Public transports are much cheaper than cars though HeadThump, and in large cities (I'm sure this applies to the US too) when they are organised right, they are rarely a problem and you don't feel so limited by them, I know that's my case in Paris, I wouldn't know what to do with a car really (Other than selling it =).
But yeah, once you get far from larger cities, public transports just don't work unfortunatly. 

from 5.30 am to 0.30 am That still leaves 0.31 to 5.29 am where I would be stuck at home and not be able to go where I want. Those are prime munchie hours! Also, when I want to go to the beach which is three to five hours away, all I have to do is put a few bags in the back seat, fill up the tank and go. I don't have to worry about the transit services of several cities and towns in between.

Good points there, Bal. Even the city twelve miles to the north of me has a public bus system, but I would never use it. I live in a rural/suburban area with several acres to myself. I crank up metal music all hours of the
night without disturbing (most of) my neighbors and have friends over on the patio without cops getting nosy about my business.

It is just an entirely different life style than an urban environement. 

if Paris is anything like the movie Amelie, I could probably adjust;) 

Also, Europe has postage-stamp sized cars that get 4560 miles to the gallon (or 69987 kilometers to the liter, if you prefer). Mostly those aren't available here, and I don't have $100 grand to spend on a new hybrid.

Today I needed my car today to drive 5 miles on the interstate to get to a PC store so I could buy a new printer. Please note this is well outside the urban area served by the transit authority in this city.

Gas prices have historically been low in the US. Imagine something you take for granted that is low or no cost to you, and then suddenly the price jumps by %30 in just a few years. You wouldn't be happy either.

Take this example of a public transportation. Chapel Hill used to charge for their bus service, but nobody used it. Then they lowered the cost until finally they weren't charging anything to ride the bus--it's now completely free. Still the buses were relatively empty. Now they are paying to run advertisements on local radio to get people to use the system. I don't know if the usage has improved much, but I do know they're still running the advertisements. Most of the people who work in Chapel Hill don't live there because they can't afford to. You can have twice the property for half the cost if you live 8 miles outside of town and drive to work. 

Why not walk or use a bus?
Because I, like many many others, live the in the suburbs of a metropolitan area, some 60+ miles from where I work. In DC (Washington, the US Captial, for the uninformed), majority of the metro workforce are commuters from the 'burbs. Try walking 60 miles in my shoes, kiddo.

Although for the record, there are some buses that go into the metro area from the suburbs but they're only once a day. There are also many contractors like myself that don't have a 'home office' with a cube and stupid dilbert printouts on their cubicle, but rather go to different work sites depending on the day of the week or schedule of a project.

</flame>

Anyways, are gas prices in Europe semi-stable? I bet they don't go up 35cents in a day like they did today in my area. 

and what RPG said 

If there was any way that I could run my
business(s) via public transport, I would. I think though, that they'd frown upon me trying to move 1000+ pounds of smelly, dirty, fossil-fuel powered equipment on either the buses or trains... I did mention that I use fossil-fuel powered equipment?
Oh yeah I did, my fuel / oil costs have risen over 50% from last year's, that causes a little whining and I'd defy anyone to NOT be a little put off by that "situation".

I think that my major gripe would be that prices at the pump do not really reflect the price-per-barrel on an equitable, daily level. Whenever the daily per-barrel prices jump, the consumer prices at the pumps jump within hours or even minutes. BUT, if you are paying attention, you will notice that when the price-per-barrel drops, the pump prices take weeks to drop in fashion. It is very frustrating when I am spending loads of $$$ on a product that has such unstable prices. I am as quickly as possible moving out of a business I have run for 19 years (do I feel old) and into another, less weather and fuel dependant.

I recently saw a business earnings report that has shows several of the major oil producers / companies, Suadi Arabia, Venezuela and many other "oil rich" nations reporting record profits. This did nothing to take the sting out of the current situation either.

[/whining] 

it's all about mr friggles now baby...

http://www.bigfishgames.com/online/mrfiggles/game.html


(i don't actually mean any abuse towards frib...well maybe a little, as long as it's consensual and we have a safetword) 

Regarding the population density that HeadThump mentioned: The state of North Carolina has a population of 8 million people, but only 3 million of those live in a city larger than 20 thousand people. So that's 5 million people who either live in a town so small it basically has no public transportation, or who don't live in a town at all. Cars are pretty important to those people. 

a few points on public transit, which i think might have already been said:

- public transit only works in areas with enough population density to support it. A lot of the united states is wide open, low-density.

- if gas is historically cheap, the transport services and infrastructure will be designed around cheap gas. Economics don't support doing otherwise.

- likewise, people make personal choices about where to live and work and whether to buy a car based on how much things cost. If gas is cheap, it's more practical to live in a better house on cheaper land. 

In general, the price of a natural non-endless product, whatever it is (and for sure gas is THE good exemple of 21th century begining), can only increase with time...
According to economic papers, gas barrel price could increase up to 100$ before the end of the year... argghhh... Here in France (and I guess this is the same in all countries), gas price increased by 50% (in the best case) since the begining of this year.. and I sadly guess this is not limitated: rare "things" are expensive...

As we consume much more every day with the incoming "new growing economy" (i.e countries like China, India, etc...) and as we are each day closer to the end of gas resources, economic/market law drive prices up, and so gas price can only increase... as I said: rare "things" are expensive...

It's a fact.. We all have responsabilities concerning gas consumption (regardless of what country we live, regardless of our life model): our societies are consumer societies, and nothing was really done in the past years/decades to anticipate the lack of gas we are encountering today...

To go forward, the big question today is not what to do to reduce our gas consumption ? Cause I think it's too late now... The big issue is what to do to replace efficiently gas ? What will be the power resource that will replace gas ? That's the big issue...
And when I say efficiently I mean taking into account Earth global warming, pollution, etc.. The answer is for sure not easy, but we will have to solve this major issue in the future...

though... 

That gas has been cheap too long so society has been built around having it that way. Gasoline is not a sustainable option so I say up with the prices to make sure a change of fuel/transportation systems happends sooner and not later. 

Describing how much you rely upon fuel and therefore how evile a fuel price increase might be is definitely putting the horse before the cart. 

Shit. 

For all that oil will run out one day, the current increases are more to do with an increased demand without a corresponding increase in extraction/refining capacity, there's still enough oil left for at least the next few years. In the idealized world of economics, more capacity will get built and in a few months/years prices will descend again -- but OPEC et al may decide that they're quite happy with prices the way they are now, thankyouverymuch and not do that. You could even make the case that this will preserve oil stocks for longer by making the world more energy conscious before it really has to and this is therefore a Good Thing, but I doubt that's a real motivation.

(not that I'm an economist or anything) 

what a place! You get quake maps, discussion on fuel and Shambler.

All its missing is wrath and his comments. 

Oil has shown no signs of running out, a 2003 study said that oil isn't what we thought and a big chunk of the earth's core is made up of oil.

The "Shortage" is manufactured, there are trillions of gallons in reserve in various place, and no shortage in the ground.

We in the US should be extracting our own oil on a larger scale, but due to environemental regs we can't.

What happened to converting all our cars to alchohol? 

What happened to converting all our cars to alchohol?

.. simply an empty Drunk Thread on func_... ;P 

First I didn't see walking in Quake feels like being drunk. I don't like being drunk because it's expensive. Quake is a good way of being drunk without alcohol. 

So why is it by design? What possible sense does it make to build your cities in a way that FORCES people to own a car?

You're right, it is stupid. But as everyone's pointed out, economic/lifestyle factors made it that way.

America is an automotive culture. We've had fifty years of relative peacefulness and prosperity with (aside from occasional hiccups) plenty of oil to fuel it. People buying cars and driving more often spurs the balkanization of where we live and work into commercial centers, strip malls, and suburbs. People being able to drive a lot makes all this stuff commercially viable, which forces people to drive more. It's one of those unfortunately cyclic things.

There was an (I think) Alice Cooper song that kind of touched on this:
I can't get a girl because I don't have a car
I can't get a car becauses I don't have a job
I can't get a job because I don't have a car
so I'm looking for a girl with a job and a car.

I doubt we're going to be able to get off our asses and convert our petroleum infrastructure to hydrogen or whatever other alternative finally becomes viable before we run out of the stuff, and running out of the stuff is what's going to force it. It won't happen until after a prolonged period of suck though - an extended lack of oil will hurt the economy real fucking bad because we're so reliant on it for transportation to/from work, to/from stores, for shipping goods cross-country. etc.

Also:
a big chunk of the earth's core is made up of oil.
ROFL - I'm in tears.

The Federal Oil Reserve isn't for periods when gas prices go up, it's just in case the communists invade. That's why it's called the "strategic oil reserve." Unlikely as that is, using it when oil prices are high is a poor decision anyway. To maintain the reserve we'll just have to fill it again at present day (ie $70/barrel) rates, thus solving nothing. 

How the hell can a description of a situation be a logical fallacy? The situation can be illogical, but the description cannot; it is either true or false.

Way to put the aggression before the intellect. 

Way to put the aggression before the intellect

It's a good explanation about Iraki Bushtchery ... doh !! 

LOL, don't forget Madfox too =) 

Lun, you may want to stop for a minute and look at this:

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/June04/Thomas_Gold_obit.hrs.html 

You are trying to justify American whining about the impact of fuel prices by describing the very dependency that *causes* the problem. Cart. Before horse.

Let me put that another way - you are complaining about the inevitable consequences of relying on cheap but limited resources by invoking the fact that you rely on them! Talk about inconsistent - if you didn't want to pay for scarce fuel, why the fuck are you using so much?

You still get it cheap anyway, you silly whinging bastards. :)