Gas Price Check...

[Perfxion 0]

The area of Houston is double the size of the state of CT. It would take a storm triple the size of Katrina and then we might have a chance of any rebuilding everything from scratch. Otherwise it wouldn't really dent the city if at all. Only plus would be it could end the mercy of an NFL team called the Houston Texans.

[EricMM 0]

See, that tells me Houston isn't a "city"

[At Home 0]

It... is... sparta?

[Guest Smues]

$4.21, because the OMG SO HIGH 8 cent gas tax is gone as of today. WOW FEEL THE SAVINGS.

[Mike wanna be 0]

$3.62, which is good news because I apparently need to fill up at least twice a week now thanks to RIT's garbage scheduling capabilities. Way to make me choose between sitting on campus for six hours and burning a quarter tank of gas to go home, guys.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

That would probably be because the light rail is totally useless there. In most other cities, light rails and subways can actually be used for, you know, commuting.

I'd take issue with the use of "most" there. I've lived in half a dozen different towns in three states, and I've never lived anywhere which either had a rail or subway service, or was even geographically set up to where such a service would work.

Did you live in suburbs? That was the problem.

 

Really, we need to design suburbs more intelligently. Rather than putting the crappy housing at the outset of the suburbs and the McMansions in the very middle surrounded by their guard-gated entrances and tall walls, we need to have a light urban area in the middle of a suburb with condos and the like, and the large single family homes at the edges, with express routes running from the middle of the suburb into the city proper.

 

We also need to get transit operators on four wheels and a gas tank for everything. My bus tickets are going up from $2.50 a day to $4 a day next year. The transit operator justifies it by saying it's to offset gas costs, and we'll still benefit because next year they'll open up a rapid transit they've been spending the past 18 months building. But it's BUS rapid transit, just buses running up and down the freeway stopping at one or two places in each neighbourhood on the way to downtown. That doesn't solve the gas problem and fare is only going to go up again later.

 

Vegas is probably what Eric would call "not a city" (and in fact the free lefty-leaning bus station alternative newspapers often put the city down and call it a fake city.) We sprawl like the Phoenix/Scottsdale area, making it somewhat difficult to get from anywhere to anywhere in a decent amount of time because it's quite a distance just to get anywhere.

 

We can't really build an urban core, because the dead centre of town has astronomically high land values and is basically reserved for luxury casino/hotel resorts only, as well as some astronomically high priced condo towers. It's too expensive to live where MGM Grand and Caesars Palace are your next door neighbours. "Oh, you'll know where I live, the guy across the street owns a giant fucking pyramid with the brightest light on the planet shining out the top."

 

They say the middle of town is Manhattanizing, but it's building nothing but Times Square and Broadway stuff while forgetting the numerous residences that live around it. They still are only really paying attention to 3 day tourists, condo towers be damned.

[Jingus 0]

Did you live in suburbs? That was the problem.

The majority of the time, yeah, but even that wasn't the issue. Nashville has zero railway passenger service. None whatsoever. Even Amtrak doesn't go there. No rail in Savannah either. As for Dallas, I haven't been downtown much so I can't speak for the city itself, but there's certainly nothing anywhere near my suburb or any of the nearby towns. Kinda defeats the purpose of public mass transit if you have to drive to it. I'd use the service if it were available, but it's not. Hell, most of the places I've lived don't even offer any kind of bus service either. If you don't have a car, you're fucked, period.

[A Happy Medium 0]

The nearest bus route to me is about fifteen minutes away....I also live fifteen minutes away from DFW airport.

 

If I didn't have a car, I'd be fucked.

 

Dallas has some public transit that is finally being used and will need to be expanded because everyone finally caught on.

 

However, there is a project in the works to send a train from Denton all the way to Dallas. That would be awesome.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Nashville has zero railway passenger service. None whatsoever.

They're getting there.

 

For what it's worth, there's no rail whatsoever in this city either. It's all 100% buses. I don't have a problem with that, except I'm basically a prisoner in my own house at night because this town is just so vast with most people driving and few people on the streets that I don't feel comfortable.

 

Last time I took the bus at the oh-so-late hour of 7:30 I wound up watching a guy in a car drive by and honk and basically be uncomfortably imposing as he tried to proposition the trashy looking girl for sex. By the time he parked behind the station and began reaching into the trunk of his car for something, I got too creeped out and had to leave the station and go hang out in a Jack in a Box with a bunch of gang banger types.

 

Sin City, sigh.

 

No rail in Savannah either.

Too small for anything but bus service.

 

As for Dallas, I haven't been downtown much so I can't speak for the city itself, but there's certainly nothing anywhere near my suburb or any of the nearby towns. Kinda defeats the purpose of public mass transit if you have to drive to it. I'd use the service if it were available, but it's not. Hell, most of the places I've lived don't even offer any kind of bus service either. If you don't have a car, you're fucked, period.

I find that hard to believe but I have no idea where exactly you live and understand you probably don't want to disclose that, but I just find that difficult, being someone who travels around the country using public transit in the cities I visit once I arrive at the airport. But then again, I also know service in suburbs is different that service in downtowns and airports.

 

I lived in a small bedroom community way out on the cusp of the bay area, but while the local in-town transport shut down at 5PM there was always a bus to the decent-sized city nearby or south to San Francisco running at nearly all hours.

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

Doesn't it make you insane to not be mobile at any given time? I cannot fathom life without a vehicle.

 

Waiting on buses and trains and shit..lord.

[EricMM 0]

Its worse being in a vehicle and still not mobile.

 

Rush hour in DC.

 

Google it.

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

Rush hour in Indiana:

 

 

The rest of the time:

 

[EricMM 0]

Oh glorious day:

 

 

That often happens. Or should I say always.

 

Daily.

 

That's also called Hell On Earth.

[alfdogg 0]

Rush hour in Indiana:

 

25 speed limit on that road? WTF.

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

Oh glorious day:

 

 

That often happens. Or should I say always.

 

Daily.

 

That's also called Hell On Earth.

 

You know how you're always encouraging people to move?...

 

Look at our nice roads!

 

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

Alf, you know goddamn well no one drives 25 on that road.

[EricMM 0]

Look at those lights. SOMEONE wants people to slow down...

[Slayer 0]

Agent's rush hour post demonstrates why I love living in the Midwest

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Doesn't it make you insane to not be mobile at any given time? I cannot fathom life without a vehicle.

 

Waiting on buses and trains and shit..lord.

It takes me 90 minutes to get from this house to the Strip and airport and stuff. It takes about 70 minutes to do so during the routine traffic hours. Which happens at all hours of the day since the Strip is one of the few business sectors of the world that is running 24 hours and only has a three-hour "down time" from 4AM to 7AM.

 

Have you ever seen what the freeway looks like when Mandalay Bay, MGM, Bellagio, Luxor, NYNY, Treasure Island (all of those are the same company) have their employees shift change AT THE SAME TIME? Not to mention that freeway is the same way in/out to Los Angeles and is also popular with tourists, cabs to the airport, and so on.

 

Our bus system also has a number of 24 hour routes. I just don't ride after dark because I'm white, the layout of this town often sends me riding into the "black part of town", and I fear gangbangers and other bad guys. It's not the bus that's the problem, it's the bus stops, which are often just a bench sitting out there in the darkness. If I lived in NYC or Toronto or something that is less racially segregated by giant freeways this wouldn't be a problem.

[Perfxion 0]

What does being white have to do with being in the "hood"? Most people don't want to be around "thugs", "hoodlums", or "degenerates" at night time. It isn't a black, white, yellow, pink, orange thing. Its a people fear other people thing.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

True, that. I just see the most people with bad dispositions in that part of the city.

 

Middle-class guys are inherently suspicious of working-class people who look like they have little to lose. On the other hand, I've had quite few friendly conversations with people there that I wouldn't want to randomly pass by at night as well.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

I'm watching post-convention stuff on CNN. They're talking to a woman in a "Drill Here Drill Now" hat with a big Alaska on it. The guy tells her McCain doesn't support that. She basically begs for a flip-flop.

 

This kind of reminds me of this whole energy problem and what we're going to have to eventually accept: What is politically popular won't work. All options that will work won't be politically popular.

 

It's going to require a commitment from politicians, and maybe some taxing and spending, but the people simply have to be dragged kicking and screaming by their government into the fuel of the future. The reason these people are so short-sighted as to simply want more oil is because that's what they already use.

 

The problem hybrids, the GOP's much vaunted hydrogen car, and all these other ideas face is that you'll have to buy a car that supports it to actually use it. Incredibly lazy people would simply prefer to find some way that they could keep burning fossil fuels, trade deficits and environmental concerns be damned, because being able to keep driving their 2002 Honda Accord is more important than either country or world.

 

It's a lot like the transition to digital TV and how many people simply were too fucking cheap to invest in anything more than what they needed right now, which is why so many "HD-Ready" HDTVs were made that contained plain' ol analogue tuners instead of the digital ATSC tuners to actually pick up the 2009 signals. The government eventually had to give the fuck up on the market evolving the consumers and just start subsidizing boxes to allow people to keep watching TV if they wouldn't buy their own way to the future.

 

We can re-use elements of current cars in future cars, of course. But chances are if we want to get off foreign oil, we're going to have end-of-life our cars early for economic reasons, and classic car ownership is probably going to become an expensive hobby. Nobody is going to look forward to that.

[Guest Smues]

$4.18

 

 

[geniusMoment 0]

Goddamn oil companies. Oil is going down but since it's the weekend gas prices go up. Went up from 3.62 to 3.76 from Thurs to Friday here.

[EricMM 0]

sigh

 

[Guest Vitamin X]

DRILL BABY DRILL!

[Jobber of the Week 0]

DRILL BABY DRILL!

[Dandy 0]

Oil goes down more than $3.00/barrel. Gas in my surrounding area went from $3.69 to $3.85/gallon.

[Guest Vitamin X]

I think I remember hearing somewhere that it takes a while for the prices of oil per barrel takes a while to actually affect gas prices.

[Dandy 0]

That theory is shit when you see how quickly prices of gas go up in regards to oil prices raising. Gas has been going down every couple of days with the falling oil prices. The national average on gas prices is still going down. For whatever reason (I might know the answer already), gas shot up an absurd 16 cents this morning in my area.