Price of Gas -- Oh No...

[Rudi]

Was talking to my buddy up at the Irving across from the Flying Club. He had some student pilots in from Europe the other day. They were remarking at how cheap the gas here was, and Don said something about it being pretty high.

They said.. after doing a little math in their heads... why is you complaining?? You are only paying ($099.2/litre) $3.81Cdn / US Gallon In Europe right now it is $4.00/litre or $15.36 Cdn for one US Gallon of regular gas...

I think I am going to be quiet for a bit about the price of gas...

[pete1941]

That's amazing Rudi, do you think we will have to start a horse and buggy forum along with the Cub forum. The Cubs don't burn much gas, but if it gets to $15 bucks a gallon here, well we might have to look at alternative modes of transportation. $390.00 dollars to fill up my trusty Dodge . Do take it easy cutting that wood and don't overdo yourself. Pete

[Trent M]

Man that's high. Wonder where we're headed for gas prices. Cutting the wood will help save on heating gas at least!!

[Eugene]

When stationed in Germany in the military we got gas coupons - purchased the gasoline without paying the taxes. About 1/2 the price the Germans were paying.

There will be a riot long before gasoline gets to $15.oo a gallon here. $15.00 a gallon would bring the economy in rural areas to a halt. At that price most people couldn't afford to drive or go to work. A lot of people drive 30 or 40 miles one way to work and no public transportation available.

Eugene

[Trent M]

That's right. I drive 45 miles to work, but I'm lucky with company truck/gas card. That might cease if gas gets really high.

[TexCub]

Eugene hit the only that matters square on the head: Public Transit.

I'd imagine that the general state of things between here and Canada are about the same, but for different reasons.

We're too stubborn to realize that for 70% (my guess, not scientific) of the population here in the US, GOOD public transportation would be heaven!!! The other 30% are in rural areas, have stuff to haul, etc. But many folks who just drive to the office and home everyday would be glad to take a bus/train combo if they knew if wouldn't take 3 times as long to get to work. It ain't decisions we as a public are making, it's the choices we're given that keep us in our cars. Makes me mad to hear reporters and the like saying we just won't give up our cars and trucks. We CAN'T!!! I wouldn't argue with a $1.25 ticket versus $5.00 in gas to drive to work and I can't believe many would!!!


Now you Canadians, on the other hand, have a lot of open space between cities and town (from what I know, or think I know ) of the country. Makes the cost of infrastructure a lot tougher to deal with, but it's my sense your bigger towns are light years ahead of comparable towns here.


Five years or so ago I spent 4 weeks in Europe. Hit 8 countries, only caught 1 cab, and never thought about needing a car. And it wasn't demographics, population distribution, or any of the other red herrings that those that think mass transit would never work here talk about.

I knew that I could get from city to city easily, just like you can here. The difference is that once I got to where I was going, I knew that I could count on local transit to help me move about. That's what keeps the whole thing stalled: horrible local public transportation.

Congress has much to do with the problem, though shouldering the blame right along with them should be every city council of mid-size towns, small and big cities alike.


WHEWWWWW....


Sorry about that!!! City planning is what I think about when I'm not thinking about Cubs. And it doesn't take long living on the outskirts of Houston to get aggrevated at the status quo!!!

[Lurker Carl]

Be aware of where your money is actually going when you purchase fuel. The price of gasoline is surprisingly uniform in North America and Europe but the tax structure is quite different. It ranges between 20-25% (each state has their own tax rate) here in the US while European countries collect as much as 85% of the total price in tax, obviously Mexico and Canada are somewhere in between. The difference in price is TAXES, not the actual cost of the gasoline.

I live within easy walking distance of AMTRAK train station and my employer has an AMTRAK station at it's entrance. You'd think I'd take the train to work, how convient and simple could it be! Except it only runs south in the morning and only north in the afternoon, and that's opposite of the way I need to go. GRRRR.

As public transportation goes - be careful what you wish for. An abbreviated subway and light rail system was installed here in Baltimore several decades ago with the thought it would allow commuters from some of the wealthier suburbs to gain easy access to downtown and reduce traffic congestion to the two sports stadiums. And co$t billion$ to in$tall.

Unfortunately, it brought wolves to the lambs. Those systems are being used by the local criminal element to ply their trades into the communities served by it. Those communities have declined in the years since that rail system was installed due to the increased crime and ensueing flight of fed-up citizens.

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

I would love to see a good public transportation in the US, but will be dead long before it becomes a reality outside the largest cities. My son went ot England a couple years ago and was impressed with the public transportation there and asked why we don't have one like it here. He understood when I pointed out it was a shorter distance across England than across Missouri, but the population of England was around 10 times (or more) what Missouri's is.

[TexCub]

Yup. Lot's of reasons why it's farther off than any of us will ever see. What our leaders need to do is recognize that fact and keep our gas prices in check. If we need a little more tax money to keep our roads up to par then so be it. But when tax dollars are wasted, we can't help but question who they're really looking out for! Hopefully the folks we charge with figuring all this out can spend less time arguing amongst themselves and get some real work done.

Incidentally, I know we'd all be pretty unhappy about it, but if we threw most of the bums in Washington out and replaced them with our own Cub forum members I bet we'd get things handled!!!!

Would we be the Capital Hill Cubbers?

Dave

[Eugene]

This could be a quite extensive thread.

Missouri passed a constitutional ammendment a year ago that all monies collected on gasoline sales tax had to go to transportation issues. Previously, the legislature syphoned off large chunks of the gasoline sales tax and spent it on other things.

$30 million dollars to run for a US senate seat. $300 million to run for US president. 3000 member of this web site. Guys, I need a million dollars from each member to run for president.

Eugene

[Bigdog]

As the famous saying goes - "The check is in the mail!"

[TexCub]

Be a lot cheaper if we can skip the campaigning. We need a way to just appoint Eugene into the White House, and all of our best minds into Congress!!! We could never donate that much money to politics. Imagine all the new toys we'd have if we each had a million bucks!!!! I'd have a Cub for every day of the year and then some!!!

[Lurker Carl]

Political campaigns. Promises made by liars.

[grumpy]

My son lives in downtown Amsterdam and he reminds me how cheap gas is here compared to the NL. Well, I don't care what Europe is paying for gas. I don't live there. I do know we could be getting a better deal than what we are. Why do some folks think I should feel better just because someone someplace else is getting shafted worse than I am OK, I'm done with my daily rant. Grump

[Rudi]

Public Transit.. be nice if we had any that was any good.... I live in the city..by the barest of margins... inside the eastern boundary by 400 yards or so... just inside.. but that doesn't help because we have really crappy bus service. So the reality, is that us in the country have to drive or walk. Also, many people in Europe have no concept on how large our countries are... and the sheer huge distances between places .. Germany will fit into Ontario, Belguim is the size of Prince Edward Island.. England would fit inside Quebec 2 or 3 times.. France is about the size of Manitoba... carry on the comparison to sections of the US.. France is the size of Texas roughly.. Holland would be about the size of what.. New Hampshire??? Canada is the largest country in the world, the US is about #3 or 4... they are huge land masses. How does one explain that to someone who has never been out of their canton... or shire?

I was telling Em about it this morning... figuring out how much it costs me per year to drive my daughters to university..

50kms round trip usually twice per day... sometimes more.. so lets average it out for 10 complete months instead of the 9.5 it acutally is.

100 kms/day x say 270 as the average to account for Feb, and the 30 day months.. being gracious about it... so that would be 27,000 kms just going to school. Never mind taking my other daughter to High School or Em and I to what we have to do..

so 27,000 / with an average of 15litres/100km which would be 6.6kms/litre would equal = 4091litres at over the last year an average of $1.08/litre = $4,418.18Cdn just to take my kids to school.

Hmmmmm a tad bit expensive. now if that was at $4.00Cdn/litre that they are paying in Europe that would have cost me lets see... $17,672.73
yuk...

One thing that we all have to realize is that Public Transit can exist in only the very largest of markets in North America. In Canada, the only viable systems are in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, possibly Edmonton and then La-La land -- Vancouver... that is only 5 cities in the country... there may be a couple more, but I do not know for sure, it is only conjecture on my part. We need more mass transit.. more inter-city rail service and less bus and truck traffic. And because we can generate obscene amounts of Electricity relatively cheaply, these trains should be electric.. save on hydrocarbons etc.