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Gas Prices Jump; California Hardest Hit
New submitter jefery23 writes with this excerpt from an Associated Press article (as carried by the Denver Post): "Californians woke up to a shock Friday as overnight gasoline prices jumped by as much as 20 cents a gallon in some areas, ending a week of soaring costs that saw some stations close and others charge record prices." Friday's jump followed another big one just a day earlier, too. Texas gas prices have gone up, but not quite so dramatically ($3.59 at the station nearest to me); how are they in your neck of the woods? Those Bloom boxes and charging stations can't arrive too soon.
We hear that all the time, about how high European prices are.
However, across the pond, people there live far closer together, and have a lot more options than a car. You have trains, trams, streetcars, buses, teleport pads out of Larry Niven books, and roads that are in good repair. In Europe, people can live in a city core and not get a 9mm round to the cranium because some 15 year old is needing to take a video of gunning down a tourist for their "blood in" ritual.
In the US, to live within walking distance of a job, you have to be pretty rich. Bicycling distance is different, but if you don't get run over (hit and runs are extremely common, and the local PD doesn't bother with the case unless someone has something obvious like video of it), you are an easy moving target for gangbangers. As soon as you park and lock your bike up, there is a good chance that it either will be completely missing or not all there (wheels, forks, seats, etc.) Buses? It can take 3-4 hours to get just a few miles due to bad routes, and usually homeless people tend to set up their bedrooms, bathrooms, and soliciting centers in them. Of course, people can mention motorcycles, and they are fast, thrifty on gas, and don't take up much space. However, every rider I know has some sort of permanent injury they got from riding, usually courtesy of a car desiring the space the motorcycle was currently taking up.
So, for most Americans who can't afford to live in the high zoot residential townhomes, a car is a necessity. Yes, it sucks, but that is how life is. You won't find any help from the government anytime soon thanks to all the dollars being poured in to prop up political candidates with the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" meme which is turning the country into some Ayn Randish circle of Hell [1].
[1]: It cracks me up when people call themselves Christian, and then talk about Ayn Rand's philosophy. They are mutually exclusive, and anyone who doesn't see this either hasn't read the Bible or Atlas Shrugged, or is just plain ignorant.