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

[sskipstress.livejournal.com]

It also depends on what you personally consider acceptable. I got around Ithaca for years with public transit and my feet. But there really wasn't anywhere I couldn't go by walking, and I usually had time to walk or I didn't have time to go at all.

In Austin, I chose my housing based on what bus lines were nearby. And biked a lot at some of the places I lived.

Neither of these places have GOOD mass transit, but they both had mass transit good enough for me.

[lite.livejournal.com]

I think the trick to Mass Transport is that it has to make more sense to use than driving. If it's cheaper, and easier to drive from one point to another and is at least as "Sane", than the Mass Transportation is not up to snuff.
I'm talking day to day, by the way, not into the City for a big event. Though, there's that as well.. if it, for example, made more sense for me to drive to RFK stadium to see the Nationals (and they aren't far away) why is it worth it for me to take the Metro?

[sskipstress.livejournal.com]

I agree. And I further state that by chooses one's housing and its location carefully, one can get along fine using mass transit.

What makes Austin's mass transit system bad is that there is a LOT of "you can't get there from here" about it. Ithaca has very infrequent buses so you need to have the schedule memorized or in your bag to not wait in the snow for half an hour for the next bus. And both systems have very limited numbers of buses running after 9pm.

[lite.livejournal.com]

I don't recall Buffalo having a great bus schedule. The NFTA train was better, but not half as good as the Metro system.

I love Mass Transportation, especially in big cities, both on an intellectual level (I dunno why, but the process of creating a city from very small town to metropolis is fascinating. Possibly too much SimCity.)

Unfortunately, small cities seem to be rotting from inside (all cities are, it seems, with the money flying into the suburb, but it's especially obvious with smaller, poorer cities.)