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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.
On this side of the pond, we're paying a bit under $8/gallon...
I'm a work-from-home computer programmer with two full time jobs doing this.
Taking the vehicle out of the equation makes the problem less relevant. Sure, the cost of food goes up because the cost of transporting it went up. But seriously: I only drive on friday once a month when I need to resupply a month's worth of beer and food.
A year ago I was bankrupt and now its looking like I could buy a house next year. Just commit to it and stick with it and these gas prices don't hurt at all.
If someone came up with a good in-road delivery system for electricity for cars, they could probably successfully pitch wiring all our roads for electricity
There are already good proposals for doing this that do not require wiring the roads. These proposals assume that in the future cars will be capable of driving in "platoons", separated by only a few inches to reduce drag and increase road capacity.
Option 1: inductive coupling. Cars contain coils in their bumpers that can transmit and receive energy from cars immediately in front or behind them. If you are on a long drive, the computer in your car negotiates with the computer in the other cars and buys power from them. If you are on a short commute, and have spare power, you sell the power to other cars as you drive and make a small profit.
Option 2: magnetic coupling. This is similar, but the bumpers contain electro-magnets that pull or push leading or trailing cars. So if you are on a long trip, you get on a freeway, join a platoon, automatically negotiate to buy power, and then coast to your destination without consuming any of your own battery power. You could even use your engine to recharge your battery as you siphon power from the rest of the platoon.
Both of these proposals assume that cars on short trips are more common than cars on long drives. That is mostly true. But on long stretches of highway it is possible that dedicated vehicles with big batteries (or CNG generators on board) will be used to convoy platoons of regular cars.
While it's true LA has spent a fortune on "transit" in the last few decades, it still hasn't take it seriously. A "renaissance"? Not even close.
Take the 405 freeway. One of the most congested roadways on the entire planet, with both very densely populated residential areas and very densely packed businesses. It's an absurdly ideal case for commuter rail, just build an elevated track down the center from the north SF Valley down to Orange County and you'd make the single largest impact on transportation any city on the planet has ever made. ANY other effort is nothing but a distraction until and unless that is done, period.
What do we do instead? We spend massive amounts on rail projects that come and go from anywhere except where people live, work, or the bulk of our congestion happens. We setup multiple rail lines that you need to switch mid-trip to complete your commute, but make you do that switch outside...in the worst, gang-ridden neighborhoods we have, in locations far out of the way of the actual transit path. The result is that it's actually faster to take a bus much of the time then to take rail...and that's including the fact the buses have to use the heavily congested freeways. And that's if you're willing to take the personal risk...there's no way any sane white woman would commute on that rape-magnet of a train line. Why? Taxi unions...they were afraid people might take rail from LAX rather then a taxi if the rail option didn't completely suck balls.
Oh, and the 405? Yah...we're currently spending insane amounts of money to tear down and rebuild multiple bridges stretching across it, literally move mountains, not for a useful rail line... But to add one more lane each way. Like all the other lanes we've added, it'll have ZERO impact on actual traffic. -It may likely even make it worse as it has in the past as expanding freeways encourages longer commutes, resulting in more miles on the road per driver and more then offsetting the added capacity.
A "transit renaissance" my ass. Los Angeles is a shining example of how NOT to ever build a transit system. It's a rolling calamity that most likely won't ever be solved. Frankly we'll see Google self-driving cars in every garage long before we get a sane transit system. Ironically...they'll work best on our existing freeway-centric systems...eliminating the advantage of any form of mass transit. Yay?
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Yes, quite.
You're the victim of an enormous charade.
Do yourself a favor, and look at the current electoral map, then compare it, state by state, region by region (the red and blue) with a gas price temperature map. Draw your own conclusions. Except for a few states with very small contributions to the electoral college, prices are UP in "blue states".
Enjoy.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.