Living Car Free - If this happens many will go back to cars.......

With many now are moving to car-light or car free this story just makes me sad
'cause I know that ,given the chance, many who are now aware of the need
to change the American lifestyle to less waste will now go right back to business
as usual (read waste as usual). :notamused:

"LAST UPDATED: JUNE 6, 2008: 10:20 AM

Why oil prices will tank

Arguments that $4-a-gallon gas (or even higher) is here to stay are dead wrong. Housing's boom-and-bust cycle tells you why.

By Shawn Tully, editor at large

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- High-flying tech stocks crashed. The roaring housing market crumbled. And oil, rest assured, will follow the same path down.

Not everyone agrees. In an echo of our most recent market frenzies, some experts pronounce that the "world has changed," and that the demand spikes, supply disruptions, and government bungling we face now will saddle us with a future of $4, $5 or even $10 a gallon gasoline.

But if you stick to basic economics, it's clear that the only question is when - not if - prices will succumb.

The oil bulls are correct in their explanations of why prices have jumped. It's indisputable that worldwide demand has surged, chiefly driven by strong growth in China, India and the Middle East. It's also true that most of the world's reserves are controlled by governments in places like Russia and Venezuela that mismanage production, thus curtailing supply growth.

But rather than forming a permanent new plateau for prices - as the bulls contend - those forces are causing a classically unstable market that's destined for a steep fall.

What do you think: Is $4-a-gallon case here to stay?
In a normal oil market, the cost of producing the last, most expensive barrel of oil needed to satisfy worldwide demand sets the price for every barrel the world over. Other auction commodity markets work much the same way.

So even if Saudi Arabia produces at $4 a barrel, if the final, multi-millionth barrel required to heat houses and run cars costs $50, and is produced, for argument's sake, at a flagging field in West Texas, the world price is $50. That's what economists call the equilibrium price: It's where the price that customers are willing to pay meets the production cost, including a cushion, naturally, for profit or "the cost of capital."

But today, the sudden surge in demand and the production bottlenecks have thrown the market radically out of balance.

Almost exactly the same thing happened in the housing market. And both housing and oil supply react to a surge in demand with a long lag. In housing, the lag is caused by restrictive zoning and development laws, especially in coastal markets like California and Florida.

So when the economy roared back in 2002 and 2003, builders couldn't turn out homes fast enough for buyers armed with those cheap mortgages. As a result, prices spiked. They no longer bore any relation to the actual cost of buying and improving land, or constructing and marketing a new house (at some reasonable profit margin). Instead, frenzied buyers were setting the price.

Because builders were reaping huge windfall profits, they rushed to buy and develop land. And sure enough, those new houses were ready just as buyers were retreating to the sidelines because they could no longer afford to buy a home. That vast overhang of unsold homes is what's driving down prices today.

The story is much the same with oil, with a twist. A big swath of the market isn't really paying that $125 a barrel number you hear about seemingly every hour. In China, India and the Middle East, governments are heavily subsidizing oil for their consumers and corporations, leading to rampant over-consumption - and driving up prices even more.

But sooner or later the world won't keep paying those prices: Eventually, the price must fall back to the cost of that last barrel to clear the market.

So what does that barrel cost today? According to Stephen Brown, an economist at the Dallas Federal Reserve, that final barrel costs just $50 to produce. And when the price is $125, the incentive to pour out more oil, like homebuilders' incentive to build more two years ago, is irresistible.

It takes a while to develop new supplies of oil, but the signs of a surge are already in place. Shale oil costing around $70 a barrel is now being produced in the Dakotas. Tar sands are attracting investment in Canada, also at around $70. New technology could soon minimize the pollution caused by producing oil from our super-plentiful supplies of coal.

"History suggests that when there's this much money to be made, new supplies do get developed," says Brown.

That's just the supply side of the equation. Demand should start to decline as well, albeit gradually.

"Historically, the oil market has under-anticipated the amount of conservation brought on by high prices," says Brown. Sales of big cars are collapsing; Americans are cutting down on driving. The airlines are scaling back flights.

We've learned another important lesson from the housing market: The longer prices stay stratospheric, the worse the eventual crash - simply because the higher the prices and bigger the profit margins, the bigger the incentive to over-produce.

It's even possible that, a few years hence, we could see a sustained period of plentiful oil supplies and low prices, meaning $50 or below.

A similar scenario occurred following the price explosion in the 1970s and early 1980s. The price spike caused the world to cut back sharply on oil consumption. By the mid-80s, oil prices had fallen from almost $40 to around $15. They remained extremely low for two decades.

It's impossible to predict how the adjustment this time will take shape, just as it was in housing. There the surge in supply came in places the experts swore there was "no supply," and wouldn't be any. Builders found a way to extend vast tracts of homes into California's Inland Empire and Central Valley, and even build "in-fill" projects near the densely-populated coasts.

An earlier bubble is also instructive. In the early 1980s silver prices jumped from $10 to $50 on the theory that the world was facing a permanent shortage of silver. Suddenly ads appeared asking homeowners to bring their tea sets and jewelry to Holiday Inns for a big price. Silver supplies poured from seemingly nowhere, out of America's cupboards, of all places.

And so it will be with oil. We don't know where the new abundance will come from, from shale, or tar sands or coal or an OPEC desperate to regain market share. We just know that it will appear. With prices like these, it always does."

http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/06/news/economy/tully_oil_bust.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008060610

I think that the shift has already taken place to provide alternatives to car-centric development and infrastructure. More cities, many in the midwest and rust belt, are putting a lot of emphasis on better and improved mass transit, as well as pedestrian and cycling options. Even if gas goes lower here in the states, I honestly believe the changes are here to stay.

I don't think you need to worry tightwad. Hang tight. up $8/barrel today - I was starting to sweat earlier this week but yesterday and today have me smiling :)

Yeah, but as the old saying goes, if wishes were horses all beggars would ride. When I looked a few minutes ago, plain old West Texas Intermediate crude was at a new record price near $136 a barrel. Gas ain't comin' down for the foreseeable future. Just sayin', ha.

I'm seeing a big upswing in transportational cyclists here in Austin. (If they're carrying a backpack or any other kind of load, I classify them as transportational.) Not that Austin ever lacked for cyclists, but it's unusual to see so many of them out after the weather turns hot.

The new prediction is $150/bbl by 4 July Holiday

An earlier bubble is also instructive. In the early 1980s silver prices jumped from $10 to $50 on the theory that the world was facing a permanent shortage of silver. Suddenly ads appeared asking homeowners to bring their tea sets and jewelry to Holiday Inns for a big price. Silver supplies poured from seemingly nowhere, out of America's cupboards, of all places.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/06/news/economy/tully_oil_bust.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008060610

Sure is instructive--the price was also primarily driven up due to market manipulation by a couple of unscrupulous commodities traders. Sound familiar? Ref. the Hunt bros.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Bunker_Hunt

Only difference is that the Hunt bros. ended up being held accountable for their manipulations, this time the market is unregulated to the point that the real criminals will never be held accountable...

Speculators will continue to push the price of oil up and up and up, and eventually the bubble will burst, but when the dust settles we'll still be paying more than $4/gal. The regional turmoil over the oil fields is not going anywhere - he who controls the fields is king, and who doesn't want to be king? And with the rising wages and standards of living in China, India and other growing nations, demand will continue to rise, if slowed a bit by sky high prices.

So, I guess he is right that we are/will be seeing a bubble, and it will burst... but he is overly optimistic about where the cards will fall, I'm afraid.

I really don't see the price of oil going down. The middle east is basically the drug dealers: we will buy oil at any price or do anything to get it (Iraq?).
I read articles all the time about the UAE creating all these crazy structures. Even building islands. I guess the rest of the world is paying for all these crazy projects. When oil runs out, will anybody care about this area? Probably not.

Gas price is directly related to our economy right (we built almost everything around oil)? So if we are doing well, gas prices should fall. Seems logical, but OPEC controls the prices. If the drug dealers don't want it to fall it won't. They got to fund their lifestyle. And that lifestyle is not getting more conservative. "Lets raise prices a little higher so I can build that island!"

The entire point of those islands - while a great waste of resources - is to transform that area into a world business district and vacation spot. They know the oil will not last forever, that's why they are doing these types of things - to try to start a post-oil economy before it's too late.

They have a saying over there: "My grandfather rode a camel, my father drove a car, I fly in an airplane, and my son will ride a camel."

Oil will not go down appreciably. If it goes down, it will not stay down.


Peter Wang, PG (and LCI)
Texas Registered Professional Geoscientist
Working in the oil exploration industry since 1986

I have some concern to of humans being herded back into their lucious cars due to dropping prices at the pumps. I'm sure your local car dealer would be on your local TV station during his "gig" to rev you up to buy an SUV again. Given a choice, humans will take motorized vehicles over bicycles, as a majority, any day if the price is right. Humans are lazy, in general. Don't agree? Then look around as you ride your bike. Not THAT many cyclists out there yet. People are dumping their gas guzzlers and taking on more debt to buy fuel efficient cars. I haven't seen an increase in scooters which I though I would. I thought at least I'd see more scooters before bikes but not even scooters. People want to have a roof over their head as they motor down their paved path to work, etc. But, not going to bikes, en masse. No, just going to another type of motorized metal bucket to transport themselves. Only in those "pockets" here and there in the country are bicyclists coming out like the ants I see in my house during spring. I heard women in myoffice talking yesterday, "Oh, I'd never ride a bike to work. I'd be all sweaty and its too much work. Who in their right mind would give up their car?". Oh, dear me. ;-)

"I heard women in myoffice talking yesterday, "Oh, I'd never ride a bike to work. I'd be all sweaty and its too much work. Who in their right mind would give up their car?". Oh, dear me. ;-)"

Herein lay the problem.

in Aus we are paying close to $1.60 a litre thats $6 to the gallon and
it still hasnt changed many attitudes

I have some concern to of humans being herded back into their lucious cars due to dropping prices at the pumps. I'm sure your local car dealer would be on your local TV station during his "gig" to rev you up to buy an SUV again. Given a choice, humans will take motorized vehicles over bicycles, as a majority, any day if the price is right. Humans are lazy, in general. Don't agree? Then look around as you ride your bike. Not THAT many cyclists out there yet. People are dumping their gas guzzlers and taking on more debt to buy fuel efficient cars. I haven't seen an increase in scooters which I though I would. I thought at least I'd see more scooters before bikes but not even scooters. People want to have a roof over their head as they motor down their paved path to work, etc. But, not going to bikes, en masse. No, just going to another type of motorized metal bucket to transport themselves. Only in those "pockets" here and there in the country are bicyclists coming out like the ants I see in my house during spring. I heard women in myoffice talking yesterday, "Oh, I'd never ride a bike to work. I'd be all sweaty and its too much work. Who in their right mind would give up their car?". Oh, dear me. ;-)

You really ought to come out here and check out this pocket called the San Francisco Bay Area. I *never* ride anywhere and don't see another half dozen cyclists, I saw at least 10 just on the way back from the Burrito joint at lunch just now - 2 miles. And this includes women. If a woman on a bike - in spandex, in jeans, in sweats, in a pantsuit - turns you on, this area is completely pornographic. The women in SF complain about the lack of men around here - "They're all gay, blah blah". It's not true, we're just out riding our bikes and fighting over the smaller numbers of women riders (not me, I converted a non-rider and married her). I just tell them - "sell your car, buy a bike, you'll be beating them off with your frame pump"

If you want oil to rise then you're ****ing nuts.
It's not just about people in cars. The cost of food, shipping, etc. Call a plumber to come fix your sink, and see that a fuel surcharge has been added. Same if you want to take a plane. Even Lance Armstrong couldn't bike across country!

People need cars for many purposes; do you think a disabled person is going to have a fun time trying to ride a bicycle? And on their disability check, their cost of living rises sharply with the cost of fuel, food, etc. Ha-ha, that'll show those people to be disabled. Maybe next time they should just...ride a bike?

Or when I need to deliver supplies somewhere. It would be ridiculously impracticable for people to ride bikes everywhere, unless you're unemployed or work in an office.

I ride for recreational purposes but I don't act so smug when the economy is dying off.

How'd you like it if you went to buy a part for your bike and it skyrocketed because the fuel price to ship it to the store and to create it? Bikes don't fly on a pretty little cloud to the retailers. It would be good if oil prices were low and people were considerate about their conservation needs, but I don't think it would be cool to WISH for it. You want to pay 300% more for a loaf of bread? It's not just about bicycles. Any first-year economist could tell you that.

Oil will have to be much more expensive for this country to give up its oil addiction. $4/gal isn't high enough.

I'm not sure what will happen, or what I hope will happen. $10/gal gasoline/diesel has side effects that even non-car folks will be hit by. $2 gas also has its downfalls.

Let's hope our cars become much more fuel efficient. I have no problem with cars if they don't waste resources. That is my only problem with them. This hasn't happened yet, but if it did, I'd have no problem with cars.

It's not just about people in cars. The cost of food, shipping, etc. Call a plumber to come fix your sink, and see that a fuel surcharge has been added. Same if you want to take a plane. Even Lance Armstrong couldn't bike across country!

The main point of free markets is that price gives people signals about what to conserve.

Conserve fuel, don't travel across the country as much, and if you do, maybe a lower-fuel option will be the way to go. If the number of airplane trips goes down, people will demand better train service. If the amount of goods shipped and then trucked to your home town from China and Brazil goes down, people will demand more high-quality locally produced goods.

Lance could bike across the country if he wanted to, but he couldn't do it in 48 hours.

I got stuck on the part where they compared a non-renewable, finite natural resource with imaginary things (tech stocks) and a manfactured item (houses). It does not work the same way...

I got stuck on the part where they compared a non-renewable, finite natural resource with imaginary things (tech stocks) and a manfactured item (houses). It does not work the same way...

Well, a house is manufactured out of finite resources, just like gasoline is.

That said, I don't see how there could be an oil bubble. Oil bubble? With what money? Where would you put the oil?

The main point of free markets is that price gives people signals about what to conserve.

Conserve fuel, don't travel across the country as much, and if you do, maybe a lower-fuel option will be the way to go. If the number of airplane trips goes down, people will demand better train service. If the amount of goods shipped and then trucked to your home town from China and Brazil goes down, people will demand more high-quality locally produced goods.

Lance could bike across the country if he wanted to, but he couldn't do it in 48 hours.

We're making things more efficient; Boeing continually makes airplanes better, and airplanes are the safest form of transportation around, also the quickest.

I don't think people should EVER be forced out of their Hummers, or their Cadillacs, or whatever. I drive a little fuel-efficient Toyota, but the more people driving big SUVs are paying $ for fuel and thus making the roads better with more taxes being dumped. If people stop driving and the fuel tax is insufficient to fix the roads after a hard winter's toll, expect the bike lanes and routes to be full of broken potholes and cause injuries.

I like to go for a nice cruise and open up the throttle on the highway or drive down a twisty road. I also like to go for a bike ride and feel the air on my face and in my hair. I think I should be able to do both without people trying to force me out.

I like to take a gander at the local show and shine to see the lowrider Impalas, the custom Corvettes and the chrome-glistened Motorcycles.

I also don't want people who have to drive to starve or have to tighten their belts over the price of fuel. Taxis, people with kids, people who drive far to work, etc. They all need cars to drive.

Nobody would be so smug if they went to the grocery store and saw the price of food go up. We all need to eat, right?

IMO we live in a free choice society (or should, it is the ideal way) and that people should be free to make choices without being forced into them.

Socialist countries tax the hell out of gas. How would you feel if any time you bought a new bicycle part, it was 900% tax to make up for the road usage fee?

Ideally gas would be fine at 2.80 per gallon. That way I can ride my bike for recreational purposes, and use my car when I needed to, but still not starve. :)

I don't think you need to worry tightwad. Hang tight. up $8/barrel today - I was starting to sweat earlier this week but yesterday and today have me smiling :)
Day ended with a rise of $10.75, so this discussion seems a little misplaced. It could happen, but I think it would take a combination of a couple of things: 1) people started biking instead of carring 2) oil shale and other forms of expensive gas suddenly became easier to refine due to some miraculous process 3) the political landscape changed enormously.

My thought: snowballs in hell.

IMO we live in a free choice society (or should, it is the ideal way) and that people should be free to make choices without being forced into them.


I'm going to pick out one choice one here. I should be free to get a gun and come over and pop a cap in yer bum. What? Not allowed? My freedom is being impinged! Oh my!

There are plenty of ways in which personal freedoms are limited for the good of society. Currently motor vehicle users are not having their freedoms limited despite the fact they are definitely imparing society. Driving is subsidized* so people can afford Hummers and SUVs to the detriment of those who do not, and would rather the tax dollars go to schools or health care instead of roads. As such I've been forced to have crappy schools so you can drive for cheap. Governments make these sorts of decisions all the time, socialist or not.

Additionally, what we are doing by driving Hummers to the store 5 blocks away is frittering away oil that is better used to fly people internationally (we're a long way away from doing that with Solar power), power emergency vehicles, grow and transport food, etc...

*If you don't understand the ways driving is subsidized, that is another conversation. I am correct, fyi.

There's hope!! Maybe prices will fall by fall!! :D :D



BTW - gasoline is already over $5/gallon, I don't know what they are talking about when they say "a future of $4, $5". The "future" is here.

I also don't want people who have to drive to starve or have to tighten their belts over the price of fuel. Taxis, people with kids, people who drive far to work, etc. They all need cars to drive.

...

IMO we live in a free choice society (or should, it is the ideal way) and that people should be free to make choices without being forced into them.

So which is it? Do you want everyone to have a god given right to drive a car or do you want the market to sort itself out? There is less and less oil every year (in the ground) and more and more people wanting it.

I'm going to pick out one choice one here. I should be free to get a gun and come over and pop a cap in yer bum. What? Not allowed? My freedom is being impinged! Oh my!

There are plenty of ways in which personal freedoms are limited for the good of society. Currently motor vehicle users are not having their freedoms limited despite the fact they are definitely imparing society. Driving is subsidized* so people can afford Hummers and SUVs to the detriment of those who do not, and would rather the tax dollars go to schools or health care instead of roads. As such I've been forced to have crappy schools so you can drive for cheap. Governments make these sorts of decisions all the time, socialist or not.

Additionally, what we are doing by driving Hummers to the store 5 blocks away is frittering away oil that is better used to fly people internationally (we're a long way away from doing that with Solar power), power emergency vehicles, grow and transport food, etc...

*If you don't understand the ways driving is subsidized, that is another conversation. I am correct, fyi.You shooting me would be an infringement of my freedom of safety.
You can't draw a parallel between that and one's right to own a car makes no sense. If you really wanted to save the environment, you'd get off of your bike and walk. Reason being is that a bike holding up traffic causes all the vehicles to downshift into a lower gear and thus burn more fuel. A smoother-moving road burns less fuel and pollutes less.
When I ride a bicycle i take side streets instead of main roads. Why do you think vehicles get much better mileage on the highway versus city? Consistency.

Personally, I like it when I pay less tax, when I pay less for gas. I like to keep more money in my pocket for my hobbies, and for my retirement.
I think you are confusing school with roads in regards to taxes. Gas tax pays for the roads, and doesn't pay for schools. And cheaper gas doesn't exactly make schools suffer. They're unrelated.


So which is it? Do you want everyone to have a god given right to drive a car or do you want the market to sort itself out? There is less and less oil every year (in the ground) and more and more people wanting it.I think people should be encouraged to conserve, but they should not be FORCED to. Individual choice is great, forcing people to do what you think is right is not.

There's a lot of oil out there; rumor has it that 2 Trillion barrels are in the US under the rockies.
We need to be encouraged to conserve it, but like I said, not FORCED. I don't like fascism, totalitarianism or communism. I do like free choice. :)

Would you want to be FORCED to be car-free or make the conscious decision on your own accord?

I also don't want people who have to drive to starve or have to tighten their belts over the price of fuel. Taxis, people with kids, people who drive far to work, etc. They all need cars to drive. Let's explain this is terms you understand. The price of oil is going up due to simple market forces, and of course some people are going to have to "tighten their belt" because of the price of fuel. The vast majority of people with kids or who drive to work don't need to drive, or even need to own cars, they choose to. Nobody told them to live far from work or enrol their kids in schools far from home. If the market tells them their car dependent lifestyle is no longer affordable, they'll change their ways.

When has oil ever gone DOWN much more than a few dollars/barrel?

When has oil ever gone DOWN much more than a few dollars/barrel?

I think many people don't understand this. In the time since I got my license, only once have gas prices dropped much and stayed there for more than a week or two, and it still didn't last long. The rest of the time, the prices have consistently gone up, yet so many people seem completely surprised that prices keep going up. I don't understand this. I'm also confused by the many very capitalist-minded people I know who want the government to do something about the prices. Quite ironic.

When has oil ever gone DOWN much more than a few dollars/barrel?

The mid 80's price collapse. Although don't expect the same forces that created that price collapse to occur again.

Because builders were reaping huge windfall profits, they rushed to buy and develop land. And sure enough, those new houses were ready just as buyers were retreating to the sidelines because they could no longer afford to buy a home. That vast overhang of unsold homes is what's driving down prices today.

The story is much the same with oil, with a twist. A big swath of the market isn't really paying that $125 a barrel number you hear about seemingly every hour. In China, India and the Middle East, governments are heavily subsidizing oil for their consumers and corporations, leading to rampant over-consumption - and driving up prices even more.

But sooner or later the world won't keep paying those prices: Eventually, the price must fall back to the cost of that last barrel to clear the market.

So what does that barrel cost today? According to Stephen Brown, an economist at the Dallas Federal Reserve, that final barrel costs just $50 to produce. And when the price is $125, the incentive to pour out more oil, like homebuilders' incentive to build more two years ago, is irresistible.

It takes a while to develop new supplies of oil, but the signs of a surge are already in place. Shale oil costing around $70 a barrel is now being produced in the Dakotas. Tar sands are attracting investment in Canada, also at around $70. New technology could soon minimize the pollution caused by producing oil from our super-plentiful supplies of coal.

"History suggests that when there's this much money to be made, new supplies do get developed," says Brown.

That's just the supply side of the equation. Demand should start to decline as well, albeit gradually.

"Historically, the oil market has under-anticipated the amount of conservation brought on by high prices," says Brown. Sales of big cars are collapsing; Americans are cutting down on driving. The airlines are scaling back flights.

We've learned another important lesson from the housing market: The longer prices stay stratospheric, the worse the eventual crash - simply because the higher the prices and bigger the profit margins, the bigger the incentive to over-produce.

It's even possible that, a few years hence, we could see a sustained period of plentiful oil supplies and low prices, meaning $50 or below.

A similar scenario occurred following the price explosion in the 1970s and early 1980s. The price spike caused the world to cut back sharply on oil consumption. By the mid-80s, oil prices had fallen from almost $40 to around $15. They remained extremely low for two decades.

It's impossible to predict how the adjustment this time will take shape, just as it was in housing. There the surge in supply came in places the experts swore there was "no supply," and wouldn't be any. Builders found a way to extend vast tracts of homes into California's Inland Empire and Central Valley, and even build "in-fill" projects near the densely-populated coasts.

An earlier bubble is also instructive. In the early 1980s silver prices jumped from $10 to $50 on the theory that the world was facing a permanent shortage of silver. Suddenly ads appeared asking homeowners to bring their tea sets and jewelry to Holiday Inns for a big price. Silver supplies poured from seemingly nowhere, out of America's cupboards, of all places.

And so it will be with oil. We don't know where the new abundance will come from, from shale, or tar sands or coal or an OPEC desperate to regain market share. We just know that it will appear. With prices like these, it always does."

http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/06/news/economy/tully_oil_bust.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008060610

The article makes many faulty assumptions.

1. They compare the upcoming oil crash very similar to real estate - The problem with this assumption is that there is no glut of oil like in real estate today or tomorrow. OPEC controls the output and they are producing less with each decade. In addition, there is no need for the cartel to lower the price since Europe and Asia will pay whatever it takes to get the oil thus keeping the price high. He also likes to think oil will drop like it did in the 70's and 80's but that was before China started to put 1 million cars on the road. China and India will assure there will be no glut of oil on the market. Ever.

2. The second assumption is that Shale or Tar will save the day and create an abundance -- Wishful thinking. Both of these are expensive and there is no infrastructure for these alternatives. The automakers would have to spend BILLIONS building new vehicles they can't sell because there are no pumps out there who will make room for shale oil. Production, distribution, manufacturing and sales of Shale autos and fuel is nonexistant and no one is going to take the risk. The automakers themselves said they can built hyrdrogen cars but there are no pumps out there. There you go.

"I heard women in myoffice talking yesterday, "Oh, I'd never ride a bike to work. I'd be all sweaty and its too much work. Who in their right mind would give up their car?". Oh, dear me. ;-)"

Herein lay the problem.

Unfortunately I'm afraid she's right.

Unless her work has shower facilities she would probably arrive at work all sweaty with no way to freshen up, even after a five mile ride in the muggy Midwest weather or hotter-than-hell Texas. Not good for an office worker or those meeting customers or clients. I'm sure this woman might use light rail if it were available. We all can't live in Seattle, Portland, or SF.:(

I don't think people should EVER be forced out of their Hummers, or their Cadillacs, or whatever. I drive a little fuel-efficient Toyota, but the more people driving big SUVs are paying $ for fuel and thus making the roads better with more taxes being dumped. If people stop driving and the fuel tax is insufficient to fix the roads after a hard winter's toll, expect the bike lanes and routes to be full of broken potholes and cause injuries.



Gas taxes don't even pay for half of what it costs to maintain highways, let alone surface roads, which are what most cyclists use anyway. (Most local surface roads are funded with property taxes.) In Washington state, where I live, gas taxes make up 35% of the state's transportation revenue, but 90% of expenses, once you factor out administrative costs, is spent on car infrastructure (road maintenance, road construction, and the ferry system, which primarily serves people with cars). SUV drivers are not subsidizing transportation for the rest of us; it's very much the other way around. If masses of people decide to start driving a lot less, the sky will not fall. Roads will cost less to maintain, we'll have to build fewer of them, and we'll have more money for other, more efficient forms of transportation.

one of Osama bin Laden's wishes, and benchmarks for the downfall of America was (is) oil hitting 200$ a barrel. even 6 months ago that seemed far far off. now, it seems inevitable.
god forbid another natural disaster or two knock out a couple refineries, we'll be right there.

Unfortunately I'm afraid she's right.

Unless her work has shower facilities she would probably arrive at work all sweaty with no way to freshen up, even after a five mile ride in the muggy Midwest weather or hotter-than-hell Texas. Not good for an office worker or those meeting customers or clients. I'm sure this woman might use light rail if it were available. We all can't live in Seattle, Portland, or SF.:(

Excuse me, but that's a crock of sh*t. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but climate is no excuse. Boulder, CO has cold, snowy winters and hellishly hot summers, and people use bikes like crazy there, all year long. And it's not like SF, Portland or Seattle are ideal climates for bicycling, either, fer Chrissakes. Here in Seattle, I've arrived at work dripping wet on least two dozen occasions during the last six months. It rains like crazy, and there are steep hills everywhere you turn. During the winter, it's quite cold, and it snows several times a year, too. I'm totally car-free, and I work in a professional job. My solution? I dress for the weather, have waterproof bags, leave a few minutes early, pop into a restroom when I get to work, and make myself presentable before I actually start working. Almost no one else at my workplace uses a bicycle, but they accept my choice because I'm nice, I do my job well, and I refrain from making a big deal about it. And there's a culture here that accepts bicycling as almost normal. But that culture didn't just pop up from the ether. It came about because enough people decided they were going to ride their bikes, dammit, come hell or high water, and then others followed their example. Ghandi and Kevin Costner were right: Be the change you want to see in the world, and they will come.

Oh, dear. More "enviro" claptrap reporting: "Gas prices are going through the roof! The sky is falling and we all have to live like some poor African farmer in his mudhole farm or the Earth will die or we will "run out" of energy if we don't buy into unreliable "alternative sources" us Enviros profit from right now. Whichever comes first."

Nonsense:

1.) Business runs in cycles. The real estate bubble's "bursting" really has more to do with too many people being told that they need to buy a house they cannot afford and too many greedy people who were willing to lend money to "marginal" borrowers. A situation ripe for an "implosion" as the ones who should never have been able to buy because they could not afford to pay the real costs of homeownership are indeed going under and taking the greedy lenders along with them!

All the builders were doing were trying to respond to a need for product and the necessary delay in getting it out caught them out when the demand went away. Too bad; that's business.

2. If fuel gets "too expensive", the efficiencies in fuel use will come and/or REAL, VIABLE newer sources of energy will be found and tapped. Business will develop these without a subsidy because they will have to to stay profitable! In turn, that will pass down to most people eventually. That's the way it has worked in the past. Why the "rent-seeking" for those with methods and energy sources that cannot work over a wider area than one African village now? If the methods I have seen pushed so far were indeed so earth-shakingly great and wonderful, why have they not succeeded to date?

Business is not stupid: If the new ways and sources of power/fuel were so great and would add to their profitability, they would have adopted them by now. Yes, fuel prices are a literal pain in the pocketbook and some really suffer for it. However, whining about modern transportation and business cycles instead of trying to find ways to ease the pain for those who are suffering the most without making political pawns out of them does nothing but waste a valuable source of energy if it were but tapped: Hot air.

Unfortunately I'm afraid she's right.

Unless her work has shower facilities she would probably arrive at work all sweaty with no way to freshen up, even after a five mile ride in the muggy Midwest weather or hotter-than-hell Texas. Not good for an office worker or those meeting customers or clients. I'm sure this woman might use light rail if it were available. We all can't live in Seattle, Portland, or SF.:(

Indeed. I do bike commute but I can see her point: It's not always "doable", especially if one lives more than a few miles from work and in an urban area. As for those who say "just sponge-off and change in the restroom when you get there"? All fine and dandy...but most work places these days allow barely enough room to hang one's coat once one gets there, never mind sweaty bike clothes or a "change" of business dress. If it's not a "casual" dress environment, the chances of being able to get truly "presentable" and NOT tick the boss off may not be all that good.

And where would one PARK the bike? A lot of places allow exactly zero possibilities of this...unless one wants one's bike stolen.

And if the employee needs to go out "on the road"? The business may well require the employee use their own car and reimburse expenses; "fleet vehicles" may well have been one of the first things to "go" when the last set of "expense reductions" were made if they ever were available at all. And, no, "light-rail" or the bus will NOT always "do" when one needs to meet a client unless one is running one's own business and one's client base accepts one's "eccentricity" in transportation methods.

Let's explain this is terms you understand. The price of oil is going up due to simple market forces, and of course some people are going to have to "tighten their belt" because of the price of fuel. The vast majority of people with kids or who drive to work don't need to drive, or even need to own cars, they choose to. Nobody told them to live far from work or enrol their kids in schools far from home. If the market tells them their car dependent lifestyle is no longer affordable, they'll change their ways.Please don't patronize me.
Some parents do need to drive their kids. How do you expect to, if your kid has ____ practice, say hockey, transport a ten year old with a giant duffel bag of equipment?
Things happen. Situations like divorces move people further away due to afford ability, making their commute longer.
I can think of many reasons to need a car. I can also say nobody should ever be required to justify their requirement for a car.
Do you need food? Because the price of that is going to go up with the price of fuel. Unless you think magic little fairies bring it to the grocery store.
The cost of living will go up. People will undoubtedly have to make hard sacrifices. Ones that will make them unhappy. I would like people to be happy.




Gas taxes don't even pay for half of what it costs to maintain highways, let alone surface roads, which are what most cyclists use anyway. (Most local surface roads are funded with property taxes.) In Washington state, where I live, gas taxes make up 35% of the state's transportation revenue, but 90% of expenses, once you factor out administrative costs, is spent on car infrastructure (road maintenance, road construction, and the ferry system, which primarily serves people with cars). SUV drivers are not subsidizing transportation for the rest of us; it's very much the other way around. If masses of people decide to start driving a lot less, the sky will not fall. Roads will cost less to maintain, we'll have to build fewer of them, and we'll have more money for other, more efficient forms of transportation.Depending on where you live, where I am gas is about equivalent to 1.50 a gallon in pure tax. Cars are not the driving force behind road disintegration. Weather is; say the road gets cracked, ice freezes and spreads the crack and then the weight of use makes it worst.
All governments tend to be hopelessly inefficient with budgets.

Please don't patronize me.
Some parents do need to drive their kids. How do you expect to, if your kid has ____ practice, say hockey, transport a ten year old with a giant duffel bag of equipment?
Things happen. Situations like divorces move people further away due to afford ability, making their commute longer.
I can think of many reasons to need a car. I can also say nobody should ever be required to justify their requirement for a car.
Do you need food? Because the price of that is going to go up with the price of fuel. Unless you think magic little fairies bring it to the grocery store.
The cost of living will go up. People will undoubtedly have to make hard sacrifices. Ones that will make them unhappy. I would like people to be happy. It's too bad for you if it makes you frustrated that people have the right to drive a vehicle that runs on gas.Do you seriously consider it morally acceptable to prioritize the choice of one family to drive their kid to hockey practice, over the right of another family's kid to breath clean air and not be subject to chronic respiratory ailments?

Driving is not, and never has been a right, it is a privilege afforded to people at the expense of other people and the planet, where those other people include tribes in remote parts of the planet that know nothing of the car driving peoples disgusting selfish attitude, but those tribes will likely suffer from the Global Climate Change that the car drivers contribute to. :mad:

I agree with many other BF.C members here - gas prices are going to continue to rise. The article is a fun read, but it is fantasy. Gas prices aren't coming down - why would they?

Prices have jumped 23% in the past year with only a 2% reduction in demand? Any good business person will tell you that is a big touchdown. As a businessman, looking at those numbers, I would be encouraged to continue to raise prices until I found the threshhold of pain where demand started to really drop off.

My guess is that for the USA, that price where demand is greatly influenced by price will be in the $8.00 per gallon range. It won't keep most people off the road, but it will encourage many people to make driving use changes and consider alternative transportation.

We have a long way to go from today's $4.00 per gallon to $8.00 a gallon, but I think we will be there in about three years.

I'm seeing a big upswing in transportational cyclists here in Austin. (If they're carrying a backpack or any other kind of load, I classify them as transportational.) Not that Austin ever lacked for cyclists, but it's unusual to see so many of them out after the weather turns hot.

Over the last week the bike rack here in Indiana has gone from 1 bike (mine) to 5 bikes. :thumb:

Over bike to work week, I asked facilities services to replace the rusted out bike rack as a celebration of the week. They said the would look into it and maybe budget it for next year.

I got stuck on the part where they compared a non-renewable, finite natural resource with imaginary things (tech stocks) and a manfactured item (houses). It does not work the same way...

Agreed...I wondered about that aspect of it too.


Well, a house is manufactured out of finite resources, just like gasoline is.

That said, I don't see how there could be an oil bubble. Oil bubble? With what money? Where would you put the oil?

Trees/lumber if managed correctly ARE NOT a finite resource, I can grow more trees, gasoline not so. Also I can recycle building materials (and do) but once you burn a gallon of gas it is GONE. I can't fix it up and sell it to someone else. IMHO houses are tangible, gasoline/oil is more of an intangible, you sell one time and one time only. If you don't use it to produce something useful you will have nothing to show for your spending.

Aaron:)

And if the employee needs to go out "on the road"? The business may well require the employee use their own car and reimburse expenses; "fleet vehicles" may well have been one of the first things to "go" when the last set of "expense reductions" were made if they ever were available at all. And, no, "light-rail" or the bus will NOT always "do" when one needs to meet a client unless one is running one's own business and one's client base accepts one's "eccentricity" in transportation methods.

It's hard to tell someone else how to live. The "on the road" argument is pretty valid. I hope to be car free, once I get settled in the new apartment, by September. That is if I am still at my current job. I may be switching jobs, which looks like it would require out of office trips to parts of the city. May still ditch the car and trade it off for a scooter/motorcycle for those off times.

Unfortunately I'm afraid she's right.

Unless her work has shower facilities she would probably arrive at work all sweaty with no way to freshen up, even after a five mile ride in the muggy Midwest weather or hotter-than-hell Texas. Not good for an office worker or those meeting customers or clients. I'm sure this woman might use light rail if it were available. We all can't live in Seattle, Portland, or SF.:(

Will it be acceptable to be sweaty when meeting clients if the clients themselves are sweaty? I mean, seriously, is it only "I" that has to drive to work to meet some mystical client who rides in on a magic carpet?

Excuse me, but that's a crock of sh*t. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but climate is no excuse. Boulder, CO has cold, snowy winters and hellishly hot summers, and people use bikes like crazy there, all year long. And it's not like SF, Portland or Seattle are ideal climates for bicycling, either, fer Chrissakes. Here in Seattle, I've arrived at work dripping wet on least two dozen occasions during the last six months. It rains like crazy, and there are steep hills everywhere you turn. During the winter, it's quite cold, and it snows several times a year, too. I'm totally car-free, and I work in a professional job. My solution? I dress for the weather, have waterproof bags, leave a few minutes early, pop into a restroom when I get to work, and make myself presentable before I actually start working.

I am fortunate that I have a job where being sweaty isn't considered offensive, but I can certainly understand how it would turn most people off to bike commuting. It's already summer here in Tennessee, and will be until the beginning of October. That means that after leaving my house at 6:30am and riding just 3 miles to work, it would take me a good 30 minutes to cool down in an air conditioned room with a glass of ice water. And that's with a morning temperature of only 70 degrees. Yes, it's that humid here. In August it will be around 90 on my ride in, and cooling off after that is not as simple as changing clothes and freshening up with a cool, damp towel. The heat is actually more tolerable later in the day as the humidity dies down, even when the temperature is well over 100. Riding to work when it's 90 with 85% humidity is considerably worse than riding home the same day when it's 110 with 28% humidity.

Please don't patronize me.
Some parents do need to drive their kids. How do you expect to, if your kid has ____ practice, say hockey, transport a ten year old with a giant duffel bag of equipment?
Food is a need. Hockey practise is a choice.

The energy market is changing fast. Car drivers have been subsidized for years by "free" roads and highways, market value property taxes where suburbanites who consume the most municipal services pay less than the downtowners who consume less, and by not being held accountable for the costs they generate in policing, other people's respiratory ailments, and in Vancouver, other people's MVA trauma health care costs. As an apparent fiscal conservative you should be outraged that the market has been distorted and people encouraged to waste resources through urban sprawl thanks to government intervention. Now that more of the true cost is being passed on to the consumer, and people are being forced by the market place to reconsider their choices, you should be thrilled that market corrections are going to lead to conservation.

And if the employee needs to go out "on the road"? The business may well require the employee use their own car and reimburse expenses
If they reimburse expenses, no problem. The high price of gas for a business traveller is a cost of doing business, as it should be.

It's already summer here in Tennessee, and will be until the beginning of October. That means that after leaving my house at 6:30am and riding just 3 miles to work, it would take me a good 30 minutes to cool down in an air conditioned room with a glass of ice water. And that's with a morning temperature of only 70 degrees. Yes, it's that humid here. In August it will be around 90 on my ride in, and cooling off after that is not as simple as changing clothes and freshening up with a cool, damp towel. The heat is actually more tolerable later in the day as the humidity dies down, even when the temperature is well over 100. Riding to work when it's 90 with 85% humidity is considerably worse than riding home the same day when it's 110 with 28% humidity.
Once upon a time in your part of Tennessee, it was acceptable for people to be sweaty. I have a feeling that at some point in the next several years, it will become acceptable once again.

I like to go for a nice cruise and open up the throttle on the highway or drive down a twisty road. I also like to go for a bike ride and feel the air on my face and in my hair. I think I should be able to do both without people trying to force me out.

Sounds like a Chevy commercial....


I also don't want people who have to drive to starve or have to tighten their belts over the price of fuel. Taxis, people with kids, people who drive far to work, etc. They all need cars to drive.


If we wish hard enough, it just might come true!!! Sounds like a Walt Disney animation...


IMO we live in a free choice society (or should, it is the ideal way) and that people should be free to make choices without being forced into them.

Was it _really_ "free choice" when General Motors, Ford, et al got to use rights of way for free (ie; roads) while other modes of transport (trolleys & railroads) had to pay for & maintain & pay taxes on their rights-of-way? Was it free choice for a GM subsidiary to buy up over a hundred cities' trolley systems, tear them up, sell them off, and substitute diesel buses instead?



Socialist countries tax the hell out of gas. How would you feel if any time you bought a new bicycle part, it was 900% tax to make up for the road usage fee?

Ideally gas would be fine at 2.80 per gallon. That way I can ride my bike for recreational purposes, and use my car when I needed to, but still not starve. :)

1. Where is there in the world that has a 900% tax? Sources, please. Where do you come up with that?

2. So you're starving. But you can afford to look at and write on the internet??

Once upon a time in your part of Tennessee, it was acceptable for people to be sweaty. I have a feeling that at some point in the next several years, it will become acceptable once again.

People will have to get used to seasonal changes again & dress accordingly. No more long white t-shirts in the middle of winter or big huge fur coats in the summertime trying to look "cool". Right now, weather & the seasons don't really affect us a whole lot in the "1st world". Go back 100 years, people were much more in-tune with, adjusted for, and prepared for the change of seasons. We may have to just return to those days. It may be a big shock for some people. But it won't be the "end of the world".

Will we finally be rid of suits and and ties?!!!