Gasoline Prices

General Discussion
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I’d consider suggesting driving a more fuel efficient vehicle through the week a 1 inch move more than an all or nothing move. I’ve been driving the car when I can rather than the truck, although I just like driving the truck better. However, I’ve got that option and not everyone has an extra car sitting around. Plus I’m doing it solely for economic reasons, not necessarily to save the planet’s oil.

Nixing a pipeline, banning new gas stations in certain areas of CA, “green new deals”, mentioning electric vehicles to the public as gas prices soar, etc, I’d consider more than moves of an inch. I guess I’d need to know an example of a “1 inch toward green” move before I’d know if I wanted to make it.

That being said, I think you ought to be able to drive whatever you want, where you want, and when you want. I like freedom.

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I view this as a false solution than doesn’t really help that much. So an 18 MPG (22 cent per mile at $4 gas) gas hog is parked and 30 MPG (13.3 cent per mile) fuel efficient car is driven instead. This requires the owner to purchase another vehicle, pay for additional registration fees, insurance, and possibly storage. The gas hog is probably a truck or SUV that serves a function that can’t be replaced by the fuel efficient vehicle, requiring it to be kept. If the owner drives 10,000 miles per year, that’s only $870 saved. In some situations, $870 may not even cover the insurance and registration cost of the second vehicle. The automotive industry wins by selling yet another vehicle, and the owner doesn’t really save any money by owning a second vehicle that is more fuel efficient. No wonder industries are in favor of going green!

We’re not green because:
Our cities are laid out so that driving across town is necessary often on a daily basis.
Big corporations get bailouts and special treatment so that small businesses can’t make it. People have to drive longer distances to do business with these big corporations.
Public transportation in the US is quite lacking.
Bike paths are limited or dangerous to use, and any kind of motorized vehicle is forbidden on them. Even slow moving motorcycles or vehicles that don’t go over 30 MPH are not allowed.
Electric bicycles are legally limited to 20 MPH, just below where they would be more practical yet still fairly safe.
Aggressive driving that creates traffic jams is allowed to go on by law enforcement. There are multiple ways to make roads more efficient but nothing has been done in this area since the 1970s.
Owners of multiple vehicles don’t get much of a break on taxes and insurance. The insurance industry does very little to promote efficient use of vehicles. Allstate has started a program where people can pay by the mile, but that is in exchange for them tracking your location in real time, which is a huge privacy concern. Charging customers by vehicle moving hours would make more sense anyway, since many accidents happen at low speed where the miles driving isn’t increasing much.

145

The SNOWMAN is back again with the \\ BS /// :upside_down_face:

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146

I think we’re not “green” because fossil fuels are abundant, relatively cheap, work really well for a fuel source, and a large amount of infrastructure is already in place.

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That seems like a lack of planning on your part. I don’t have that problem.

Given that there seems to be a Walmart every 10 - 20 miles or so (there are 3 within that distance from me), and the superstores carry stuff I used to have to go to 4 different stores to buy means I can drive a shorter distance with fewer stops because of this. Or Amazon will bring it to my doorstep. Same for food shopping at Publix (giant Florida based grocery chain).

Because the risk is still there of fire, theft, vandalism and environmental damage for a car just sitting there. I get a break on my 3 cars (and 2 drivers) because each drives few miles. Taxes, well, I pay pretty much the same fuel taxes just spread over 3 cars instead of 2, just another $60 for registration for the 3rd car. But I don’t live in a state that taxes the value of the car each year.

Well THAT is just completely wrong. Red light cameras, electronic speeding cameras, neural network dynamically timed traffic signals spread throughout metro areas to ease traffic. Papers have been published about these systems since the early 90s. Studies were done at least 10 years before that. Being implemented in the little town of Hudson, Ohio, no less…

And in Pennsylvania since 2019… and others.

https://www.penndot.pa.gov/about-us/StateTransportationInnovationCouncil/Innovations/Pages/Adaptive-Signal-Control-Technology-(EDC).aspx

Because higher speeds than that makes them electric motorcycles requiring a LOT more equipment like turn signals, lights, brake lights, ABS and special drivers license endorsements.

Several insurers have these programs. They are voluntary, you can use them or not. And it has arguably no “green” effect at all.

I disagree, a per hour rate is a poor way to charge customers. The “low speed accident” comment with no references to back it up makes no sense anyway. A $2000 fender bender at 35 mph is far less cost than a 70 mph highway accident resulting in grievous bodily injury or death and a totaled $40K car. That’s a million dollar lawsuit in many states.

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148

Many cites (especially here in the east) were built long before cars. Many Boston major roads were old Cow paths.

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149

And, it’s not just in cities in The East.
If I want to take the most direct road from my rural home to Princeton, the “highway” was originally a path used by the Lenape tribe of Native Americans when they made their seasonal treks from one area to another. During the Colonial Era, it was the only stagecoach road between NYC & Philly. During the American Revolution, it was trod multiple times by Washington’s troops, the British Army, and even the French forces who were sent to aid us. After the introduction of the automobile, it was part of the meandering Lincoln Highway.

As you might guess, this “highway” is one lane in each direction. It is very scenic, but all you need is one person driving below the speed limit to turn it into a slow-moving mass of cars.

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150

Even if you travel only 10 miles round trip to go on an errand, you have to drive. The way your neighborhoods are set up you basically can’t walk or ride a bike to get to most places. It’s common to have to travel for over half a mile just to get out of your neighborhood. On a bike, travel up to a couple miles from home becomes practical, but usually the place you need to go is farther away and there is no safe bicycle path to get there. You’ll have to ride on the road at least part of the time.

It would be really convenient to ride a small motorcycle at 25 MPH and arrive somewhere 5 miles away in 15 minutes, but with the way the roads are and how car drivers are this is just too dangerous.

The way towns were back before the 1950s was different. People had cars but they weren’t car dependent.

Vehicle liability insurance makes owning multiple vehicles harder. I should be able to pay $10 a month for a vehicle that is driven 35 hours or 1000 miles a year, but I can’t. So owning one gas hog ends up being cheaper.

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The suburbs grew when horse drawn “buses” had routes to and from the cities before there were cars. And then trains/subways before that. The “hub-and-spoke” model. As cars became the vehicles of the masses, to the great joy of city dwellers living amidst the horse urine and feces, the model stayed pretty much the same until the post WWII growth. We had money, had cars, we wanted a yard for the kids to play in and a piece of land to call our own. So builders were erecting homes as fast as they could… Levitown is a good example.

As the country grew and city centers became less friendly to manufacturing those businesses moved their plants to the suburbs. Now we commuted suburb to suburb bypassing the bus and trains servicing the city center with that hub-and-spoke system. Then as the cities further declined, white collar businesses followed to the suburbs. So we lived in the 'burbs and we worked in the 'burbs and the public transport system did not adapt. And the sprawl grew.

And as @MikeInNH points out, the older, long established, cities were formed long before any of this technological and social growth. Boston, NYC and Chicago and many others. You can’t remake Indianapolis in New York’s image anymore than you can make Boston into Kansas City.

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152

+1
In the aftermath of WW II, there was a huge migration of military vets and their young families from NYC to NY’s Long Island. That huge piece of land had previously been home to sprawling estates of the super-wealthy**, and to potato farmers. In other words, incredible contrasts.

Developers–like Levitt–bought-up the potato farms, and new suburban tracts of small “starter” homes were erected. The sprawling estates remained for the time-being, and many of them were eventually willed to towns and counties for cultural/recreational purposes.

** Two of the estate dwellers who come to mind are J.P. Morgan and Walter P. Chrysler. There were many more, but those are the only ones I can recall right now.

Edited to add…
That Eastward migration from NYC to Long Island was facilitated by the construction of a few limited access “Parkways”. Because NY’s Development Czar, Robert Moses, specified that the overpasses over those Parkways should be too low to allow buses to pass beneath them, that helped to cement the relationship between those new post-war suburbanites and their cars–which became a necessity.

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153

There have always been individuals or groups that like to tell other people where to live or work. Seems kinda futile, without the extreme measures taken by some.

I had to take a trip to the big city yesterday and noted at least three large apartment complexes under way or recently completed on the edge of town. Within 1/2 or 1 mile is the lightly used park and ride/bus stop built at some fairly high price a few years ago. So I thought how would I go about making use of that facility? Lots of nice plans are spoiled in Minnesota when the temps fall to minus zero and the snow flies. Could you reasonably walk or bike that distance in January? Naw, you’d have to drive. Then once you crank the car up, why not just drive to where you want to go instead of parking and waiting in the cold for the bus to come and make umpteen stops along the way?

I once interviewed a girl with an urban planning degree for an analyst position. She was a nice person but try as I might I could find nothing that would make her a good analyst in administration.

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Yes, even in fly over country we studied the sociological aspects of developments like Levittown. We didn’t all know where it was or anyone who lived there though, just knew it was “out east” somewhere. In Minneapolis it was Orin Thompson in the 60’s plus, who built large developments on farm land.

I guess we all pay for the errors of our ancestors. A while back there was an article discussing the problems in southern Minneapolis where a swamp had been filled in/dug out in the 40’s or so. Nice lake created, and houses built on the fill. Problem is the houses are sinking now in the muck. Nice well kept $300,000 houses sinking. Nobody alive now to sue.

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Following the success of Levittown on Long Island, Mr. Levitt built similar suburban developments in NJ, PA, and PR. Some of his later developments had names other than Levittown, but he and his sons were major home builders in the '50s and '60s.

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I paid $4.59 here in San Jose this week.

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I paid $4.19 this week, a lot closer the Cali prices than before the tax holiday in MD.

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Not to split hairs but the great migration to the suburbs in th NE actualy began in the late '50’s -early '60’s with the creation of the highway/beltway system. Up until then, most urban families had one or no cars so living outside the bus and trolley city limits was impractical.

While the highways gave us rapid transportation to urban businesses, plants and quarter acre lots with driveways to park, they also created the need for more cars. Dad needed a car to get to work, for the first time Mom also needed a car for shopping and errands and when Suzie and Bobby grew up they needed cars too and the roads got more and more crowded.

Over the last 10-15 years however I’ve noticed an interesting change where the “kids” (now in their 30’s) have decided to either move downtown near their offices or to a suburban development (Apartment/Condo/ Single Family) close to their suburban office. They all still have their cars but I doubt that any are putting more than 20 miles on them per work week and on vacation they fly SWA and then rent a car at their destination.

My point is that maybe slower in the Rural areas but in the Urban/Suburban areas preferences are changing, making an already difficult “one size fits all” solution impossible.

Urban drivers will have to realize that for a significant portion of the population EV’s and Mass Transit aren’t a practical solution and Rural drivers will also have to realize that for a significant portion more roads and F-350’s also aren’t a practical solution either.

But I think that if we can “stop talking past each other” we can actually “walk and chew gum” and devise some solutions

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The NY subway and train system was created 60 years before this with NYC workers building homes all along the lines away from the city. You may not consider it the suburbs now, but it was then.

A good history of this is contained in the book, A Brief History of Motion by Tom Standage.

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It’s the which came first chicken or egg story I guess. There was plenty of traffic before the freeways. I do remember a major increase in traffic on I 35W when there was a great building of office buildings downtown Minneapolis. Before that the traffic was tolerable but after we needed a different route. But sure there was also development in the outer rings. We’ve had this busses and trains and high rise discussion before though but after the virus I think people are less willing to be packed in living close to others.

Oh missed the point. I just filled up for $3.89 for reg. in Southern Minnesota.

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I think higher fuel prices are helping things. It helps transition the transportation part of our economy in to more of a free market pay as you use it system. Currently, a lot of taxes go to maintaining roadways, but except for the fuel tax, everyone pays the same taxes regardless of how much they drive. I’m car pooling more because of the higher prices. This reduces traffic and wear on the roads. Keep fuel prices high and reduce other taxes and I would be happy.

The government needs fuel taxes to help pay for road maintenance just as much as ever, especially now when people are buying less fuel and less tax money is coming in. This temporary fuel tax removal is just a political stunt and isn’t the right way to solve the problem. I’d prefer reduced property taxes or a sales tax break on used items instead.

The same road funding problem exists for railroads. Trucks can drive on highways that are paid for by tax payers, but trains have to operate on railroads that are paid for by the railroad company. I think that if trucks had to pay for highway maintenance and expansions proportionally to how much they hog and wear out the roads things would be different.

In the USA, all the revenue from vehicle related taxes (things that only vehicle drivers pay) only covers 53.4% of the cost of maintaining roads. How Are Your State’s Roads Funded? | Tax Foundation

First paragraph edited to make things a bit more clear.

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So if the gas tax is 50 cents a gallon (ranges) and you use 5 gallons a day, you pay $2.50 for road maintenance and your buddy pays $2.50 for a total of $5 a day. So now you car pool and pay a total of $2.50 a day. One less car on the road but $2.50 less for road maintenance. So that’s good for the roads?

Yeah I used to push car pools at work and then later van pools and we developed tools and incentives to do so. They were always hard to maintain and often just imploded for one reason or another. I traded off with a guy for quite a few years and that worked reasonably well since it was like an hour staff meeting each day to compare notes. Guy across the street just came home on weekends and roomed with about 5 guys during the week. Made retirement nice. All this stuff sounds really nice but not really ideal.