BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

I hate this sooo much. The media does stories about how awful things are and how gas prices are going to be sky high, but never say a thing about alt modes of transportation. I follow that kdka traffic guy, jim lokay, on twitter. He ws asking for suggestions/questions. I said something about mentioning biking, walking, etc., in a report and he never replied.

There's some hard hitting journalism right there. I clicked on her "about" page, I thought I might see an economics degree from MIT or Northwestern, but no. Apparently "established" and "passionate" are her qualifications for providing us all with advice. The PG paid this person money for this?

She is also a contributor to "Shoes TV, all the shoes, all the time". Odd that she doesn't mention walking.

http://www.shoes.tv/video/how-to-wear-combat-boots

People love me at social gatherings when I tell them I think that gas prices are almost to where they ought to be.

Gas prices still don't reflect the externalities of driving. No matter how high they go, they're still just reflecting the price of crude oil. Unless the taxes are also raised, they won't reflect the costs of construction, enforcement, pollution, rescue, military, etc.

That article is sooooo 1944...

Buy "off-brand" gas at a lower price.

There is off-brand gas? thought I remembered most of our gas all goes through the same set of pipelines at one point or another.

wow. I had no idea you could buy gas online. How do they get it inside your tank, does it come out the speakers?

She does mention carpooling so that's at least something.

Lyle - yeah... sadly, I'm sure it's high time for this idiotic talk about suspending the gas tax to start up again. Nevermind the fact that we've already subsidized the Highway Trust Fund to the tune of $30 billion since 2008 (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10780.pdf) - PLUS $27.5 billion in stimulus funds for highway projects (http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/26/news/economy/stimulus_highway_infrastructure/index.htm ). Funny how you don't hear much about that from the "cut the deficit" types - of course they don't want to cut subsidies that benefit *them*.

Doubling the gas tax would be a good start, to at least get it up to the same value in 2011 dollars as it was in 1993 dollars. Then index it to inflation, tack on a temporary surcharge to repay the $57B, and mandate the same when the HTF runs short of funds again.

(and, of course, all of the above is just scratching the surface...)

Reducing an oil tax would be a good idea, in principle, if we had already had one at a sufficiently high level to matter. As stimulus goes, it could be a lot more effective than reducing income tax rates. But stimulus is tricky thing and politicians are prone to overdoing it whenever they can.

She forgot to list "don't live 30 miles from where you work" as a viable strategy. Really, it's amazing that gas prices are as low as they are. The oil gets pumped out of the ground half a world away, moved around some more in expensive vessels or through expensive pipelines, refined in who knows how many ways to actually function as a motor fuel, blended with other stuff that doesn't grow in my backyard or presumably anywhere else, and yet, ounce for ounce, you will still pay more for bottled water at the gas station. When you look at what goes into making a gallon of fuel, $3.25 per gallon seems like a huge bargain to me.

@edmunds People love me at social gatherings when I tell them I think that gas prices are almost to where they ought to be.

They should love you. That stuff is way cheap. It's not like they are making more of it.

If prices went up, say to a moderate $20 a gallon, people would protest in the streets and toss politicians out of office - but they'd still buy it.

And instead of talking of living near where they work or biking for transportation, they'd talk trash like smart cars, car pools, and milage tips.

If the time ever comes when Americans must chose between giving up their cars and letting the US collapse, (it's reasonable to expect that time to come in some of our lifetimes), it's pretty clear which road we will take.

Thanks to this thread I have the song "Texico Bitches" stuck in my head all day long... which I guess isn't an entirely bad thing.

@JMcCrea - A-yup.

Simply getting rid of one car in the fleet (assuming there is more than one to begin with) causes a reduction in driving.

I wrote a blog about this in 2006 on my old MySpace blog. Recently ported to here.

@JMcCrea I have similar thoughts when people complain about the increase in the cost of a stamp.