Gas Hike
Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit
Gas prices went up again. Well at least here in the Midwest where I live. Checking out the prices around the country, there are places a lot cheaper than here, but the average is still more than $3 a gallon.
The interesting thing about this latest price hike in a series of hikes this year is the impenetrable silence that followed it. Last year at this time the air was full of cries of righteous indignation. How can prices be this high?! The gas companies are ripping us off!!
This year it’s more of a shrug of the shoulders and a quiet resignation that people are just powerless to do anything about this. And really, have people changed their lifestyles at all because of the higher gas prices? My nephew plays baseball and summer basketball, and my brother has to cart him all over the state for the different games and tournaments my nephew plays in. Have the higher gas prices slowed them down? No, not really.
How about for transit? Sure, we’re seeing a steady increase in ridership, but are their huge surges this summer? If there are, we’re not hearing about them. People just seem to expect gas prices to be this high and have accepted that.
According to a recent report U.S. consumers have paid an extra $20 billion for gas this year. That’s about $146 per car. And what’s the solution … a smaller car?
Yep, the Smart Car is making its way to the U.S. next year. If you haven’t seen one of these cars yet, they are cute, but awfully small. When I was in Europe recently, they were all over the place. I even saw a Smart police cruiser on the streets of one town in Spain.
What amazes me is that no one seems to be thinking about transit. Heck, a lot of consumers are still resistant to it. But with congestion growing, I sure would rather spend more time getting where I was going on a bus or a train rather than sitting in my new ultra-small car waiting for traffic to move. That sounds like the real smart thing to do.
Thanks for reading the MT Position, updated every Thursday.
July 12th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
This whole thing the gas prices the war is nothing more than a rumped effort by The Bush regime to make more money for him and Chaney this administration is the crookedest I can ever remember the the public are blind to all of this.
July 12th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Preach it, brother Fred!
Supply of Oil, not just the price of fuel at the pump, should be the major concern. This is another part of the mobility discussion in Amrica that seems to wait for the crisis, before acting. The previous article on Boneyards, particularly Railroad scrapping sites, has a bearing on this discussion, as part of the energy crisis solution set. We must reconnect local rail delivery of victuals & necessities of life. Rails to Trails is passe’ - think Trails to Rails… and fence companies will have a difficult time scrounging unused rail!
Railroads have always been a strategic player in the re-cycling of useable materials, even whole railcars & locomotives. Are there people in railway managements and boards of directors who are able to see railroads and rail transit systems as taking a leadership role in preparing America for the Oil Interregnum? Are railroaders the ones who will call for necessary re-emphasis of local railway networks, now linked to renewable electric power for RR prime movers? Something Extraordinary Is Afoot; Peaking Oil & Global Warming are joining forces, and how is America gonna keep ‘em rolling?
The boneyard comments included a man who looked at a veteran streetcar that was offered for rebuilding & use. If not used there, was the existence of the trolley made known to the transit community thru APTA? Some wiser and more circumspect home is looking for that streetcar for seedstock…
We are in a period of easy fuel, not rationed or allocated, and act like it shall always be so. Warnings of imminent failure of Super-Giant Oilfields like Cantarell (Mexico), Burghan (Kuwait), and Gawhar (Saudi Arabia) are noted by strategic thinkers like James R Woolsey, ex-CIA Director now at Booz, Allen & Hamilton, and Matthew Simmons, an energy project investment firm CEO.
Particularly alarming, is evident lack of awareness of the Peaking Oil Phenomenon, by responsibles in State & local planning bodies and transit company boards & management. It seems nonsensical, this habitual avoidance of rocking the boat, hoping to get to retirement before the rationing Tsunami strikes!
Paradoxically, the biggest RR companies in the US, responsible over the years for eliminating marginal branclines are part of this trend to be absolutely dependent on foreign oil for maintaining an overbuilt trucking component. Building a 4000 mile truck freeway from Mexico to Canada, even as Cantarell is in its last gasps? The Texas corridor will be noted in the history books, but not the way the promoters hope!
Did you catch that last line? Railroads, lambasted by accountants and analysts for the last fifty years for being “overbuilt”, have now to their credit two deadly errors: Stripping away over 200 thousand miles of local railway connection and warehousing, at the same time placing America in thrall to foreign oil needed to maintain an “overbuilt” trucking component in transport.
We are all in this, and we are going to have some very unpleasant decades just ahead. Societal & Commercial Cohesion are key elements to surviving as a Union when the oil supply plateaus, that just now beginning. It gets worse as the unit energy per capita begins falling off somewhere around 2010. This is from sources like the gentlemen mentioned above, and the Robert L. Hirsch Report on Peaking Oil, 2007 Update.
Opting for “another few buses” instead of getting started on rebuilding dual-use rail lines, is merely making it more difficult later on. Simplicity of mobility, along with local equipment shopping and maintenance capability is a benefit of streetcars that escapes this generation of transit officials.
Transit and Railroad managements, like UP crowing over the coal capacity upgrades, need to enjoy these summer vacation days- They are in for a very steep learning curve, shall we say… “What the heck is a PCC Car?” “How did Pacific Electric mix passenger & perishables freight infrastructure”. “Did the New York Els really have downtown freight terminals on the transit mains”?? Here is the beginning of wisdom….
No one really knows how quickly this Oil Interregnum emergency will impact, or how deep it will affect present norms of doing things. People like James Woolsey have a better idea than this writer. Rest assured we will be sure of little rest. Watch “Cantarell”…
This WWII description of railways is illustrative of what must become post 911DAY planning: “Second Dimension Surface Transport Logistics Platform”. See (peakoil.net) article 374 for discussion points at your Board Meeting.
July 12th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Fred, I agree, but one cannnot ride transit where transit does not exist. The entire process/procedure to implement systems or even add or extend routes is so incredibly heavy-laden. Here’s the thing, there is (too much) Mass in Mass Transit.
If from the top down (fed to local) there was commitment to American transit, we’d have it. There’s not, so we don’t.
Thanks for your writings.
July 20th, 2007 at 8:49 am
Here in France, gas price is 1.4 € per liter that is 6.36 € pr gallon. As 1$ is 1.37 € now, one gallon costs 4.64 $ here ! Of course a huge part of this price is taxes. Happily for car users, € is strong against $ !
With a higher gas cost, increasing every year since a long time, the percentage of private car trips among all motorized trips is increasing. Public transport in Paris takes now 30 % of motorized trips when it took 34 % in 1976 ! Obviously, to reduce gas consumption, it is necessary to provide a better public transport system. It is expansive but necessary. We have a lot of job to do. You and us.