US Gasoline Prices Spur Telework 512
coondoggie writes "The price of gasoline may finally be changing the way many people commute and communicate. Anecdotal evidence says teleworkers are growing rapidly as a direct result of the cost of driving. The article links a survey indicating that in Q1 2007 the 19 largest US cable and telephone providers (representing about 94% of the market) acquired over 2.9 million net additional high-speed Internet subscribers, to a total of about 56.2 million. That can be attributed in part to more employees taking advantage of telework programs, experts say. Just this week the House Judiciary Committee's antitrust task force opened the first of a series of hearings on the oil industry. Its chairman noted that gasoline prices have soared well above $3 a gallon and asked, 'How did we get into this mess?'"
And the rest of the world asks... (Score:4, Interesting)
Why is tax on gasoline in the USA so ridiculously low?
Either that or our (UK here, but I'm sure it applies elsewhere in Europe) tax is ridiculously high. Hmmmmm.
There is no good fix for the sprawl. (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.personalrapidtransit.com/ [personalrapidtransit.com]
I hope soestion (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't even drive.. I have a 50 mile train journey each day, which takes 2 hours either way (if I'm lucky). I could obviously drive that distance much faster if it wasn't for the ludicrous congestion at either end of the trip. I did the math and even with my teensy little 796cc engine it still costs me less on the train (even if they did raise the fare by a full 13% this year), what with parking. And on the train I can read, or even work sometimes.
But even so, I'd prefer to be able to get up an hour later in the morning, I'd even work an extra hour! A nice comfy purpose-built office space at home would be infinitely superior to the ridiculous battery-hen office where everyone gabbles and cackles and holds meetings around my desk. I can't be expected to perform duties that are based on the conjunction of creativity and focus in that environment. Even cubes would be preferable to a totally open-plan office... thank heavens for my Etymotic earplug-phones or I'd never get anything done at all.
So anyway, my point is, that the public transport in this country sucks. The typical response of the rail company to an increase in passenger numbers is to raise prices. If the price of fuel drives people off the roads (and our fuel taxes here make our gasoline roughly double the price it is in 'merca), then the trains simultaneously get more crowded, late, and expensive. The last remaining palatable option is teleworking - may everyone embrace it.
Not only that, it's the most environmentally friendly option.
Lifestyle changes (Score:1, Interesting)
Chicken and the egg (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I've been riding my bike (Score:3, Interesting)
The SUV carries a great deal more mass, which makes collisions with it more energetic. Now, the SUV can expend some of that mass as extra "armor", which makes them safer for their occupants.
If everyone drove the modern day equivalent of the bubble car [wikipedia.org], with modern materials they'd be very safe - and the pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, etc, would be much safer too. Oh, and they'd save craploads of gas. Of course, this is impractical for everyone - but I'm sure that most SUV drivers could stand to lose the majority of their cargo space and most of their passenger seats. Even if you had an SUV for utility purposes, you could probably buy a small commuter vehicle for the money you'd save on gas not driving it every day....
How much do you all really spend on gas? (Score:4, Interesting)
In the past 12 months, gas has constituted 0.81% of our family spending. For the 12 months before that, it was 0.66%. A good-sized bump in relative terms, I suppose, but one that can be absorbed without pain in relative terms because the number was so small to begin with.
My wife's office is only about five miles away from our house, but on the other hand, she does have to do a fair amount of driving for work-related reasons during the day, so I imagine her work-related driving isn't terribly outside the norm. I do work at home, though for non-gas-related reasons, but even if you double our gas spending to get to the more typical two-commute family, we'd still be at less than 2 percent of our family budget -- certainly not something that would put us in the poorhouse. And while we're not hurting for cash, we're certainly not wealthy -- between the two of us we make less than $100K a year, less than a lot of IT folks make with one salary.
My question is, are we some kind of freaks when it comes to gas use compared to most Americans? We live in a city neighborhood where we can walk to places for some basic errands and our grocery store is two-minute drive away; on the other hand, the city we live has a pretty lousy public transit system, so if we're doing things outside our neighborhood, we invariably drive. We don't drive a big SUV, but we don't drive a hybrid either: and our sedan is 13 years old, so I imagine it's not particularly fuel efficient when compared to new cars of the same size. Yet I feel like gas prices would have to triple before we'd be really forced to reorder our priorities to feed our car. Are we really so far outside the American norm when it comes to gas use? Or are gas prices just one of those things that you see two or three times a month and so you really notice when they go up, but it doesn't realy have as much of an impact on your life as you think?
Re:Congress! (Score:3, Interesting)
So here we are with a very predictable rise in gasoline. Do people take responsiblity for thier choices? No they complain that the government is not giving handouts. Our troops required a billion dollars a week for supplies, do we say what can we do to cut back and help, or do we just slap a sticker on out SUV and live life as normal?
By the late 80's it was well known that oil dependence was a security risk. It was also known that even though new wells might be found, they would neither be as cheap to exploit nor as secure. Forward thinking people knew that oil was a limited resource and if we did not want to pay excalating prices for that resource, prices that would be predicted by the standard capitalistic supply and demand curve, we would have to move to another supply of energy. The myth that we have not known for 20 years that oil was a non renewable and limited resource is up there with the myth that everyone is Chis Columbus' day thought the world was flat. To be clear we did not know when the oil would peak, 2000, 2010, 2020, but we knew it was coming, and research lead and design to manufacture time required that action was needed.
But the issue we have now is only partially caused by the 'high' price, and to get back on topic, the issues seems to be that despite the 'high' prices few people are cutting back on fuel use through, for example, telecommuting. Surprisingly, though the price peaked a year or so ago, The price/demand curve has only recently peaked, and there is no evidence that price is going to reduce demand as predicted by the standard capitalist models. Therefore, nothing that the government does to increase supply or decrease demand is unlikely to have a long term negative force on the price rise. It is clear by the price/demand curve that the consumer just does not seem to care about the price. Only about driving as much as they wish.
In fact, if we want a quick fix, the best way is to use a modified Nixon era type of price control. Let consumers purchase 10 gallons of gas each week at $2, and anything over at market rate. This will allow us to have cheap gas, and allow consumers to buy as much fuel as they wish.
Re:Chicken and the egg (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, we paid more back then for gas, power and water. But the quality was better. We had spring water in our tap, gas to every remotely sensible place and triple redundant power supply (so blackouts were kinda unknown for a long time here, at least since the 50s).
Personally, I prefer a reliable service to what it is currently turned into. 'cause you don't think we pay less tax now that they're privatizing everything they can, do you?
Re:Gas Price in Europe is $10 Per Gallon (Score:5, Interesting)
Buses don't go to where I work (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think so. Here (Minneapolis, MN) many people do use the bus to commute, and I'd think a lot more would if only the buses would go to their workplaces at the times they work. You see, the transit system here assumes that everyone works from 9 a.m to 5 p.m. in downtown. Work in another suburb? You're outta luck. Don't hold to the traditional 9-5 schedule? Again, no buses for you.
I'm a student living at home. I work in the mornings and have classes in the evenings. My schedule is the exact opposite of the bus schedule - e.g. I need to go downtown when the buses are moving people out to the suburbs. Therefore, I drive. I wish I didn't have to (parking is expensive and difficult to find), but I don't have any other option.
I think class snobbery is overrated when looking at the reasons that people don't ride the bus. Increasingly businesses no longer congregate in a centralized downtown. Increasingly, people want to work on schedules that fit their needs. I think mass transit should change to address that.
Re:Gas Price in Europe is $10 Per Gallon (Score:3, Interesting)
I live around Scranton PA - it's known as the electric city because it had the first successful electric trolley system in the U.S.. You could go pretty much anywhere using public transportation. Stops were frequent and the grid reached just about everywhere. Today the trolley system is no more. It was replaced by buses for a time, which worked pretty well, but is now reduced to about 8 bus routes that are not even a skeleton of what they once were. More often than not it takes you an hour to walk to the point where the bus will pick you up, and they show up once an hour.
I'm not saying that urban sprawl hasn't made it much of a catastrophe, but this area tends to show that even if you had the infrastructure in place in the first place, it's not a given that people will use it when given the option to drive cars.
Re:Congress got us into this mess... (Score:1, Interesting)
The only thing you're showing is that the money is disappearing into the pockets of the executives before it reaches the general shareholder pool. Who do you think funds the million dollar prizes for golf tours and tennis tournaments?
Re:How? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's nice to see when someone really gets it. Gasoline, around the globe, isn't a supply and demand-priced commodity. Demand will always be there and as the worldwide population increases, it will only continue to rise. I give it about 20 years before we see a paradigm shift to alternative fuels like hydrogen really take hold. Even then, US corporations will prevent adoption until the last drop of oil is extracted from a previously protected wildlife reserve. NOW is the time that major infrastructure changes should be made, but instead of spending record profits on upgrading infrastructure, it's just going straight into the bank.
Don't be fooled by what CNN, Fox News, Wall Street Journal or anyone else tells you about the cause of oil prices. There are a hundred excuses at any given time and they are all lies. During Katrina, when we saw a huge spike, it was because Gulf refineries were damaged. Another week and it's trouble in Venezuela or Nigeria. Another week and it's failures in Iraq. None of it has any direct implications for Exxon and friends, because if it did, then they wouldn't be making huge profits...profits would be flat. The opposite is actually true and the current US administration is complacent on letting big oil do their thing.
However there has to be a limit. The more people spend on fuel, the less disposable income they have for other goods and services or even mortgages. Gas prices simply cannot continue to skyrocket while the economy limps along with GDP increases of 1.5% or less annually. Eventually it will become so expensive that people will trade in their Hummers for a Prius or start taking advantage of public transport (where available).
I really hate to even think of the US economy and fuel prices because the system is so corrupt there's not much you can do to influence change at this point. Just pray that we get a better administration in 2008.
Re:How? (Score:2, Interesting)
Also in the 1990s gasoline was relatively cheap and the profit margins very slim and so it was not worth building new refineries: you couldn't get the finance for it. After 2000 the capacity at existing refineries has been expanded on the existing sites which is cheaper than entirely new sites. So even if there had been no environmental restrictions on new refineries the financial realities in the 1990s would probably have meant there would still be no new refineries.
Size does matter! (Score:4, Interesting)
I found the public transportation system of Europe to be wonderful.
But the US is just bigger and that means its more difficult to create and maintain a public transportation system.
I live in Atlanta GA close to I-285 which is 60 miles full circle.
As slow as traffic can be, I'd prefer public transportation, if it only existed close enough to where I work, but it doesn't.
Perhaps the real problem is that of figuring out a better public transportation system. One that can handle the size problem yet help to keep traffic congestion to a minimum whele itself having low fuel cost.
Oh I know.....Teleportation........ hmmmm.... of work, not people (until that gets figured out....)
Make all public roads toll roads (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you've hit the nail on the head here. The road system in America is significantly subsidized, yet the rail system and public transportation systems are expected to make a profit! What. The. Fuck?!
Which is why I personally believe all public roads should be toll roads. Repeal the tax on gasoline entirly, and all other taxes that go into keeping up the roads. Use the tolls that are generated to fix the roads. Hell, Roads could even be entirely private, and *gasp* could be made to be profitable! (I know, asserting that profit making is good is blasphemy in slashdot's eyes).
If Americans had to pay for the use of the roads, explicitly, they may turn to public transportation. At least pay per use would bring the costs out in the open and allow the two to compete on the open market. (Oh wait, another slashdot faux pas, the market is evil because it allows corporations to make profit! on noes!)
Re:How? (Score:3, Interesting)
My idea to fix everything, 4/5 vote to pass any new law, 1/3 vote to throw out any old law (has to be the entire voted law, not individual lines).
Because realistically the federal government should only be involved in those things that nearly everyone agrees it should be involved in, otherwise leave it up to local
Re:Gas Price in Europe is $10 Per Gallon (Score:3, Interesting)
Amen. I considered the bus schedules (there are trains but none useful to my needs) and I came up with the result that with two bicycles, one at each end, I could actually manage to be at home for a total eight hours a day if I had to rely on public transportation. If there were a bus that ran between my city and the one I work in, and buses that came within half a mile of either from the central locations, I still would spend four hours a day in transit. I would not be willing to give up that time with my family and so we would either have to move to a FAR worse school district or I would have to find a job that would likely pay half as much, which would probably necessitate a much smaller house in a less safe and friendly neighborhood. I hate having to use a car, but it beats the heck out of my other options. If everybody had to give up driving then everything would change, and I could either work at a branch office or from home (dare to dream) but the billions it would cost for my geographical area won't be spent without impoverishing so many people it would probably wreck the state's economy.
There are ways to improve but the sad fact is that cars make our economy possible and that means that fuel cost is a real issue that needs to be addressed. If it costs five dollars for a candy bar and we could have better candy by raising the price to $20 then I really don't want the change regardless of how much better it might be, the huge change in cost is enough that I'd rather not have it at all. It is the same with public transport costs for me, I wish it was better but the cost makes it so prohibitive that I would have to give up income, safety, and many hours daily with my family to make a fair contribution to it. I'd rather skip it and focus on changing the gas prices instead. At current prices I pay around around $2,000 annually in fuel costs, and I could probably cut that by a third if I gave up things like family sports and visiting relatives. If prices go up much more, I'll have to give those things up anyway and that sucks.
Re:We were warned. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How? (Score:3, Interesting)
A tax of 38-60 cents per gallon is clearly tied to the amount consumed. (A gallon is 3.78 litres.)
Worse, a lot of the cost of using petrol isn't even being paid at the moment, it's being deferred.
This assertion is unsupported and seems false. I assert the contrary.
If petrol cost the same in the USA as it does in much of the rest of the world...
...that would be bad for the USA. We have our own problems. We don't need to add more problems and make everyone poorer just to have something in common with other places.
Re:Gas Price in Europe is $10 Per Gallon (Score:2, Interesting)
I can't complain about cleanliness, quality or reliability of the London public system. My problems are price and frequency. I'm used to having a train every 3 minutes, waiting for 10 is agony.
Re:Size does matter! (Score:2, Interesting)
Simple answer: To get nice huge houses (Score:2, Interesting)
Americans have greater expectations on personal space than Europeans. The average size of an American residence has nearly doubled [census.gov] in the last 30 years (warning PDF link). When I visit people I know in Europe, at first I was shocked at how small peoples' residences were, and I think about how I would have felt deprived if I had to share a bedroom with my sibling when I was young. Not to mention that you have not achieved the American dream if you don't have a big lawn and a ride on lawnmower.
Americans could live 10 miles from their workplaces... if they wanted to settle for "tiny" residences and forgo the huge lawns. But they look at the kind of house that they could buy if they live 50 miles away for much cheaper and they decide that spending two hours a day in traffic is worth it. Personally, I'm not in that category, but thats just me.
Re:We were warned. (Score:3, Interesting)
Distance to drive USA vs Europe (Score:3, Interesting)
The average commute in the USA is around 20 miles. That's 2.5x what most europeans see that do drive and not use public transportation. So, europe I'm showing at around US$6.72 a gallon. The average in the US is US$3.28.
So, comparing apples to apples of say the same vehicle in both countries for the average commute, it is more expensive to commute here in the united states. $3.28 x 2.5 = $8.20.
Now, the average vehicle over here isn't known for gas mileage so actual out-of-pocket costs vary, but it does show that the common myth that europe is more expensive isn't always true.
Some food for thought there.