Gas Report

AHEM BROTHER!!

you hit it right on the head. gas is still too cheap. when people start parking their cars and start van pooling and riding the bus, the mass transportation budget will get better because more will vote for it.

i work for the 2nd largest employer in my area (living in the state capital, you shouldnt have a hard time figuring out who is 1st) and we have a pathetic TWO van pools. we have been forced to lease parking from two other tenants here (we are in Port of Olympia) because of the number of single drivers here.

right now, a vanpool from Chehalis (a town 30 miles south of here) is trying to form. a good 200 employees drive up from there. need at least 4 people and cant even get that going. have had 2 people trying for months. people whine that they have to get up a half hour early, its not convenient. one complained that they would have to wait 15 minutes after the end of their shift for the proposed time table... i mean, its pathetic. people do not want to sacrifice an inch to save resources.

that tells me, gas is too cheap. we never did see super high prices like the rest of the country did. the max i paid for gas was $2.739 on Sept 7 and 24th. but even at that price, we had people working a lot harder to get even 2 and 3 person car pools going. so that tells me, that if gas aint $3 a gallon, the government should tax it and put the money into mass transit options. europe has been doing it for years and they arent dead.

 

What gets me is that the people who complaint eh loudest are the ones who put themselves in such a stupid position by buying way more vehicle than they needed. Example, the Dodge Hemi truck owners at work (we have quite a few) piss and moan every time the cost goes up. Trucks and SUVs are enormously popular up here because of the supposed "superior capability". It's the people who own them who acted so angrily last August when gas was a whole $2.50 a gallon. It's $2.30 now.

Gas won't be expensive enough for me until I start seeing roadways that resemble England.....lots of small cars. People here use their SUVs and trucks as an excuse to blame the government for high gas prices.

 

Personally, I find it kind of interesting what people will complain about. $2.50/gal for gas, but they might also pay $.99 for a 16oz bottle of water (neary $8/gal) that is just filtered tap water (Dasani, etc). Or stop at Charbucks for coffee at ... well I don't know how much, since I neither drink coffee, nor patronize Charbucks.

Thanks,
Shawn

 

I agree. Yet I don't think this is a reason to keep gas prices low. There are also people who cannot afford food or shelter. We need to fix that problem... but not be creating a much bigger one!

Cheap gas means we that we have almost no national security, and it creates polluted water and air. If somebody has a lung disease... is it more important to have poor folks driving clunkers to work, or is it more important to have clean air? Tough call, eh?

 

I don't know too many people with unlimited money. I know far MORE people who have difficulty breathing the air that we're creating. This isn't all about money. It is (for me) about keeping ourselves and our planet healthy and safe.

If nothing but the money mattered, we wouldn't own Prii. And if we did, they'd all be the base model, right? We make our choices, and we spend money where our priorities are. If your priority is to have cheap gas at the expense of our national security and at the expense of our collective health... well, you have as much right to your opinion as I do. All I ask is that you consider what all we're buying when we buy gasoline. And the cheaper it is, the more we buy.

 

Correct! Sucks doesn't it? If the price of gas were to have gone up long ago, we'd have some real alternatives today that would make transportation much cheaper... and sustainable. But no. We've had CHEAP gas, and now we're paying for that luxury.

Bettery to *do* something about than complain. Stop using as much, and demand alternatives.

(not trying to pick on you, Walker1... just using your posts as a jump point).