Bring on the Soviet-style apartments.
Fall in line, now! *SMIRK*
Unless, of course, you have more cash than either and can afford to buy yourself a nice chunk of land outside of the city or your own McMansion now that prices are falling!
See? There's always a Silver Lining. :)
This is my situation, too. I live about 50 miles from work. This lady just gave me an idea, about camping part of the time!
I noted the word “truck” in the lament about commuting costs. I have a truck. I use it sparingly. I use my 37 mpg car for going to work. Perhaps the loon that wrote this article might start using one of his two brain cells to bring these things up.
Liberals secretly love higher gas prices.
Bottom line is, you only get what you can pay for. Nobody has a God-given right to live in the middle of nowhere. You want to use up a ton of energy, it's your right, but expect to pay for it, and expect prices to continue to go up. Anybody with any brains saw this coming from a mile away. High gas prices have really brought out the ugly sense of entitlement that so many of today's suburban warrior style “conservatives” have.
No thanks.
I doubt she can save enough gas to be "worth it" to ride her bike part way. I don't know how far she is riding, but the last few minutes of a drive are when the car gets the best gas mileage, as it is warmed up. The first 10 minutes are generally worse for gas mileage. Cutting 10 miles off her trip, if her truck gets 20 mpg after it is warmed up, would save her $2 a day. But 10 miles of bike riding is expensive.
If her entire commute is 90 miles a day, at 15 mpg average, that is 6 gallons a day of gas, or $24.
Is it worth $24 to camp out in the back of your truck? Maybe, the article doesn't say how much it costs to stay at the campsite and use the shower. You could cut the cable premium channels, or turn the A/C up 1 degree higher and replace a few light bulbs with CFL, and probably save about as much.
Now, if her truck gets 12 mpg, that's $30 a day, or about $150 a week, or $7000 a year.
If she went out and spent $2000 on an old corolla (I did this in 2004 and it cost $900), she could get 30 mpg, and cut her fuel costs to $12 a day, $60 a week, or $3200 a year, which would save her $1800 in the first year, more than she saves camping.
Of course, a lot of people decided to own property far from where they work. They generally (not always) are less connected to their community because they work so far away, and often leave early and get home late. They can't pop in for lunch, or attend community activities, or meet their kids for school stuff very easily.
While people who live and work in a community want most to spend their tax dollars making the community better, people who commute long distances primarily want their taxes spent on day care for kids, and for more roads to get them to their work.
They drive up the costs of living "out in the country", because they have higher-paying jobs associated with near-city living, but live out where the jobs pay less and are less plentiful. This puts pressure on those who want to live and work in the same location, drives up their taxes, puts a strain on services.
In the end, I understand their plight now that gasoline isn't so cheap. But I don't have enough sympathy for them, I guess.
BTW, the answer is to get businesses to move out into the country. After all, in the internet age, a fair number of these jobs could be done from anywhere.
This is especially true in the DC area. There is almost no reason for a million people to be commuting into DC each day just to push papers around and answer phones and do office work.
If we spent a billion dollars moving some government work into the Maryland and Virginia suburbs, we wouldn’t have to widen the roads, or spend more on the subway and buses.
1/6 of an acre is a LARGE LOT? That’s about 75’ X 100’! What kind of McMansion can you put on a 75’ X 100’ lot? And a 2000 square feet house is just average, not a mansion.
It’s all pretty clear that the euphoria that the Left is getting about the high gas prices making people move back to where crime and criminal municipal politics is rampant is part of a contrived strategy.
A lot of jobs in the service sector and even light manufacturing is already in the suburbs. Failed government policies have forced both the jobs and the workers out there.
There's the money quote, right there.
If people can still afford to pamper their pets like that....then they're still not hurting all that much.
Bring on the Soviet-style apartments.
I know something about the Chinese scooters. A large proportion of the millions of bikes in Viet Nam are Chinese. The Japanese and Korean bikes hold up much longer- there are early 60s Honda 5cc and 70cc machines still running around- but new ones cost twice as much there as the Chinese bikes, 3-4+ times as much here. The Chinese machines seem to be reliable until they are just worn out. Then there is nothing on them worth replacing. The models sold in Viet Nam are mostly 100cc because of the tax structure but they seem to be as strong as or stronger than the 150s here. Maybe it has to do with the pollution gear that the American models have to carry- just supposition here.
Perhaps it is a bit much to ask in Wisconsin in the winter but it can be done. Folks up there already have warm clothing. They just have to add something for a windproof shell. I rode two wheelers exclusively for my first 26 years with a DL, much of it in the north and in the winter. On truly inclement stormy days, you drive the car.
After 20 years off of bikes, I just ordered one of those $1k Chinese scoots. I have a longish commute and can see that in a few months I will be working just so that I can put gas into my car to go to work.
Actually, given my investment history and other big decisions I have made after long pondering and calculating I expect yall should be supremely grateful to me in a little while. I just forked out a grand for my solution to the gas price problem so now the price of petrol will surely slide back to $2 and stay there. When it does, remember that it is because of me.
“See? There’s always a Silver Lining.”
Especially for all of the servicemembers working at the Pentagon and various DC locations who could not afford the exhorbitant housing prices inside the Beltway and had to more 30-50 miles away in VA and MD and now have to pay $4+/gallon of gas.
I guess they too should “Fall in line, now! *SMIRK*”
Sheesh.
subway to work, rent my apt so heating oil is not a concern. heat and hot water are covered in rent.
i keep a motorcycle for the warmer months. easy parking and great gas mileage. if and when i move out, it will be close to public transportation so i don't have to rely on a car.
i am not going to take a chance that gas prices will be lower in 10 years.
This will be the situation as long as oil is a monopoly.
Take a look at the prices since pig-losi and dingy hairy took over congress in Jan 2007. Click on the "Regular Gasoline Average Prices" about 1/3 way down on the left side of the page and calculate for the past 18 months. $2.13 - $4.12 today.
Why the hell would people move to the liberal city to drive to their jobs in the suburbs and exurbia?
These eco-fascists and smarxist growth fanatics are out of their minds. Businesses have been locating to suburbia and exurbia for decades. Why? Because that’s where they find productive citizens and a stable, sane work force. Families with children move away from cities because they find safety and community adhesion in towns outside liberal cities. Children are not welcome in liberal cities, and the exodus of families with children from liberal cities proves that. Seattle has more dogs than children, for Pete’s sake.
What business in its right mind wants to move to a liberal hellhole city with high taxes, high crime, crooked politicians, thieving bureaucrats, an oppressive regulatory labyrinth and crumbling infrastructure?
If that was the recipe for successful, thriving liberal cities, Detroit would be utopia.
Who would businesses hire in big cities? Some welfare bum with an IQ of a cockroach? Perhaps hire a drunk snoring in a doorway for VP of operations? Maybe hire a head-banger with three-inch diameter steel washers hanging from his tongue as community liaison?
Big, liberal cities are infested with unctuous Marxist cults that worship big brother government. And these hellholes are run by totalitarians who make it their business to steal money and wealth for themselves and rob people of their individualism and their God-given rights.
Only the insane, the destructive and simpering slaves find today’s liberal cities attractive. I’ll make an exception for the morbidly curious adventurers who locate to liberal cities to make big bucks for a few years and observe the liberal savages.
And that putrid Marxist punk Kunstler has been out in front of the fascist parade condemning individualism, self-reliance, liberty and wealth generation. He’s a one-man beer hall hate rally.
If I’m not mistaken, her husband Tom was my attorney back in the early 80’s.
Contact your Congress critters to let them know that you are tired of high gas prices.
“Commuting to Work Less Attractive as Gas Prices Soar”
Duh.