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

[phoenixsong]

But larger cities are probably going to have funding for more than buses. There aren't many cities that have any sort of mass transit rail systems, regardless of quality (which is somewhat subjective anyway), and to my knowledge those cities are all big-name cities: NYC, DC, Boston, maybe SF?, London, Paris...

And no, I don't count Buffalo's toy train as mass-transit rail s:) (OK, maybe on a technicality, but for most places, one line does not a mass-transit system make, any more than one bus route.)

[sskipstress.livejournal.com]

SF, Chicago, and Philadelphia have local rail.

So does Baltimore, though I don't know how useful that is because I've never used it.

Dallas and Houston don't. Don't know about LA or Minneapolis/St. Paul or Nashville, but I should because I know people in all 3 of those.

[angiepenguin.livejournal.com]

Heh, Phoenix is building a light rail line. Goes from downtown Phoenix to ASU and back, I think. Maybe it'll go to one or two of the popular malls around here, too. Oh, and it'll stop by the airport (which is between downtown Phoenix and ASU). It won't be finished for another two years or more, though. I also think that Phoenix is pretty ill-suited for light rail, anyway.

Our bus sytems aren't too bad, though. The fare is pretty damn cheap, especially compared to what it apparently is in the DC area. There are occasional bus breakdowns in the summer due to overheating, but otherwise it's pretty reliable. They even have a thing on their website (http://www.valleymetro.org) that will tell you the fastest route between two points. Sometimes it needs a little tweaking of the inputs, but for the most part, it's pretty good. The actual time it takes to go somewhere is at best 1.5x what it would be in a car, though sometimes it's 3x as long. Except at ASU, where I actually save time by riding the bus because I don't have to hunt for a parking spot then walk 3/4 of a mile.