patehtic "subway/train" and a number of busses, but the Metro area is huge and all encompassing.
If you are talking about JUST using Metro Subways, than, yes, there are drawbacks, but once you include the sheer NUMBER of Busses (not just Metro Busses, but LEX and DASH and the Fairfax Connector et. al), I think you could get from almost any point in the Metro area to any other.
Yes, the Metro lines are expensive. But as someone who lives in Landover and works in Alexandria (and whose girlfriend lives in Landover and works next to the White House), I find it a whole lot better than any I'm actually used to using for long periods of time. And it's still better to hop onto the Metro and take an hour long commute, reading a book or working on Sudoku puzzles than hopping in my car and getting stuck in Beltway traffic. At least for me.

Our of curiosity, what other transportation systems have you used? Why do you think Metro is the worst?

[zaph.livejournal.com]

I've ridden the subway in New York, which, at the very least, is more efficient, even if its map is lacking in some areas. But it's quick, even if you do have to make a couple of transfers. I think a lot of that might have to do with the city's layout - you can go north and south very quickly, and then cut across. But there's no reason they couldn't have done something similar here.

Boston's system is reasonably good. It goes pretty much everywhere and, like New York's, is actually efficient. It does suffer from the suburb problem, though. But I don't remember it taking particularly long to get anywhere on it.

The El trains in Chicago are reasonably good, although it seems to have kind of the same problem ours does if you live outside the city itself. But since the city itself is arranged pretty much in a line (being next to a giant lake will do that) it's very easy to get around inside the city.

I have vague memories of the Paris Metro (which I believe ours is vaguely based on) and the London Underground from the few times I rode each on a trip about ten years ago, but I seem to remember there weren't many places you couldn't go on them, and I don't recall ever having to take a terribly indirect route. And London specifically has the Circle Line to prevent that sort of problem.

But here, rather than make things organised or efficient, they make the stations look nice. They pay Metro police to arrest people for eating. They have short trains that run way too infrequently, and the notification system, when it's up, is rarely accurate. The escalators and elevators are constantly broken, because some genius decided that outdoor, unprotected escalators were a good idea.

The farecard system and variable fares are inconvenient - on all the other systems I mentioned, you can use the same payment method to get several people on, because you don't have to record where you entered and exited.

I can't think of a single thing Metro has ever done right.

[phoenixsong]

You're forgetting paying for parking in DC, though. Which is curbside robbery.

Here's how my costs break down on Metro, assuming I am not carpooling:
$2.65-2.70 each direction, depending on where I get off (since I'm trying to walk more anyway)
$3.50/day parking
Get to the station by 7:15am, get to work around 7:50, give or take a few minutes.
Leave work between 5 and 5:15pm, get home around 6pm
Total cost: Under $50/week, and we'll call it approx. 45 minutes of low-stress commute each way. Even if I do a couple hours of errands one day during the weekend, a tank of gas can last me up to two weeks.

Here's what it would cost me to drive every day:
$13/day for the nearest parking garage, or trying to find enough change to park at a meter and not get ticketed.
No idea how long the drive would be, because that would depend on traffic, but I hate city driving, so either way it'd be much more stressful.
And I'd definitely be going through gas faster, between the longer drive and the possibility of getting caught in traffic and burning gas going nowhere.
Let's say a tank of gas lasts me a week; current price for gas nearest me is 2.89 as of this morning. So, $29/week if I push that tank as far as I dare
Total costs: $94/week, and a lot more stress.

I'll never claim Metro is perfect -- I wish they ran trains more frequently on weekends, for example. But since most of my travel time is commuting anyway, it's a lot better both in terms of financial and emotional/stress costs than driving. And I know I'm not the only one who feels that way.

[sskipstress.livejournal.com]

I wish they ran trains later at night. Especially on weekends.

[phoenixsong]

Friday and Saturday they run to 3am the following day. It's the waiting 15 or more minutes for the right train, especially in a dual-line station, that gets to me.

That's the point where driving makes more sense, on weekends.

[sskipstress.livejournal.com]

A number of times I've realized I'd be coming home later than the last transfer I could make, so I drove to places I could easily Metro to if the trains ran later.