Hey car owners: feeling jerked around yet?

I just saw the latest gas prices: regular is nearing $2...I guess that buck a gallon thing was merely talk on THEIR parts? :rofl:

I will remain on the bus, thank you very much! And cycling when blizzard conditions end.

...that I work from home (freelance artist) and get 33mpg when I DO go out.

I feel sorry for all those suckers who still have their SUVs.

that SUV sales were going up again.

Gas prices dropped, and Americans proved how dumb we are.

Man. What is WRONG with people?

I got rid of my Explorer and now take cabs. It's so much easier, cheaper, and I have met some really terrific people, including a woman driver from Ethiopia, a poet from Afghanistan, and lots and lots of men from all over the Middle East and West Africa. We have some great conversations, mostly political. It's a lot of fun;

Beats looking for a parking space, and then hiking to wherever I'm going, with the sure certainty that I won't remember where I parked when I come out.

SUV sales up, gas down.

Yeah. Now watch.............................

Then the usage grew. It is odd how quickly people forget. And they fall for the okeydoke.

for Xmas and Thanksgiving, IMO. That plus the extra trips for Xmas shopping probably increased the total.

As for Joe the Dope going out and buying an SUV, let him. He'll find out soon enough that the gas prices only go down long enough to elect GOPs.

Traffic is still light around here in central NM, much lighter than it was prior to the last gas price spike.

then the meter gets activated. It's 9 miles to the grocery store...so a gallon of milk would cost about $135.00

I guess I'll stick with my car. :-)

Of course, I live in the DC metropolitan area, so I'm urban.

What cab starts at 50 bucks? I've never heard of that, but you can fill volumes with what I don't know...

:toast:

I can't remember the last time we saw a cab out here, but I can report that the airport shuttle is $50. Fifty bucks. Each way.

We're ten miles from Redmond, home of Microsoft. The airport is roughly forty-five minutes away.

In other words, they're gouging, and there's nothing we can do about it besides drive our own cars. Even with per-day parking, unless you're gone for more than ten days, it's still cheaper. We are talking about some kind of scooter or alternative transportation for trips back and forth to town (one and a half miles from our house,) for instance.

Julie

:rofl:

as it's the name of a neighboring town.

and very convenient for parking the city.

She asked, "Can they drive on the freeway?"

I didn't know, but I'm sure you do? Can you?

So yes, they can drive on the highway.

And I drive a BMW going 70mph at the time. At 10,000 feet, most cars gasp for air. That little Smart weighs next to nothing I guess. :shrug:

PS: Yes, its Colorado.:eyes:

on a long road trip (which does happen every other month or three) I fill up, oh, once a month. Most errands I need to run are a short drive or a long walk away from where I spend a good chunk of my time. I keep my old car in great shape. It gets tremendous mileage.

You're so fortunate to have access to decent public transportation. Anyone who does is smart to use it like you do. The bus isn't reliable in my area, nor is it convenient. If I go to the city, I take the train and the T, and will use the bus if it takes me where I need to go (cheaper than paying for parking in the long run), but for my everyday life, I'll pay for the gas.

Because I get very good mileage and I don't have to drive very far on most days, I'm pretty lucky, too. Even when gas goes up, it doesn't impact me the way it does people who have to fill up twice a week or more. Every time gas prices jump, my heart goes out to those who live in starkly rural environments, who need "snow ready" vehicles, who cannot afford the latest hybird and are driving a gas sucking clunker, but who have to get to work (often a long haul because they can't afford to live closer) nonetheless.

Wish we had really decent public transport nation-wide, starting with affordable trains...!

will not just concentrate on freeways and such but HIGH SPEED RAIL! And to places where it doesn't now reach. That way, rural folks will possibly be able to commute via train.

This is one of the biggest struggles we face, transit-wise.

In my town, for example, the buses start running after most people need to be at work. They stop running before people leave work. They mostly go to our university and to the shopping malls.

Not everyone in rural areas commutes to work. We need to accommodate that need better as well, even if the end result is some sort of park-and-ride setup from satellite stations.

And I go twice as far in the prius than the Mustang also. Its so much fun.

1/2 tank at that.
Last oil change in 2005, had it checked when i bought gas, it was clean and full.

The benefits of a really small town, retirement and mostly internet shopping.

I call it my reward after many many many years of slogging thru ice and snow
carless, thru over crowded urban streets when I did have a car, etc. to the jobs.

I'm also not feeling guilty about having to drive because some smug asshole thinks the epitome of being environmentally responsible is taking the bus.

I guess driving and eating a hole in the ozone is being 'enviromentally responsible' and I am adding to the problem, eh?:applause:

And I am smug for noting that car owners are getting jerked around? Nah, they aren't! It's grand what's happening!

to me "HA HA you're getting fucked over and I'm not". Instead of maybe sympathizing with people who are stuck driving. But you'd rather develop animosity than try to bring others into the environmentally friendly fold. Maybe if the whole fucking movement got off their high horses something could be done about it. Instead the holier than thou crowd just pisses on anyone they think isn't as good as they are, making sure that no one will want to be like them. It's a good plan. I'm sure it will work. It's done wonders so far. Of course this is all from the Bizzaro World of a person who can't use public transportation so it must all be bullshit. :rofl:

that you live somewhere with mass transit.

And I should add that they raised the bus and train prices, which pisses me off so very much. As someone who is unemployed, I cannot believe that in this economy they'd dare do that but they did.

However, in the line of work I am in, once I finish graduate school I will most likely be teaching at a land grant university. Because land grant universities have agriculture programs, they are generally not located in major cities.

Hopefully I will land a job working somewhere with better transit, but I may not. I don't know. It depends on who hires me.

When transit is available to me I use it. But many people are in lines of work that are rural in nature, or live and work in towns small enough that they do not have enough of a tax base to provide much transit at all (e.g. small-town doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc.). This is where federal opportunities need to become available to establish local, rural transit systems that are designed specifically to be viable for the communities they serve.

is a land grant university, and Tucson is a pretty decent sized city with excellent bus service.

Not all land grant universities are in small towns. Just thought you'd like to know.

I'd be at Arizona State or Northern Arizona in that case. I take your point, however.

Regardless of where I end up working, though, there has to be a job opening, and I have to beat out the other 125 (on average) applicants for the job.

Cornell is also not in a oarticularly rural area, Burlington, Vermont, has excellent bus service, and Corvallis, Oregon, is pretty bikable, as is Missoula, MT (in good weather). But I have to be a realist and understand that I have to move where they hire me. I can't just hold out for somewhere that has good transit. It's not practicable.

And I'm not the only other person in this situation, regardless of my line of work and where it takes me personally. Which is why I keep advocating for rural transit that is designed specifically for the area where it is being delivered.

are able to get hired. And I agree with you about the need for rural transit.

I lived in the DC area before the Metro was completed and for my first seven years there happily did without a car and just took the bus.

I did it in Eugene, Oregon, for years, and in Toronto as well. It's so easy to get sucked into the need for quality transit in urban areas and commuter options and whatnot, though, that we often forget forget about the 20% of Americans that don't live in urban places. (Yes, I realize I am preaching to the choir. ;) )

I get to spend my off time on 10 acres of wooded land with a nice creek in the back with no close neighbors.

:nuke:

:bounce:

does the bean curd smash itself? is the place it's manufactured lit by lights? and don't give me, "the lights are powered by solar" BS, because those solar panels were made via oil.

so do you think you are out of the oil loop?

it's one thing to be self righteous, it another thing to be self righteous and being clueless.

another eco-rebel without a clue.

(Thanks for the smog! :loveya: )

man, I truly love the eco-nuts who honestly believe they don't use any fossil fuels. gotta love it.

:cry:

$2.00/gallon is still a very small price to pay to have the freedom to go where i want, when i want.
i left the confines of the big city for the wide open spaces beyond the outer rim of the burbs- where mass transit doesn't, and most likely never will, reach. but that's fine with me, because most everything i need is in a convenient 5-10 minute drive from home, and besides our dog much prefers being able to run free on one-acre, as opposed to a crowded city lot.

There's no mass transit where I am, biking as commuting is not a possibility, and our budget can take the fluctuations in the price of gas. So, yay. And yeah, thanks for checking in!

ETA: Aaaaannnd I like to drive, prefer driving and like my car.

But you failed.

Miserably.

nor a bicycle lane. Feeling brave enough to tackle the 18 wheelers and a bicycle is fine otherwise its stay or drive a car.

here in Austin, they raised the price of the bus fair when the oil price was high. good thing they dropped it when the price of oil dropped as well, huh? :sarcasm:

So, do you eat? wear clothes? buy any sort of goods? or do you live in a cave, grow your own food, knit your own clothes, manufacture all the things you use?

laughing at the expense of other people who still have to drive vehicles in this day in age; is the equivalent of laughing at someone because they wear clothes.

oil and oil products dictate every single thing we do. From the food we eat to the clothes we wear and even to the water we drink.

So unless you filter and drink your rain water you are still part of the oil cycle. The filters you need to clean it are created from oil based machines, you have no place to make fun of a society that you are equally part of and an active participant in.

man, making fun of society that you are part of, doesn't do anything other than make you a ass. How about helping instead of condemning or are you full of sarcasm and short on ideas?

it's not us against them. We are them.

So I still drive my 69 460 Mustang. It only gets about 10 MPG on a good day and the exhaust is kind of smelly but it will go 0-60 in about 4.5 seconds. In fact when I drive it from my house to the McDonalds I can smoke the tires for almost the whole two blocks.

:beer:

Edit... wrong smiley :toast: That's the one.:dunce:

:rofl:

Oops. No wonder I failed spelling in the 4th grade.

:rofl:

Every time I do, some skinny vegetarian wearing a black trenchcoat wants to interrupt my iPod time, and talk to me about the horrors in Tibet, and how alfalfa sprouts can foster world peace.

I don't get to listen to my music, and fall asleep listening to said beatnik, then miss my stop. I then have to huff it back 8 blocks to work, and when I get there, I throw my stapler at my boss, forcing him to fire me, so I have to wait for the bus again, where another sanctimonious Birkenstock clad white boy with a Bob Marley T-Shirt sits next to me, and wants to talk about the horrors in Tibet. My boss' head, my sanity, and my bank account thank me for driving my car.

Fill it up about once every two weeks. And it's a lot more fun than a car anyway.

For a single person looking for local transportation, I'd suggest a Vespa. Even better mileage than a motorcycle and more room for groceries.

Get 34 mpg

The wife gets 30 and drives about 50 miles a week.

Feel superior enough yet?