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2012 Set Record For Most Expensive Gas In US
An anonymous reader writes "According to data from the American Automobile Association, the average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. was higher in 2012 than in any year before it. Nationwide, gas averaged $3.60/gallon, up from $3.51/gallon in 2011. 'The states with the most expensive annual averages for 2012 included Hawaii ($4.31), Alaska ($4.09), California ($4.03), New York ($3.90) and Connecticut ($3.90). The states with the least-expensive annual averages included South Carolina ($3.35), Missouri ($3.38), Mississippi ($3.39), Tennessee ($3.40) and Oklahoma ($3.41). The highest daily statewide average of the year was $4.67 in Calif. on Oct. 9, while the lowest daily statewide average was $2.91 a gallon in South Carolina on July 3.' Bloomberg reports that fuel consumption is down 3.6% compared to last year, while U.S. oil production reached almost 7 million barrels a day recently, a level that hasn't been reached since 1993. AAA predicts gas prices will be cheaper in 2013."
Still cheaper than my country (Colombia) We extract oil in our land, and yet we have quite high prices. On average ~4.65 US for low octane fuel (81 ~ 84!!!) and the high octane fuel (which is really a joke by international standards) is ~5.50 US for 87~90 in octane scale
from europeans.........
You don't know how good you have it.
Enjoy the ride.
you have cheap fuel. Really. http://imgur.com/r/MapPorn/YIpi5
Not the cause is the FED printing cheap money where the banks use that extra cash to buy oil and speculate the prices.
This is the first signs of inflation due to high debt and the printing of extra money to pay for it.
http://saveie6.com/
In real dollars, i.e. corrected for inflation, it's about the same as in 1979-1980.
It's interesting, without shortages and lines at the pump, how much less threatening it seems. I remember visiting my aunt that Christmas and being quite concerned because our tank wasn't big enough to hold gas for the whole round trip, and in addition to lines, many, many gas stations had short hours--there was no certainty of being able to find a gas station open on Christmas day.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
About the same as a gallon of milk. Not that expensive. And we waste so much of it.
Psst buddy: here's a new year's resolution for you:
Starting in 2013, I will no longer use the made-up word "sheeple" which instantly brands me as an underemployed political talk radio addict.
The increase in the price of gas is 2.5%, The average inflation rate for 2012 was 2.1%. So the increase was 15% over inflation but that is understandable. I bet most of the things we but would have a highest price ever this year.
The data has to be wrong, Washington state has terrible gas prices and soon we're going to be getting taxed another 18cents a gallon.
Except that said money has already been printed for a decade or more via easy access to credit.
ovo -hoot
However high gas prices are more a result of a weak dollar than any other reason including the war on fossil fuels. Also see the cost of bacon, gold, copper, etc. Even if demand falls if the oilfield production costs go up and the dollar falls in value on a globally traded commodity it really isn't rocket science.
Gas prices before taxes are fairly consistent throughout most of the developed world. My understanding is that the difference between Europe and the United States has arisen primarily because Europe taxes as a percentage of the price, while the United States taxes on the amount of gasoline. Hence, if the base price doubles, the taxes also double in Europe, but stay the same in the United States. Over time, the difference in price has risen, and should be expected to grow even larger.
Stop it.
There is no sympathy from the rest of the world. Here in Canada "cheap" gas is 4.50USD/Gallon, in Europe its way worse then that, no one wants to hear about it any more. Pick some other non-issue to cry about like how expensive starbucks coffee is or how horrible it is that the millionaire hockey players aren't playing.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
The Obama administration's Energy Secretary believes Americans should pay European gas prices to encourage people to buy fuel efficient cars and reduce sprawl. They want to social engineer the US to fit their world view.
"In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in late 2008 -- before Obama was elected and at a point when Chu had no ties to Obama -- Chu told the newspaper that he favored raising gasoline taxes gradually over 15 years to coax consumers into buying fuel-efficient cars and discouraging sprawl.
"Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe," Chu said in an interview with the Journal in September 2008. The quote did not appear in print until December, when the Journal ran a story after news emerged that Chu was being tapped as energy secretary."
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/mar/14/newt-gingrich/gingrich-said-energy-secretary-advocated-raising-g/
$4.31 per gallon is 0.86 euro per litre.
i.e. the highest price ever of gas in the worst part of the US is more than two times cheaper than the average price in Europe.
And they will be used, because it's been the stated goal of the Obama Administration and others to keep fossil fuel costs high in order to "persuade" people to switch to alternatives, like mass transit (powered by windmills, no doubt).
Someone need to remind you WHY WE HAVE A GOVERNMENT.
You seem to think that our society runs "on automatic" and that government interference is "bad"
The NEWS for you is that the entire reason we have a petroleum infrastructure and gas stations and roads and cars is because the GOVERNMENT "persuaded" people to adopt them.
Oh but YOU seem to think that the government gets in the way of civilization when in fact government is the DIFFERENCE between prosperity and despair.
Why don't you TRY to speculate on what the price of gasoline would be if the government were not interfering. Trust me you won't like the answer.
Well, cities are quite suitable for mass transit. If you live and work in a city, you pretty much don't need a car. You certainly don't need a three tonne 4WD truck that gets through an absurd amount of fuel.
2012 Set Record For Most Expensive Gas In the World
would have been more interesting since gas is still relatively cheap in the US.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Mass transit is great unless you have somewhere you need to be, and you live an hour from the city. This is the problem with America. Too much land. Not enough people filling it. Of course if we had that many people, this country would likely have been finished financially decades ago.
I have been a captive in America my entire life. Everybody and everything uses customary units instead of metric.
...in Australia.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The consumption figures can't go down because, as is posted constantly on Slashdot, capitalism is a lie
The consumption figures can't go down because oil is an inelastic good. The office doesn't get any closer to my house just because the price of oil goes up.
Oh right, I know, when the economy completely tanks we'll all sell our houses and move closer to work. Sounds like a great plan, man. Can't see what could possibly go wrong with it, other than the economy tanking and nobody being able to buy a house closer to work or sell a house farther from work. But yeah, I guess that means capitalism is a lie (lolwut?)
Gas prices in the US have been trending up for a long time. Peak was in 2008.
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=average+prices+for+gallon+of+gas+in+united+states+since+1990
The gas tax has been declining due to inflation to the point where it doesn't even pay for highway construction/maintenance anymore. The Highway Trust Fund has been running a deficit since 2008, and has to grab general tax revenues to pay for it. I think it's fair to raise the gas tax to a level where it covers the cost of maintaining highways, instead of subsidizing them out of general taxes.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
In the short term the price of gas goes up and down. However in the long term the price of gas goes up and up. It is almost like oil is a non-renewable resource or something. Nah that is crazy commy talk.
I'm disappointed that someone who feels that the free market will provide is using roads that are provided by the tax payers. We should cut this budget cost and move it to the road users.
It would cost about another $4 or so per gallon to cover the cost of the road system in the US (or you could come up with some other solution. Technology would allow most roads to be toll roads). Of course, if this huge tax payer subsidy is removed then other forms of transportation would immediately become viable. In other words, trains and buses would become cost effective and the US would get an environmentally friendly transport network.
So, I support you totally in your efforts to tell your socialist representatives to stop subsidizing roads with tax dollars. Please feel free to post copies of the letters you send to them here (or elsewhere).
+1
Happy new year!
Psst buddy: here's a new year's resolution for you:
Starting in 2013, I will no longer use the made-up word "sheeple" which instantly brands me as an underemployed political talk radio addict.
And for you, a resolution to learn what a "parody" is.
Apparently according to you, we can't do anything without hundreds of thousands of regulations and more government employees than private workers, and a constantly growing Bureaucratic State. You must be part of the Bureaucratic State, or at least dependent upon it for your life.
Good luck dealing with your Benevolent Masters when you finally run afoul of some set of regs that prevent you from doing something you really want to do to pursue your happiness.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
I'm disappointed that someone who feels that the free market will provide is using roads that are provided by the tax payers. We should cut this budget cost and move it to the road users.
It would cost about another $4 or so per gallon to cover the cost of the road system in the US (or you could come up with some other solution. Technology would allow most roads to be toll roads). Of course, if this huge tax payer subsidy is removed then other forms of transportation would immediately become viable. In other words, trains and buses would become cost effective and the US would get an environmentally friendly transport network.
So, I support you totally in your efforts to tell your socialist representatives to stop subsidizing roads with tax dollars. Please feel free to post copies of the letters you send to them here (or elsewhere).
As another free marketer, I'd be perfectly happy if all government subsidies were removed from all forms of transit, and all the roads were tolled and privately owned, buses were privatized and taxi cartels were eliminated.
We'd get all those tax dollars back, there would be transit services going where customers wanted to go, not mapping out political districts, and the constant traffic jams would be a thing of the past.
"the average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. was higher in 2012 than in any year before it"
Huh? The average price for just about anything in the U.S. was higher in 2012 than in any year before it...
Try moving to Sweden! You pay $3.51 a gallon we pay on average $7.65 a gallon! All because of your wars!
And it has nothing to do with your government soaking you for $4 a gallon in taxes.
I actually support making all the highways TOLL roads and force people to pay a toll to use them based on the weight of their vehicle.
Let the idiots that own that F350 supercab they drive to work in alone and empty every day pay an extra $14.95 to get to work each day... oh and another $14.95 to get home.
Only the leaches of society will use entitlements like Highways, Police, Fire, etc...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Where do you think the money for your "free" healthcare and other social programs comes from?
Shut up and learn from Germany - where gas costs 7 bucks a gallon, but there are almost no accidents on the roads (did I mention they don't have a speed limit?), the cars are BMW, Mercedes, Porsche and Audi, not Ford and whatever shitty brand GM uses, where cars are better, more economic, faster and in general more efficient than american crap made to last one year and be replaced.. And even though this country has a WAY better form of public transport by bus, train, metro, tram and bike.
Grow up and go see the world.
Socialist Commie.
LA LA LA LA LA!
We can't hear you! (That's because AT&T sucks but we shall save that for another rant.)
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I agree, start referring to them as fucking idiots. You know the moron republicans that are so stupid... well maybe nothing like that was said on THIS thread so far, but on MANY OTHER threads I've read and I don't feel like waiting around for someone to make that same stupid approach
ftfy
Forget any residual "EV range anxiety" you may feel,
& focus on EV's with a -swappable- battery pack, eg,
those from BetterPlace.com.
Take 18 min's to view Shai Agassi's talk at TED.com ...and, maybe, his hour-long detailed version - from
from 2009.
Melbourne - on YouTube or Fora.tv (paywalled, but
you can download it.
Get off petroleum-fuels & enjoy (someday: Thorium
(LFTR) fueled) Electric Cars.
Make intelligent choices -now- (It's -not- too late),
as the Danes have: embrace Zero-Emission EV's.
Win, win, win... :-)
US hasn't switched to petrol or liters? just askin'.
Petrol is € 2,00 per liter in Europe. Not sure how that translates to US dollars.
Given that the price of gas keeps going up, isn't every year a record year for gas prices?
Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that the price of gas is down by nearly $1.00 a gallon since the election. Duh...which party generally controls gas prices?
We pay a yearly road tax based on engine size in Belgum. I'm sure it's done the same in other European countries, too, but I've only lived here.
+1 We pay $7.90 for 91 octane at the moment (it has gone higher)
I just want to take this chance to reach across the political aisle and agree: AT&T sucks.
Only the leaches of society will use entitlements like Highways, Police, Fire, etc...
Ah, so you're a bureaucrat yourself, I see? Threaten to cut the basic services instead of winter public pool hours?
The longer you wait to do it, the harder it will be.
I'm disappointed that someone who feels that the free market will provide is using roads that are provided by the tax payers. We should cut this budget cost and move it to the road users.
Great! Because in the US, cars are a net revenue producer for the highway system. I guess we need to seriously bump up the costs of planes, buses, and trains however to make them also pay for the costs of using the systems provided by the tax payers...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
It's not cars that cause the deficit, it's subsidies for buses and trains that are depleting the Highway Trust Fund. Congress authorized spending from that pot of money for mass transit - and it's a massive drain on the system. Conversely, cars actually generate net revenue for the system.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Fuck you, it used to be cheap. We want it back that way. The rest of the world agreed to fund social programs and public transport through high fuel taxes. We did not.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Make good transit and people will converge around it. Or make the choice to live an hour from the city, instead of having the developers essentially force people there because "everyone has a car" (as there is no mass transit to begin with) and "get away from the city" (be crammed next to your neighbors as in the city, but without any of the services), but actually because the lands cheaper and they can. Being an hour away from the city is lack of (good) mass transit on both ends, on one end you have to have a car even if you begin in the city (so now you are amenable to moving out) and on the other because there is no incentive to move anywhere else after, it's all driving no matter what.
Inflation causes tax windfalls. One of the first things covered in macro econ.
Socialist? Commie?
Sorry, can't hear you at 160 mph on my bmw bike, as the radio is playing loud something from spotify (oh, mobile internet here is fast and cheap, by the way)
Shut. Up.
You'll get yours when you find out you have to bail out the rest of the EU. Including your friends the Frogs.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
We had prices beyond $8/gallon, you paintywaists ;-)
Please tell me you're being sarcastic.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
The UK does both: there is a fixed tax (a "duty"), and a percentage (VAT). The VAT applies to the duty as well as the base price.
The current rate is 58p per litre. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocarbon_oil_duty
The petrol station opposite my house is selling fuel for £1.39/L, so the cost is (58p fuel + 58p duty) * 1.20 VAT = £1.39.
I think it's the same mechanism in the rest of the EU.
They have a fixed rate (2.19 pounds/per US gallon) but then they add a 20% VAT tax into the mix. So it ends up being pretty substantial.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
Wouldn't mass transit reduce wear and tear on the roads and ultimately reduce costs?
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
Ok, where do I sign up to let the free market take control in that case? You're acting like we'd think this is a bad thing. I'm certainly for it. I'm especially for cutting the federal government out of the equation since they have used that money as a "legal" for of blackmail to enforce their will where they don't have proper jurisdiction. Let's cut those fucks totally out of the equation.
Again, smartass, where do we sign up? I'm sick of you bitches acting like what's going on today is a solution. It's a stop gap measure and if you can't see that than you're a fucking retard.
It's not cars that cause the deficit, it's subsidies for buses and trains that are depleting the Highway Trust Fund. Congress authorized spending from that pot of money for mass transit - and it's a massive drain on the system. Conversely, cars actually generate net revenue for the system.
What does "highway" mean? All roads, or just some roads?
(Maybe it's obvious, but I'm not American.)
The same principle is applied in the UK too. AIUI the USA doesn't quite follow the same principle where you just register your car but not pay tax annually or any other period of time, in the UK there is a choice of paying it once every six months or once a year.
I originally thought "you're complaining about an average price under $1/L?" but then did some quick maths on how the price really compares to Australian prices.
Average here for a while has been roughly $1.50/L (ignore exchange rates, as AU/US is roughly parity)
Of that, 38c is fuel excise, and 15c national sales tax (GST), thus the price before taxes is 97c/L, which is close to $3.60/gallon - exactly the same as your average.
First off it is to be expected that gas/petrol prices will raise year on year it has done for the past decade and will continue to do so. Was it really such a big surprise to find out that 2012 was the most expensive year for petrol in the USA?
Secondly, this highly USA-centric story doesn't compare to the UK, Europe and other regions of the planet. All stories like this do is make some people want to slap Americans for whining about the cost of petrol when in Europe we are more often than not paying double for petrol as referenced in this map.
How this made it to the front page I don't know, it's common sense and does not require a notice to the people who actually drive cars as well as being incredibly whiny to the rest of the world.
In the US all public non-toll roads are maintained by the government. The fun part is figuring out at what level of government.
Most/all of the maintenance is done by the local governments and individual states. Not only do individual states tax gasoline sales, they also receive money from the federal government. This is how the US government forces the individual states to do things which would otherwise be unconstitutional.
For example, the US constitution gives individual states the right to set a minimum drinking age. However, if the states wish to receive federal highway funds they must set the minimum above 21. Basically, the federal government implements taxes that should be on the state level, then extorts/bribes the states to pass laws that the federal government constitutionally can not pass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
The free market approach to traffic jams: raise prices until traffic clears.
Sure, you just have to force people to use it. Since just about every form of public transit in the US is running on government subsidies and cannot pay its own costs I think it's pretty conclusive that Americans don't want it.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Use it, save $
Good luck driving a car without roads.
(Hey, my look! My knee can jerk too!)
Kid-proof tablet..
Your logic is flawed. Your assumption is that because something is subsidized, that people don't want it. How do you think new yorkers would feel if you shutdown their subway? That city would grind to a halt instantly. If you think NY is unique in this regard, have you been to DC?
It's hard to put a price on reduced pollution and traffic but people put great value in it. Additionally, the income challenged rely on these services just to earn a living.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
People keep making statements like that, but its not true. There is a road in front of my house that was not paid for by any government or any taxes. The local builders buy a large area of land, put in roads, build houses, and sell houses with part of the cost of the house being for the road that was made. So this insistence that taxes are the ONLY way to pay for things like roads is pure BS.
So I guess your entire point about free market not being able to do things is completely blown. I guess the free market won once again.
Of course, if this huge tax payer subsidy is removed then other forms of transportation would immediately become viable.
Of course, no they wouldn't--not in a way we could stomach: perhaps from the standpoint of those with a set of points that are fixed from which to depart and arrive to, but all else would be screwed out of a livelihood for the loss of flexibility. I'm damn conservative on many issues, and I for one am in favor of subsidizing the roads: in particular because the poor are so well benefited by having easy mobility available to them. You know how much life you can loose on a train or bus?
We also lack a command economy and requisite mores and expectations of competence to get major projects done right now. Let the roads stand, with lots of drivers, to keep men free, and make mobility and flexibility available to the very poor: to put this into perspective, it tooks three years (because I was paying down debts and of course paying the bills) to save enough for a car, and I rode that damn bus every day at least two ways, sometimes including a light rail, buying from a TFSA deposited into pre-tax by deduction from a paycheck pre-tax, and working many hours each day: I got enough sleep to live on that bus.
Note that buses and, as I mentioned, light rail: the latter is referred to as the worst roller coaster ever, and serves only a narrow strip of the city; politically it was called "high speed rail" and used by the president as an example for the nation to follow, but it travels at 55mph (when you're lucky), isn't well-constructed, is not even half of the original idealistic plan or promise to the taxpayers who voted for it, and has to keep stopping: still takes hours to get anywhere on the damn "high speed" thing.
And the buses are themselves plagued with problems: need upgrades, require electronic cards or having money ready (or "ride the next one") for efficiency's sake, and so on, but are funded by a tax approved by the businesses in this state. Maybe if we get an influx of 20 million people to this metro areas such that the roads would be unbearable, with most of them working in downtown, the light rail would be viable. Right now the subsidy per rider is about $12 or so.
It is improving as it expands, but frankly we could have done better to buying everyone who must rely on these systems a personal auto, used, in good working condition. Days I had to ride the buses and light rail, btw, cost about five to six bucks (dividing the kind of pass required) and two or more hours (at one point, 4+): factoring my current driving time and the expenses associated, I pay about the same(!) I cover far more miles, am far more productive, have some life left over in the day, etc.: so again, mass transit can be just dumb in a place as unconcentrated as America--getting moreso as telecommunicating becomes more common.
On the other hand, if we hand-over roads to the government-private colluders/cartels (which I'm sure cross political boundaries and interests), mass transit might really become viable for being cheaper: the toll roads never seem to actually get handed over as promised, are excessively priced, and avoided by drivers like the plague: but again, while you might see that as a plus in the name of the "the environment", it would be devastating to our society.
Intelligent idiots are we. | Evil men do not understand justice.
It is the speculation that is largely at fault. And that's the reason Oil Prices have started to come down, as new rules have gone into place with Dodd/Frank that limit big banks speculation in the oil market.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
The costs of production will continue to drive up all oil products as the relatively easily extractable oil is sucked up and (mostly) burned, and increasingly desperate measures are taken to keep the inevitable collapses in production at bay. In the U.S., as in most countries of the world, consumption is still heavily subsidized for every step of the oil production and consumption cycle, but it is getting harder to rob from the future to pay for it; food importers (and market based food production is heavily oil dependent) are in for a much rougher time, and there really is no plan B.
"Lost time is not found again."
Not in my city you can't.
You mean like collude with other oil companies to form a cartel and charge $10 a gallon because we can if there are no regulations to prevent it?
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Thats cheap - in my area - gas went up to $4.35 on a weekdays - at Costco and there was a long line just to get that regular unlead
Depressing.
I would be fine with adding it to the price of gas as a start. It might induce more efficiencies in buying roads instead of politicians just heaving vast quantities of cash at gigantic unionized construction firms.
That it's $4/gallon (I assume your number is correct) is perverse.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Conflation of government with roads. Sad.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
It's not strictly "too much land, not enough people". Australia has the same huge amount of land and vastly fewer people to fill it, yet has on the whole better mass transit than the US. The difference is that the population is more centralised in Australia (more highly concentrated in the cities, rather than the eleventy billion small towns you get across the US).
So the 'problem' (I wouldn't call it a problem, just a difference in settlement patterns) with America is "lots of land, people more evenly scattered across it", rather than simply not enough people. In fact with well over 300M people and with birth rates higher than almost any other developed country, you may have an overpopulation problem in the not-too-distant future.
Hydrocarbons we've got. Hydrocarbons != net energy. The stuff with thousand to one energy return is long gone. Oil sands have a net energy of about 4:1. just enough to support extraction AND support some additional activity. It's the "AND" that's shrinking as we slide down the net energy cliff. Adding more oil, natural gas or brown coal with lousy net energy doesn't help that, no matter how much we find. Oil is a special case, unfortunately. The world's "just-in-time" supply chain is totally dependent on plentiful, cheap petroleum fuels. Supply chains break in a nonlinear fashion as feedback kicks in. So the recent innumerate popular press happy-talk is all very well and good. If the numbers are real and not political, it may put off the day of reckoning by 40 years, but almost certainly no longer than that.
And please, please, before you reply, please at least try using google and a calculator.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Sure, you just have to force people to use it. Since just about every form of public transit in the US is running on government subsidies and cannot pay its own costs I think it's pretty conclusive that Americans don't want it.
Hrrm. That would mean that since roads don't pay their own costs, that people don't want them.
Too fucking bad. We're going to have to start wanting it, because there's not going to be an affordable option. Widespread adoption of mass transit will be an improvement for our civilization; even if the short-sighted, stubborn, ignorant, masses don't want it.
Because of your "government makes all road" policies, they now collect some large amount of money from the states, split it up and keep some for themselves and give it back with strings attached. One of them was the drinking age. The federal government decided it needed to be 21, but there is nothing the in Constitution giving them the power to do so. Instead they collect money for roads, and hold it until the states raise the drinking age to 21.
So yes, lets not have the government collect money for roads and lets do it locally instead. Your way might work, but you decide how I need to run my life and use that money as a hostage against people like me.
get back to me when you have a clue.
But, since you don't have one - I'll provide it gratis: Here in America the prices are high because of a Bush era change to the laws that let speculators take over the oil futures market. A law quasi repealed under Obama - but to date the Administration has not seen fit to implement the measures that would restore sanity to the market.
We've got a right to complain, because we're being taken to the cleaners by the politicians and the one-percenters. You're the one's with no right to bitch - because your high prices are the result of high taxation. You've done it to *yourselves*.
So piss right the hell off.
All words are "made-up".
Yeah, because obviously if one is against the unrestricted metastasizing growth of the Bureaucratic State, then one must automatically be for the destruction of existing roads.
Funny, I thought the Roman Empire went away millennia ago...
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
He didn't threaten to cut anything, but to make people pay by usage. Flat rates blind the market to resource consumption, usage-based fees open the market's eyes.
Oh, yeah, much better to have unelected bureaucrats determine what the price of gas should be, based upon how they feel when they get in the office that morning.
Of course, it's perfectly fine by you that the Bureaucratic State has now determined that gasoline must now be priced high enough to force people into cities and away from the open country, so that they can be more easily controlled.
Enjoy your future, Citizen. I won't be around for the worst of it, but I'm sure you'll be easily convinced that "things are getting better and better".
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
I grew up in the midwest, where we really didn't have much of a "mass transit system". Sure, we had a bus system, but it was primarily used by people too poor to own their own car, or people unable to get/keep a driver's license (for anything from medical reasons to alcohol problems). Basically, the bus was NOT a pleasant experience to ride.
I was always being told how great the mass transit was in other cities, and how much I'd like it if I didn't actually have to use a car to get around.
Well, I relocated to the D.C. area for a new job, not that long ago, and so far I'm not at all convinced. The fact is, it's really frickin' expensive to get around up here, and most of that really seems to be artificially manufactured by the government. For example, if I go to areas such as Bethesda, MD or the part of Rockville, MD near Bethesda where the red line metro runs and has multiple stations, the taxes placed on gas make it a good 50 cents per gallon or more higher than in the northern part of Rockville, or out in Germantown or Quince Orchard. Worse yet? Everyplace you go in areas near the metro, you're hit up for expensive parking for your vehicle too! If you work in downtown Bethesda, for example, you're stuck parking in one of the municipal parking garages, or possibly in one owned by one of the office buildings you work in. You can count on that costing you a good $140 per month or more. Need to drop a package off at a FedEx location around there, perhaps? Good luck finding street parking without feeding a meter first. Heck -- say you just want to drive your car to the nearest metro station with parking and take the metro in to work from there? Even that will set you back $5 per day, before paying for the metro fare itself -- and many stations have no or very limited parking, so you might drive to a station only to not get a space!
All of this helps create the argument that you should use and love the govt. provided mass transit, because it costs SO much to use your own car instead.
Well -- I tried to do things their way, and IMO, it's severely limiting. Essentially, you give up a considerable amount of your freedom in the interest of avoiding some of the govt. mandated penalties for using your car. On a shopping trip, for example? Good luck carrying anything back that won't fit in a couple of bags. You'll have to lug it on the metro train with you. And say a friend texts you during the work day and asks if you want to meet up at a restaurant after work? Without your car, you may just have to pass on that if it's not one of the places strategically close enough to you or a metro stop so you can get there!
To their credit, the metro trains DO run on a pretty regular and efficient schedule ... but they sure do have a nasty problem with the escalators to/from the below ground stations breaking down. Again, not fun if you're carrying heavy stuff around with you.
The whole thing, to me, stinks of a forced attempt to get people to conform to an environmentally "green" agenda more than anything else. I live far enough west of the metro D.C. area so even their buses to the closest metro stop only come here a few times in the early AM and again, a few times around the dinner hour after work gets out. If I have to work late, no bus for me! And oh yeah, they don't even come out here at all on weekends.
I can't tell whether you're trying to be sarcastic or simply didn't express yourself well. But to be clear: I disapprove of many of the things the federal government spends my tax dollars on. But given that I am forced to pay for them, of course, I'm going to use them. It is in no way inconsistent to argue against them. In fact, as a supposed beneficiary of a tax-payer provided service, one is in the best position to argue against it, because if even the supposed beneficiaries of a service consider it better left to the market, there is probably something wrong.
Personally, I think the federal government should shift much more of the responsibility for roads and other transportation issues more to state and local governments.
Some words are made-upperer than others.
Yes, societies largely run on automatic, and less government interference generally leads to better outcomes for societies.
We have a petroleum "infrastructure" because petroleum is useful and can be sold at a profit.
Road building is, of course, a proper government function, but mostly for local and state governments, to address specific transportation needs. There is a proper role for the federal government in building roads, but it is much more limited than the role it currently takes.
Gasoline is sold in democracies, dictatorships, centrally planned economies, free market economies, etc. When you take away taxes and government subsidies, the price of gasoline is pretty similar across the world in non-oil producing countries at least.
Perfectly doable, it just requires lots of snow.
Not if the tax is, as with the gasoline tax, a fixed dollar amount, not a percentage. Inflation eats away at the real value of the $0.184/gal federal gasoline tax.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
No.... lol according to him, we can't do anything without some form of government. You made the jump to thousands of regulations and bureaucracy.
Roads are self-destructing. A ribbon of asphalt pavement left to its own devices wants nothing more than to return to its constituent parts: Oil and gravel.
Kid-proof tablet..
Highest for the year $4.67 per gallon / 3.78541 litres per gallon = $1.233684065926808 per litre
Seriously, lets call it "somewhat less than one point two five"
The LOWEST price today was $1.28 here in Sydney, highest $1.559
America doesn't know the meaning of "expensive".
And just to be clear, the Sydney numbers mentioned above are:
- not the most expensive fuel has been all year
- not the most expensive fuel has been anywhere else in the country
(eg Melbourne hit $1.60/l for a while in October)
And just for good measure, MY dollar is worth more than yours
them prices I mentioned for Sydney are $DownUndahDollaz$ not $GreenBux$ (ie everything is "in local currency")
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Fortunately, there's hope. When I'm elected Earth Czar, I will reverse this travesty: The minimum drinking age will no longer be 21, but instead 12.
Kid-proof tablet..
Wait untill you get higher gas prices and you will start appreceating public transportation.
In Ohio, I pay a yearly "road tax" (as a part of annual registration fees) for my work truck. It's based on the weight of the vehicle and the amount that it can carry.
So, similar mechanisms are in-place on this side of the pond. But it's nowhere near enough money to pay for the roads that I use...
(My other normal/non-commercial passenger cars' registration fees go mostly toward funding the Ohio Highway Patrol, and are based on neither weight, capacity, nor engine size.)
Kid-proof tablet..
Although that's been an effect, and is probably a major motivation these days, the original purpose of the federal government giving states highway grants wasn't to control their drinking laws, but to build the Interstate Highway system. Eisenhower set up that funding mechanism a half-century ago, where the federal government designed and paid for the interstate highway system at an overall level, but individual segments were constructed and maintained by the states they ran through, using funds that transferred to states from the federal government.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Wouldn't mass transit reduce wear and tear on the roads and ultimately reduce costs?
Actually, no. Damage to roads goes as the fourth power of weight (you can find lots of other sources with the same conclusions). A typical city bus weighs around 12000 kg; a typical car weighs around 1600 kg. Thus a bus does around 3100 times more road damage that a car. Assume that the car carries one person, and the bus carries a full load (seated and standing) of 96; you end up with ~33 times more damage per passenger mile in a bus as a single person in that car.
Weight is what destroys roads, and heavy vehicles really tear it up. A move to more mass transit would not only greatly increase the subsidies required, but seriously accelerate the damage done to the roads.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
And of course, only the Bureaucratic State is wise enough in its collective knowledge to fix roads. Only unelected bureaucrats with no experience can leverage the combined power of the State to determine not only which roads need to be repaired, but also exactly how much is needed in material, time and labor, and exactly who should be allowed to fix the roads. Ordinary people, and the businesses that use the roads, they're all too stupid and powerless to figure out how to fix the roads, too stupid to figure out who to hire, and how much it would cost, too stupid to do anything that they're not told to do by a Power greater than them, the Power of the State.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
There are other forms of mass transit besides buses.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
WTF? How is anyone buying this load of BS? A couple years ago it was more than $1 more expensive than now basically everywhere in the US for the entirety of the year. I would know, I was there when it happened.
I hope you don't really think parking fees are some sort of "forced attempt to get people to conform" - space in a metropolitan area is fucking expensive. The space you put your car has to compete, economically, with the value of putting in an office building that actually generates revenue and pays rent.
Expecting whoever owns that land to just let you put your shit there for free is a bit entitled, and bitching about the cost of municipal parking is just completely ignoring the realities of the situation: if it wasn't for the city stepping in and saying "no, there will not be another high-rent office building here, there will be a parking structure", you wouldn't have anywhere to park because private companies would be busy using that space to make money to the detriment of everyone else. (and don't even start on "we should privatize the municipal parking structures" - you don't want to know what they would have to charge in order to be competitive with office rents).
The "green agenda" is just a side-effect of the fact that cars are super inefficient in densely packed areas where nobody can afford to just let people park their cars for free.
(and you know how you can meet your friends at the restaurant? You can walk. That's probably how they got there, unless they're hiding some sort of secret "green" teleportation device.)
And say a friend texts you during the work day and asks if you want to meet up at a restaurant after work? Without your car, you may just have to pass on that if it's not one of the places strategically close enough to you or a metro stop so you can get there!
Here's a typical case of cause and effect, if you're a place regularly serving alcohol making people unfit to drive maybe it's a good idea to locate somewhere which makes it easy to get to and from without a taxi or a designated driver? If like "normal" people you'd want as customers use public transport, that is. My impression of the US is that using public transport is such a "special case" that you just don't cater to it. One oddity I remember from the grocery store in the US was the bags, they were just horribly flimsy and uncomfortable clearly designed to barely get the goods from the counter to the trunk and from the trunk in your door. They were all but useless for even short to medium walking distances. It's just so institutionalized that you have a car and trying to patch in anything else just becomes an afterthought.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It has very little to do with a "green agenda". It has to do with the fact that there are six million people in the DC metro area and a HUGE amount of those people live in the suburbs and commute into the city. This certainly won't come as a shock to you if you've ever driven your car inside the beltway during commute time, but you are not the only one who would like to use their own car to commute into the city.
What's the alternative? Seriously, what is a more efficient alternative to moving that many people over that distance on a regular basis? It sure isn't automobiles. Try driving around LA or Houston during rush hour if you think that a city that size designed around automobile travel is more efficient.
The fact is that if you live in a major metro area like DC and want to maintain the suburban Midwestern lifestyle you're used to while regularly visiting the city center for work and play, you're going to have to pay for it in time and money. There's just no way around it. I mean, how far are you commuting? West of Fairfax into DC? That's a pretty damn long commute. You can't really complain that the service is poor when you live that far away.
The American highway system is the explicit result of the US government. Not in the sense that the government standardized or regulated existing infrastructure, but that the highways projects post WWII brought the whole damn thing into existence.
Here in the Netherlands we are paying close to 2 Euro per litre for premium (95). You can convert yourself: 1 US gallon = 3.78541178 litre and 1.00 EUR = 1.327498 USD
So don't complain about high gas prices in the States please...
Starting in 2013, I will no longer use the made-up word "sheeple" which instantly brands me as an underemployed political talk radio addict.
The made-up word "sheeple is what we call a portmanteau, which is itself a made up word
Language can be a real dick when it decides to evolve and you don't.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Given a price of $1.17 per liter, and given 3.78541 liters per gallon, I paid around $4.42 per gallon.
I like how the US sticks to imperial, then changes the size of the gallon to smaller so you think you aren't paying as much. At least in Canada we know we are paying through the nose. We export to the US so does that mean that Canadian citizens are supporting the US economy? We are actually paying for you to drive?
I sometimes just don't get it.
As another free marketer, I'd be perfectly happy if all government subsidies were removed from all forms of transit, and all the roads were tolled and privately owned, buses were privatized and taxi cartels were eliminated.
We'd get all those tax dollars back, there would be transit services going where customers wanted to go, not mapping out political districts, and the constant traffic jams would be a thing of the past.
Bah, that wouldn't work. Owning a road is like having a monopoly. Other road owners can't compete because their roads are elsewhere. So you merely end up with the road owners charging whatever they can, and poor people being unable to get around at all - unless they revolt.
Free market capitalism works fine when there is competition. So you can have competing airlines or taxi companies, but rarely competing roads.
Apparently according to you, we can't do anything without hundreds of thousands of regulations and more government employees than private workers, and a constantly growing Bureaucratic State. You must be part of the Bureaucratic State, or at least dependent upon it for your life.
Good luck dealing with your Benevolent Masters when you finally run afoul of some set of regs that prevent you from doing something you really want to do to pursue your happiness.
That is the problem of "too much government". The problem of "too little government" is even worse - you'll get gangs and mafia instead. such "masters" won't merely give you a fine for not following their "rules". You'll get cities with "bad neighbourhoods" where people are afraid to go - as opposed to anyone being able to go anywhere without worry. Any time of day.
Yes (sort of). The difference from the US is mainly that we (at least in Sweden) automatically increase the fixed tax every year to account for inflation. (In Sweden the taxed is based on the average price for the month of October, and right now the tax is (fuel + 5.65 SEK/litre) * 1.25 VAT. This means on average it is a percentage, or at least follows the base price of petrol.
Though... Even if we subtract taxes from our prices, we still pay more than the US average cost of fuel (including their tax).
I feel freer when I’m not driving the car. I have to drive and park the stupid thing, and driving safely restricts my activities and makes me less fit.
I’m old enough to remember 16K of memory being described as “whopping”
Thing is, metro systems actually work very well. Come to any major European city (Paris, London or Barcelona immediately spring to mind) and there are so many stations that there's basically no such thing as NOT strategically close to a stop.
You do understand that the neighborhoods of metro stations are heavily populated, and the cost and sometimes lack of parking space is just because of the desire to reserve these areas for living instead of parking? It's not because of some green government plot.
Also, if you think the scanty parking space is overpriced, please consider the value of the parking lot. You'll soon figure out that offering cheap parking space near metro stations is an equation that can't work, at least not in a free market
If you find it hard to lug around a shopping bag in the metro, I on the other hand find it intolerably mentally exhausting to lug around a 1200 kg piece of metal in the crowded streets of the city of Helsinki.
Time for the US to invade Iran and fuel the Arab Spring in Saudi Arabia.
Of course, if this huge tax payer subsidy is removed then other forms of transportation would immediately become viable. In other words, trains and buses would become cost effective and the US would get an environmentally friendly transport network.
ROFL. Stop it, you are killing me. LOL.
US would get an environmentally friendly transport network.
LOL.
The US would get shit. And we would have no choice but to like it. You could put as much economic pressure as you want to get more mass transit and people would end up being forced to fucking walk.
What makes you think economic pressure will cause mass transit to suddenly plop into existence? It will just cause suffering. Government certainly has no interest in actually serving its citizens. I am honestly surprised that parks even exist. There is no way a private entity will do it. Where will this mass transit come from? Economic pressure. ROFL. Economic suffering for absolutely no gain whatsoever. You sir are hilarious.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
The UK is supposed to increase the fixed amount (the duty) every year, but in the last few years the government has "put off" the increase. Driving in the UK is cheaper (accounting for inflation) than it's been for a long while.
Meanwhile, rail fares went up 4.2% today, for the Nth time in a row, and are 50-95% higher than they were 10 years ago in many cases: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20881684
The average salary in my country is 900 USD and we pay for diesel or gasoline depending on the tank station from 7 to 8 USD for a gallon!
I pay about 2.3 times that in the Netherlands (about € 1.65 a litre), the difference being almost exclusively due to taxes, on top of a motor vehicle tax of about € 600 a year and more than € 6000 of motor vehicle sales tax in addition to the regular VAT of 19% levied on any product when the car was new. The previous owner and I already spent far more on taxes than the manufacturer ever received for it.
Oh really? Are you seriously trying to make us believe that our Benevolent *Corporate* Masters will be better? Large companies have PROVEN they will screw anyone to make more profit. Prices do NOT go down just because something gets privatized, in fact I'd bet that there are very few cases of this actually occurring over time in the real world.
The reason why we have regulations is to prevent corporations from doing what they do best in a free market vacuum, that is make as much money as they possibly can. This is by definition what every corporation must do, especially publicly trades ones. Corporations are not interested in giving you something at a lower price when you will gladly pay a higher one. Isn't that the whole idea of the free market system?
Which have far higher infrastructural maintenance costs.
It should probably be added that very small engine cars (650cc - yes, they do exist USA people), electric, LPG and vintage cars are not required to pay road tax.
It's not so much based on engine size but on CO(2) emissions.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Try moving to Norway! You pay $7.65 a gallon we pay on average $9.35 a gallon! :)
Ordinary people, and the businesses that use the roads, they're all too stupid and powerless to figure out how to fix the roads
That's absoloutely correct. You can prove it by pointing to the excellent road system in the Libertarian Paradise of the Congo which is the envy of the western world.
There was no interstate system before the US government went ahead and made it.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
London
Clearly you've never been to London. Or saaaaarfariver.
In the south it's nothing but mud tracks, rude huts and roving bands of visigoths, all because of the lack of tube. At least so people from the north tell me. I think they're allergic to regular trains.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Burn it, all.
(did I mention they don't have a speed limit?)
That's the exception, rather than the rule these days - some Autobahns are still unrestricted, but not all...
See this map and the associated legend for the details of what's what
That's a very good point - you also have to beware of bandits and wolves once you head south of the river.
The money the state takes goes to the public. The money the Saudi sheiks take because of the stupid American oil wars goes into wastelands like Dubai.
you also have to beware of bandits
Like the Peckham Boys, for instance.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I'm 2 years underemployed and listen to political talk radio. Does this mean I'm required to use the word "sheeple".. If so, how many time do I need to use the word each day.
"Libertarian Paradise of the Congo"
Cute. But give them a good judicial system, and a bunch of time, and they may impress even you.
I think that near 2007~2008 they seized ExxonMobil assets and kicked them out, making their refineries state-controlled, which is really awful.
Why is that so bad? Far better to take the profit for the country than simply give it to a foreign company.
Where does this attitude come from? I understand that you are envious or even resentful of those that have more than you, but how does that justify your position. What you are advocating is theft. They built something and have nice stuff, therefore they deserve to have it taken from them?
They were not robbing the country. They were paying an agreed upon rate for the resource, then Chavez decided it wasn't enough and that he was taking it all for "the people". He didn't simply refuse to sell the resource to them anymore, he took the resource, took their land, took their buildings, took their vehicles, took their equipment, everything.
Try putting yourself in their place. I suspect that you may own a car. How would you feel if someone less fortunate took it from you and said that you deserved to have it stolen because you had too much stuff/wealth? This actually happens every day, but we call those people criminals because it is theft and it is a criminal act.
This naive and juvenile attitude that seems to be increasingly prevalent among the masses has got to stop. A society cannot continue to function with this attitude. Look at Cuba and Venezuela as excellent examples of that fact.
I can't speak for Europe in general, but you are mostly incorrect for the UK.
Fuel duty is calculated on a quantity basis, which is most of the tax. VAT is calculated on a price basis, but that is minor compared to the duty.
But give them a good judicial system,
In other words a strong government.
and they may impress even you.
So... what you're saying is we replace the nonexistent government with a strong government and as a result it may end up with a decent society. I can believe that.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Are you kiddin us? In the USA, the Tea Party would assassinate you on "minute one". They think the drinking age should go up to 25, there should be drug tests for everybody...on a monthly basis to rid the nation of druggies, school need to have 6 hours of prayer time daily so the evil gun-toters will disappear, all "homo"sexuals will be burned at the steak, and the government should be dismantled and run by a person who thinks a made-up planet actually exists. So unless you are a Tea Party member, wear your "Earth Czar" ballistic vest when visiting the US. Oh, you should also bring many gift like loaded handguns to give to all children over the age of 3.
We should evolve past money and share our resources equally - and ration where needed.
If you used cars that needed less gas per mile our government wouldn't have to take responsibility nor would the oil price be so high if you didn't wage war on countries that exported oil.
I grew up in the midwest, where we really didn't have much of a "mass transit system".
Oh?
Do me a favor and stop by Chicago sometime. Compare it to LA while you're at it.
That's nice for the Feds. How many of the roads do they foot the bill for? Find me the numbers for the states and the municipalities, then let's talk.
"In other words a strong government."
So you're a libertarian, who believes government could constraint itself to judicial matters? Welcome, brother.
Nope, have that here in the US as well. We pay property tax on our vehicles, which is by the weight and Blue Book Value of your vehicle. Some states have a higher rate, some states do not have the tax. We also have the tax on all Fuel purchased, .18USD Federal, and on average around .3USD Local Taxes per gallon that is supposed to go to improvement of the roads.
What else do you think the "Give us tax breaks or we'll close up shop?" are?
The vehicle is much heavier and longer wheelbase increases the torque required to control for fishtail on a 4wd.
Additionally people who don't know how the hell to drive a 4wd think that 4wd == sticks to the road and therefore gun it far too hard for the conditions.
Farmers usually use knackerd ford cortinas here in the UK. they're cheap, easy to fix and if it gets stuck, pop home and get the TRACTOR out to pull it out. the 4wd is used either for posing or for gamekeepers.
http://www.gaspricewatch.com/web_us_average_gas_price_chart.php?period=15year
http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/Gasoline_Inflation.asp
http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2012/02/27/how-high-have-gas-prices-risen-over-the-years/
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"And please, please, before you reply, please at least try using google and a calculator."
you first.
I have been hearing that since 1970's. Still not in sight.
Just in time is bad in general for a lot of industries that have moved to it.
At least the drive to make everything Just in time has diminished in the last 12 years or so.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Why should taxes meant to build and maintain roads used as post roads -- a federal Constitutional role -- be on the state level?
Hear hear. (That coming from a very free-market free-enterprise whacko libertarian such as myself.)
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Petrol(a.k.a. Gasoline) costs 5.3$ per gallon. You guys have it cheap.
Would that replace the state licence plate tax that we pay already?
Also, doesn't that encourage everyone to get sports cars which have higher accident rates?
Would you give poor people a pass or should only middle class and up get to use the roads?
I'm still paying $1.96 a gallon for propane. Modern conversions (any gasoline vehicle can be converted) will give your engine a longer life, too, and if you're crazy, you can try to extend oil changes. Did I mention I live in a medium sized city and have a choice of 6 stations? And that I've done 10+ hour trips on propane with just one fillup at the start, and one in the middle?
Go ahead, don't mod this up, perhaps it's best people *don't* know they have a choice, because it means that propane will remain unlinked from gas prices and instead follow heating prices--which means this season is actually when prices peak for me. They are cheapest in the summer, right when I want to drive around the most! Woohoo!
Although, at the same time, sucks to keep this post at 0 considering that propane burns cleaner than gasoline. :(
Hmm...while I'd love to have an autobahn here, I do agree - the economic woes that the US currently faces are responsible in part due to the eurozone crisis, namely because many european countries failed to implement austerity when it was blatantly necessary. Conversely, the eurozone is also hurt by other economic issues here so there's plenty of blame to throw around.
Oh, I have fast and cheap mobile internet by the way - varies from 10-30mbit for $30 a month. Also what is arguably the best end user ISP only exists in the US.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Nice theory, except that a lot of regulations are passed because Big Corporations know they can get exemptions, or can get their own regs passed which prevent competition from upstart small companies. They are large enough to be able to hire large staffs just to handle the new regs, where small companies have to take effort and labor away from what they do in order to handle the paperwork and compliance efforts.
So, no, Big Corporations love them a Bureaucratic State just as much as you seem to, because they're just the same. The only difference is, you can avoid the BIg Corporations by not purchasing their goods or service, but the Bureaucratic State has force on its side, and you can't get away from its control.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
I've visited DC twice for a week or so each time and was very impressed at the subway system there, especially at the distance you could go in it. If I lived there, I would use it regularly. I didn't even use the buses, but if I did I imagine that would be great too.
My only two disappointments were that it doesn't run 24/7 (closed around midnight... oh well, I can understand) and that at least half the escalators are perpetually broken.
I'm comparing this to the subway in Montreal (also nice, quiet too with the rubber wheels) and Toronto (horrendous, but not all that unsurprising considering the idiots staffing the TTC).
I live in a city with 1/10th the population of Toronto Centre, and have a choice of 20 minutes driving or 2 hours bus. Obviously, I choose driving.
When I visited DC, I stayed in Arlington (hey, gotta save $$$). I took a cab between two hotels in Arlington, and that took 20 minutes. Taking the subway, however, got me from Arlington to L'Enfant in about 30 minutes. In DC, I'd definitely choose the subway. If I didn't plan on making frequent trips outside the city, should I end up living in DC, I think I'd even dump the car.
And I'm not doing it because of the environment or any other feel good bullshit, or even to save money. The subway in DC was honestly the fastest way to go and worth the rather low fare fee (check out the cost of the subway in Toronto and compare just *how far* you can go on the DC subway vs. theirs, you are getting a STEAL of a deal).
And if you don't like the weekend traffic, why the hell did you choose to live in a Tourist Trap?! If you did it for a job, well, you gotta weigh the pros with the cons and make your choice from there!
I made the jump to what we have now, as opposed to what we had before now. The claim that having a Federal Registry of 150,000+ pages of regulations is no different than having a Registry of 50,000 pages, even though if you've ever run a business you can see the effect of the mindless and disincentive explosion of regs that you're subject to. There's a federal regulation to determine how much water your toilet can flush, and of course the regulation that effectively eliminates incandescent light bulbs.
There were 40,000 new regs related to Obamacare that just came out after the election, tell me how much healthier we will all be from them. And from the next 40,000, and the next, and the next.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Not the "whole damn thing", there are far more state and local roads than there are Interstate Highways.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Because the Metro buses don't go where I want to go in a timely manner, I can drive to work (Alexandria -> Bailey's Crossroad) in about 15 minutes, whereas taking the bus means approximately 1 hour. 20 minutes from the nearest stop to the Pentagon, wait 20 minutes for the next bus on the other line, then 20 minutes out to Falls Church. Soooo much more convenient.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Wrong, there was a system of interstate highways, like Route 66, or Highway 25, the old Dixie Highway, and others. These existed long before the Interstate system. I know, because I was around when the Interstates were being built, many of them along the same or paralleling the routes of the old highways. Highway 11/Interstate 81, Highway 25/Interstate 75, Highway 29/Interstate 66, and dozens more.
Oh, and everyone moderating me as "flamebait" while modding the other flamers as "insightful"? BFD.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
The UK is supposed to increase the fixed amount (the duty) every year, but in the last few years the government has "put off" the increase. Driving in the UK is cheaper (accounting for inflation) than it's been for a long while.
You're right that they haven't raised the duty in the last couple of budgets. But you appear to be wrong about that meaning inflation adjusted fuel is cheaper than it's been for a long while. On the contrary, it's quite a bit more expensive.
http://www.speedlimit.org.uk/petrolprices.html
My point is not to particularly focus in on the parking fees, but more that they form PART of the whole agenda to discourage people from driving their own vehicles.
The fact remains that the government actually makes a profit off of every single person driving a passenger car or truck around in their community, while they take a HUGE loss trying to keep public transportation going.
If the logistical problem they're trying to solve is one of too much traffic for the roads and infrastructure in the area, then they would be better served putting the money into an improved road system and ways for people to park their vehicles less expensively!
When I drive around places like Silver Spring or Rockville, I encounter all sorts of roads which almost seem designed to maximize traffic bottlenecks! You've got such things as 2 lane roads going north-bound with a big median separating them from south-bound 2 lane roads beside them, and many establishments on both sides of said roads. Rather than offering a number of breaks in the median to allow accessing one side from the other, you're forced to drive for miles until the roads both terminate in a connecting loop! Other places have very confusing intersections that are "one way" only between certain times of day or days of the week. That's just the sort of thing that will increase the number of accidents!
And yes, while I never said the metro was a "bad value" for the fare you pay, it stinks of government bureaucracy as badly as most government projects .... Take a look at the fiasco getting it extended out to Dulles Airport, for example! That project has been an utter joke, including such nonsense as spending money MULTIPLE times to "research" if it was better to run it under or above ground near the airport, and then claiming govt. lost the original plans showing where a bunch of reinforced concrete pillars were buried in the ground that they needed to build on top of. So parts of the metro had to be shut down while surveyors ran around trying to re-locate all of them again! And I'm sorry, but it should really be a "no brainer" that if there's one GOOD place for the metro line to run, it would be to the largest airport in the D.C. area!
I was LITERALLY, about to write that exact same response.
Though in places with great mass transit that I've been to over seas, they have great railroads... but some of the cities internally have glorified buses.
Still though
Besides the "other mass transit besides buses" reply...
From my understanding from the concept, there are other factors besides weight. There's the axle lengths (between front/back, left/right) and tire width, and number of tires (some buses double-up the tires) to take into consideration. Did you factor those in? Or did you just plug in basic weights.
Yeah, and I didn't even get into the fact that it's not just one bus replacing one car on the road, it's one bus replacing 96 cars (presuming a fully loaded bus) on the road. So, using his math that a bus does 33 times more damage to the road than a car, it does not do more damage than 96 cars.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
I've got one here in my portmanteau...
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
The UK is supposed to increase the fixed amount (the duty) every year, but in the last few years the government has "put off" the increase. Driving in the UK is cheaper (accounting for inflation) than it's been for a long while.
You're right that they haven't raised the duty in the last couple of budgets. But you appear to be wrong about that meaning inflation adjusted fuel is cheaper than it's been for a long while. On the contrary, it's quite a bit more expensive.
http://www.speedlimit.org.uk/petrolprices.html
I probably got that from here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/9493041/War-on-motorist-a-myth-says-left-of-centre-think-tank.html but can't quickly find the original report. http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/war-motorists-myth has more quoted numbers from it.
I wrote (and remember reading) that driving was cheaper, not fuel alone. Accounting for better cars (using less fuel, needing less maintenance) might be what makes that true.
The Feds pay for any federal highway - interstates, forest/government access roads. And they kick in large amounts of cash to municipalities in the form of transit grants - which comes from the same pot of cash. Go investigate http://www.dot.gov/ and you'll find billions sent out for things like bus rapid transit, State highway improvements, light rail.
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If you'll look at the original BTS report, specifically the per passenger mile breakout you'll find that passenger rail is subsidized at a rate higher than that for buses, per passenger mile. And with the experience of the latest light-rail construction in the US (the Seattle Link Light Rail) costing over $176 million per mile to build (approximately 17 times the cost to build a 6 lane highway). Rail can be a good option, but to think it is lower cost than highways - either in deployment or ongoing costs - isn't backed up by reality.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Yeah, and I didn't even get into the fact that it's not just one bus replacing one car on the road, it's one bus replacing 96 cars (presuming a fully loaded bus) on the road. So, using his math that a bus does 33 times more damage to the road than a car, it does not do more damage than 96 cars.
The math is pretty simple:
Weight ratio of a bus to car: 12000 kg / 1600 kg = 7.5 /1 ) to get the damage per passenger mile: 32.96
Damage goes as the 4th power of weight, meaning the damage of a bus is (7.5 ^ 4) 3164 times higher than the car
Assume the car has 1 person, the bus has a full load of 96. Divide the damage of the bus by (96
A fully loaded bus, maximizing it's passenger capability, versus a car with the absolute minimum passenger capability (driver only), does ~33 times more road damage per passenger mile as compared to the car.
Put another way, you would need to put ~3100 people on a bus to have it equal the damage, per passenger mile, of the car.
And put yet another way, taking 96 cars off the road and putting all those people in a single bus results in only 33 times more road damage, as compared to the individual cars.
It's that 4th power function of weight that really kills your road - weight is the killer of roads, not number of vehicles. If you ride a scooter or motorcycle (like me), then take comfort in the fact the typical car is doing a lot more damage to the road than you - in my case (380 kg fully loaded scooter with rider), 314 times more damage to the road.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Besides the "other mass transit besides buses" reply...
From my understanding from the concept, there are other factors besides weight. There's the axle lengths (between front/back, left/right) and tire width, and number of tires (some buses double-up the tires) to take into consideration. Did you factor those in? Or did you just plug in basic weights.
The study assumes legal axle load limits for road damage. So that is factored out via the general 4th order power.
Assuming we still skew things a factor of 10 because we somehow increase contact area of the bus by that amount, the bus still does 3.3 times more damage to the road, per passenger mile, as the car. And that's assuming the bus is at 100% capacity and the car is at minimum (driver only) capacity.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
In the Netherlands it's even more fun: both the "duty" and the VAT are a percentage, and the VAT also applies to the duty. This stacking of percentages, and the percentage being relativity large, causes extreme results for just small fluctuations of the base price.
I spent $2000 on a commuter bike and its accessories (high-end tires and snow tires, a lock, rack, waterproof pannier and grocery pannier, fenders, generator hub + lights, upgraded drivetrain components) 2 years ago.
Sounds like a lot, right? If the bike were stolen tomorrow, it would have worked out to $83/month. Because I bought a good bike with a low-maintenance drivetrain (fully enclosed chaincases are ideal, coupled with internal-gear hubs), operational costs are low, so it's getting cheaper every day.
Every few months I need a tube ($5ish) if it's not patchable. About every 6 months I need a set of brake pads, which are about $20. I think in a year or two I'll probably need a new set of tires which will be $140 total if I buy the really fancy ones again. Once in a blue moon I need to bring it to the shop (for example, I once accidentally broke a spoke), which is usually well under $50.
I use the transit pass when the weather is miserable (I hate cold rain, and sub-25-degree-F air temps); otherwise, it's the bike.
The best fuel is the kind you eat. Love to eat? Buy and use a bike for transport (and don't cheap out. And DON'T BUY A MOUNTAIN BIKE FOR RIDING IN THE CITY!)
Please help metamoderate.
Good cherry-picking. Now perform the same analysis for NYC.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
...who are saying that our $4/gal is nothing compared to what they pay, it's true. But you astronomical gas taxes (which is where the disparity is) are why you have mass transit systems that are actually usable. In this country, your options for work are cut severely from the already limited pool if you don't own a vehicle. And fuel efficient ones are even more expensive, since they tend to be newer, and often less reliable.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it! --Longbottle
It's based on the car weight in The Netherlands, with (large) deductions for cars with good fuel efficiency compared to other cars in the same weight class. It more than covers the cost of maintaining and building new roads. (by about a factor of 2)
Some governments try to balance there taxes and spending, so the rest of the world isn't hit too hard when there bubble bursts.
(Now, if only they would do the balancing by reducing the spending, instead of increasing the taxes...)
True, here in Sweden when I had my car undergo its yearly test, they tied a hose to the exhaust and actually measured the emissions. Car is 20 years old (Mazda 323) but still fell within the norm so I don't have to pay extra.
The cheapest gas in Finland is 7.56 USD, and it varies up to 8.51 USD per gallon (95 octane with 10 per cent ethanol). I find it amazing that Americans complain so much about the price of gas there. I pay double and I don't complain. If I have to drive, I have to fill up. It's not like I can fuel the car with orange juice. Most of the price is taxes, though. I think it is fair to tax polluting.
It sounds like you guys are lagging Arizona's $4 plus dollar per gallon in 2008. If you drove through Arizona in 2008, then you would of met the spiking price that was way above $4. How much was Oil per Barrel in 2008 compared to 2012?
I was always being told how great the mass transit was in other cities, and how much I'd like it if I didn't actually have to use a car to get around. Well, I relocated to the D.C. area for a new job, not that long ago, and so far I'm not at all convinced...
And then spend a really long time bitching about how much it sucks to use a car in the city. That's.... exactly what you were told.
But somehow it's the government's fault that parking garage are expensive? Dude, it's space. You're in a city. Surrounded by people. They want their cars/housing/businesses to occupy the same space that you do. It's not really a scarce resource out here in Iowa. Yeah, even downtown Davenport. You're not fighting the government, you're fighting a fundamental law of economy. You can't blame the evil government unless they own all the parking garages. Unless you're one of those hippy socialists that think the government should provide for all your parking needs free of charge.
As for the freedom thing? Yeah. You're absolutely right. Because mass transit IS for poor(er) people. It's just the top 100 people per square mile can reasonably afford a car (and/or limo service), and in a big city, that's probably not you.
no reason to goto google, your energy return premises are exaggerated and false.
A move to more mass transit would not only greatly increase the subsidies required, but seriously accelerate the damage done to the roads.
Unless that mass transit were, say, on rails.
Your resolution may be to realize the word has more erudite beginnings than talk radio. Or, since you seem particularly dense, perhaps you can instead minimize the useless complaining. Your derision of the word also betrays your complete ignorance of language. I'd advise anyone against taking writing advice from this moron.
Not trolling or anything, honestly curious. Looking at another angle of this, does *time* spent on any given spot on the road play into it at all? With an endless sea of cars on the road, any given spot of road will be hit with that 1600kg every 5 seconds or whatever. On top of that, with gridlock and general slownless of rush hour, lots of those cars will just be sitting on that spot for minutes at a time before moving up 6 feet and repeating. If 90% of the cars were eliminated, there'd be a bus say... every 15 minutes (just pulling numbers out of my ass at the moment to illustrate the point), and at that point travelling quickly over a spot of road (it's assumed that in this scenario where virtually all of soceity uses the bus, the spots where the busses stop to pick up or drop off people will be heavily reinforced). What would cause more damage in that scenario? 12000kg every 15 minutes for 1 second, or 1600kg every few seconds, or having that 1600kg sit on the same spot for several minutes at a time before being replaced by another 1600kg several seconds after the first car passes over it?
In retrospect after typing all of that, I'm sure there's a study done somewhere that looks into exactly this, but at work now so I don't have time or accessible webpages to look into this.
So you're a libertarian, who believes government could constraint itself to judicial matters? Welcome, brother.
No. I'm libertqrian in that I believe the government should butt out of all parts of my life which do not affect others. I'm not even remotely libertarian in economic matters.
A good judicial system requires an awful lot of society. It requires a police force otherwise noone would listen. It requires funding which means it needs tax collection and enforcement. The police force has to be able to get around reliably which in practice means roads (is there a single example of a country with a workable private road system?)
It requires juries which require an educated public. Which means some sort of minimum standard of education for everyone, which again requires government involvement.
But anyhow you have police now whose job it is to enfore laws. Now, the thing is that social problems tend to lead to an awful lot of law breaking. You have the choice of either having large scale lawlessness, dumping vast quantities into arresting and locking people up or spending comparably less on social safety nets etc to reduce social problems. The latter is by for the most cost efficient and humane system, so I support that.
Oh, and I, like many people in London live in a terraced house so you can be damn sure I want a public fire service. Oh and public rubbish collection as well. The thing is that dense populations simply don't work without such things.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Good cherry-picking. Now perform the same analysis for NYC.
I'm sorry, when has New York City built a new light rail line? The latest light rail system in the US was in relatively flat and easy Phoenix, and it was $70 million per mile. I would assume building in New York would be considerably higher, given the amount of water and population density relative to Phoenix.
So for Phoenix, instead of being 17 times as expensive as highways, it was only 7 times as much. And we still ignore the fact that rail is heavily subsidized (including light rail - see the Phoenix link. I don't know of any light rail/subway system in the US that actually runs at break-even, let alone a profit - which roads do.
I'm not opposed to mass transit, but to try to put forth it's a lower cost solution in the US than highways simply isn't supported by the facts.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
A move to more mass transit would not only greatly increase the subsidies required, but seriously accelerate the damage done to the roads.
Unless that mass transit were, say, on rails.
Please see the original BTS paper - rail transit is heavily subsidized, whereas cars are a net revenue generator. It would definitely do lower damage because there aren't any roads needed - but there are significant costs with deployment and on-going subsidies required. Any realistic approach needs to acknowledge these basic facts.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Wrong, the interstates did not exist.
I've been on the old interstate highways (note not interstates) like Route 66, since I lived in New Mexico for a while. Nothing like the interstates at all.
And for wanting to get around efficiently, the interstates are much better.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Alright, pretend the subway in NYC didn't exist and tell me how much it would cost to add the necessary roads and highways to make up for the loss. Keep in mind, those skyscrapers cost a fortune to move.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
The links I've provided say it tends to be more expensive to build rail and subways than for roads. Do you have data otherwise?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I agree with him! I see that the Police are useless and dont want to pay for them anymore. I can easily take the law into my own hands to protect myself and my property.
And for fire departments, I firmly support that the property owner PAY FOR the fire departments response and also give a 20% tip to each fireman there on the total bill.
Yeah. I am for that. Chicago's toll roads pay for themselves without gubment money. Plus have money left over for chicago politician bribery!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
No, you're absolutely right. NYC would be much cheaper to do with roads and highways. You win.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
That has to be one of the most illogical if not mindless arguments I've seen on Slashdot. "Interstate highways are not interstate highways."
If they're not interstate highways, then where, pray tell, do they go "inter?"
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Let's not forget that the people who build the roads for the government need clothes .. and food .. and entertainment. Where's my government brothel?
Tell me someone who doesn't benefit from our highway system. Almost all our food,freight, and fuel is shipped by trucks, what little that goes by rail or air was driven to the station or airport in a truck. Everyone just pays their fair share, one way or another. Those first responders find it real handy when they can just drive up to your house and save your a**.
So when Henry Ford built his model T the government went a bopped ever horse in the head so people had to buy cars? And all those wagon trails were blocked off so the government could cut new roads through the forest? And of course Congressional Oil built all those filling stations. Did those same congressmen bust the sod on those farms where much of our food is grown?
Of course that is a feature, not a bug.
The interstages (Like I5) are simply not the same as interstate highways. Noone is denying that there were roads going between states before the interstate system.
But to try to pretend that the federal government isn't responsible for the interstate system by playing a silly word game is just foolish. It's like you're sticking your fingers in your ears and singing very laodly because some basic fact contradicts your worldview. The fact won't go away simply because you are upset and distressed by its mere existence. Not only that, but a similar system exists in many western countries, where the rather ad-hoc road system was augmented with a centrally planned and implemented system of autobahns/motorways/whatever they call them in French.
Try driving around the US on the interstates. Then try the same journey on the interstate highways. The latter will be more pleasant but take very much longer. It also won't be capable of supporting nearly the same level of traffic.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I never said that. What I said was that the ever-increasing Federal Bureaucracy is not necessary for a functioning interstate highway system. The old highways were built and operated without the need for all the three-letter agencies that are now involved (or have involved themselves).
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
It is also a cultural and mental shift that you are probably having trouble adjusting to. (Or the mass trans there could suck, I've never been there).
But here in Portland OR, city dwellers do a few things to get around. 1) Pick places near transit lines to shop, eat, drink, etc.. and there are lots of options as more and more places have been built around transit lines over time. 2). Take a bike on the mass trans if further travel is required 3) don't feel walking 20 blocks is a big deal, 4) rent a car2go for any out of the way city trips. https://www.car2go.com/en/portland/
I visited New York and the mass trans there was also very good. I was able to explore every spot on Manhattan on foot using the subways, and this was from staying at a friends house across the water from the island.
The people that do it all the time also have all sorts of phone apps and other helpful things that makes getting around using mass trans way more convenient. Like apps telling you in real time where the subway or train is, how long until it arrives, highlighting its route, allowing you to search for where you want to go and the app laying out exactly what bus to take, which line to transfer on, etc..
The car2go concept is fairly new (at least here in Portland), but it's great. People leave the cars all over town. So you pull out your phone, look at the map for the nearest vacant car, walk over, swipe your car2go card, drive to wherever, leave the car either telling it you are done, or you want it reserved, account is automatically charged. The city allows for free parking because they like the concept, etc..
you mean, the rotten credits of all those banks that don't exist anymore in your country? bite my ass.
Well, at least reducing the number of cars on the road would mean having to build less new highways and less expansion of current highways. That would offset some of the costs. Though my guess is that large trucks would still be the primary cause of wear and tear on the roads, even if bus traffic was significantly higher than it is now.
Enjoy your tin foil hat.
Oh, yeah, much better to have unelected bureaucrats determine what the price of gas should be, based upon how they feel when they get in the office that morning.
Is that how it works? I'm sure glad I came on slashdot and learned how things really are.