The Oil Drum | DrumBeat: May 16, 2006

252 comments on DrumBeat: May 16, 2006

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CarCulture on May 16, 2006 - 11:30am

These kinds of posts ignore the fact that in many parts of the country, long commutes are a result of people starting out in life, who can't afford to live near work and can't find a job that pays the bills near where they live.

I have been railroaded into a long-term, 100 mile a day commute. I originally agreed to do it for a limited time, but now face the fact that I stay at my current location, or lose my job completely.

Finding a new job in another part of the country and relocating is easier said than done.

It's sad that the incredibly intelligent people on this board still choose to blame the people for their energy-wasting commuting habits, when the fact of the matter is, even in densely populated parts of the nation, there is no meaningful public transportation. I would gladly choose public transportation if:

It was available.
It didn't take 3-4 times longer to get where I am going where it is available.

Sometimes it's not about dumb and smart, its about $$ and time. We need realistic alternatives and criticism doesn't get it done.

We need an organized effort to improve the public transportation systems in the US.

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Glenn on May 16, 2006 - 11:38am

That's because many people are actively against mass transit spending, preferring their personal cars and low taxes. I know it's a tough sell in many areas even with gas prices over $3 a gallon. Take this example from a friend in Phoenix a couple of years ago.

It takes a significant investment from the public that many are going to fight, but without real alternatives to the personal automobile, the inelastic demand for gasoline will continue until it reaches a break point and real demand destruction occurs through bankruptcy, repossession of cars/houses, unemployment, etc.

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Torion on May 16, 2006 - 3:48pm

FYI, The light rail won. It's being built here now in PHoenix.

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Glenn on May 16, 2006 - 4:49pm

I know and that's great. I just thought it was funny to point out how people just love their freeways...

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Substrate on May 16, 2006 - 11:22pm

But hey, what better way to support the highway than to get all of the slow-poke light-rail-lovers off of it? Right? ;)

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westexas on May 16, 2006 - 12:13pm

"I have been railroaded into a long-term, 100 mile a day commute. I originally agreed to do it for a limited time, but now face the fact that I stay at my current location, or lose my job completely."

My guess is that a fairly old sedan probably costs you about 25¢ per mile, while a new large late model SUV probably costs about $1.00 per mile (total driving costs). So, I would put your monthly commuting costs in a range of about $500 to $2,000 per month.

Question: what if you reduced your current living space square footage by 50% and applied an additional $500 to $2,000 toward your rent/house payment. Could you then afford something within a short distance of your job? You should also consider the time involved in your commute--I assume about two to three hours per day. You could spend this time working--and making money--instead of spending time and money commuting.

When faced with seems like an insurmountable problem, it's useful to assume that you have solved the problem and then work backwards to "figure out" how you you solved the problem. What if you were paying $8 per gallon for gasoline. What changes would you make in your lifestyle?

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CarCulture on May 16, 2006 - 3:15pm

In my case, and I feel I am not exceptional, the only option is to find another region of the country to live in (I am currently in NJ).

To answer your questions, my typical commute is 2.5 hrs a day if I speed. I drive a 2 liter 4-cylinder manual. My commuting cost is about $325 a month at average current mpg figures and 3$/gallon.

I already pay low rent: the other tenants are also young professionals, blue-collar couples, and recent immigrant families. My living space is modest, and to move near the central Jersey/NY metro area would raise my rent by about 25% for an apartment that is half the size of my current one (which would be something like a basic small studio). Being that I don't drive much outside of my commute because I live near the places I use for recreation (Mt. Bike trails, fishing ponds/lakes, parks, etc.) it wouldn't be cost effective to move because what i saved by moving near work would be offset by what i spent getting back out to recreational areas on the weekends. Here I have to admit that it IS a standard of living issue, however, being rural 'born and raised' means I would have to sacrifice my ENTIRE way of life to move to an urban area. As it stands, I dont use much gas or energy or even money in my free time!

My major qualm with the attitude on the site is that it tends to advocate only one real sustainable solution, which is urban living. At the current trend of rising inflation alongside reduced real wages, my young-professional paycheck does not allow me to live in a safe urban area in NY/NJ. I live in a rural area! That's what I can afford! Also, outside of my commute, the rural way of life is far more sustainable and uses far less energy than that of the urban way of life. My entertainment is outside, in the woods and around the lakes.

Getting back to the real issue:

There are plenty of major businesses within 20 miles, however, NJ is densely populated even where I live and the competition is fierce. Most jobs that I am offered are in NYC or in the area I currently work because thats where the majority of businesses are. There are no express lines to the city, and the train to NYC is 2.5 hours, one way. In what I consider to be the ultimate insult, there are no trains/buses running south/north, which would greatly ease my problems.

Only east/west.

The competition, and the ever-accelerating race to the bottom dictates that I must stay extremely mobile just to stay afloat. I could do this, and be more energy efficient, if there was better public transportation. Just one north/south line in western NJ would do the trick. Given the population density, it is not an unreasonable solution for hundreds of thousands of people!

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Leanan on May 16, 2006 - 3:22pm

I think rural areas are going to be hit hardest by peak oil, at least at first. Maybe not NJ, but the "red states." People tend to be poorer, and drive farther (because they have to). And if there are actual shortages, it will be cities - areas of higher population density - that get supplied.

Many peak oilers are preparing for the crisis via homesteads in the country, but that's not what most rural Americans have. They are not anything close to self-sufficient.

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phineas gage on May 16, 2006 - 4:52pm

Leanan,
in some ways I agree with your predictions regarding rural areas but in other ways I have to disagree. If by "rural" you mean two counties removed from D.C. or Chicago, and you're really referring to the spread of exurbia into formerly rural areas, I completely agree. If you mean truly rural areas, I'm not sure that I do. I live in a county of only 60k people, less than half of whom live in a town or village. We still have lots of farm land (and un-farmed farmable land) to go around. we have a fantastic farmer's market. We have way more fresh water than we could ever need. There are tens of thousands of acres of forest. We have wild turkeys, deer and other game plus nut trees, wild berries, mushrooms just growing naturally throughout our county. Our rivers and lakes have lots of fish. Many people here still have their own "gentelman's farm", raise their own chickens for eggs or keep a dozen head of dairy cattle to carry on their families farming tradition. So unlike cities, those of us in rural areas at least won't have other natural resource and food scarcities to cope with as peak oil unfolds. Furthermore, as diesel fuel and pesticides/ fertilizer become more precious, crops yields will likely decline and we may see a reversal in the long decline of acreage devoted to farming in America and the number of persons employed in farming which will benefit rural areas.
The jobs we have here are farming, timber, gas/oil/coal and industrial. I don't see why those type of jobs will evaporate with peak oil. If I lived in a large city based on the banking, investing, service and insurance industries, I'd be more worried about my local economy.

Now, I'll grant that some people here do drive 100+ miles for work and they'll be hit hard. Also many rural areas have been wal-martized, by which I mean the small downtowns evaporated and there is literally no where else to shop for many essentials bc/ everything else went out of business bc/ they couldn't compete with walmart. That will definitely be a problem.

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mojo man on May 16, 2006 - 5:01pm

WOW! Tell me where you are, I'll buy some land and move there... most of the great plains (a whole lot of people live and farm here) are only inhabitable because of oil. NG pumps the water out of the wells, diesel farms the land and delivers needed goods, and you can only grow a very limited number of things. This of course doesn't take into account the waning supply of water from the aquifer... In Colorado the state just told 200 farmers to shut off their wells because of shortages to the cities, I think Leanan has a point.

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phineas gage on May 16, 2006 - 5:12pm

Mojo man,
You've got a good point, I need to amend my above comment about rural areas doing better than some believe. Not all rural areas are created equal. I live in SE Ohio along the Ohio River. I guess the difference is that unlike the plains we get 40 inches of rain a year so crops grow without irrigation and if land is left untended forest, rather than grass plains, is the natural result. I guess I should say rural areas in the midwest/ east may do better after the peak. Another rural area that will probably do well is the northwest. Oregon gets tons of rain and crops/ timber grow very well there also.

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Kalpa on May 16, 2006 - 9:54pm

As a midwestern raised person myself, I do know some good "towns" that might be good places after PO. One thing that has bothered me, is seeing what our government did after hurricane Katrina, I have to wonder if when food supplies start running short, the government will start bussing people out of the largest cities into the "survivable" locations for them to relocate, be cared for, and work the fields, perhaps as a "work program". Has anyone else ever thought of this?

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ET on May 17, 2006 - 1:18am

Correction, Western Oregon gets tons of rain (~40"/yr) but has very hot, dry summers (July-Sept). I like the climate here a lot. Eastern Oregon is high desert and beautiful, if you like living in a water-starved area.

Moved here from Asheville, NC. Similar amount of annual rain here but almost all in winter & spring months and much lower humidity (ahhhhh!).

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Substrate on May 17, 2006 - 2:05am

Asheville's climate is pretty moderate, never getting too cold in the winter nor too hot in the summer and gets a good amount of rain. The topsoil is thin as paper though. Propensity for afternoon showers basically every day in the summer. Something's always blooming so the allergies are problematic. Too many hills to make a decent longer-distance bicycle commuting area. Also currently falling victim to overdevelopment and ballooning house prices. But there are plenty of great places to go hiking and biking.

Why'd you move?

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Yankee on May 16, 2006 - 3:27pm

I sympathize with your situation, and I agree that sometimes it's easier said than done.

However, please don't spread fallacies!

Also, outside of my commute, the rural way of life is far more sustainable and uses far less energy than that of the urban way of life.

In 2004 the New Yorker published an article called "Green Manhattan: Why New York is the greenest city in the U.S." which convincingly presents arguments showing that your statement is off the mark. There may be advantages to living in rural areas, but amount of energy use is probably not one of them.

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CarCulture on May 16, 2006 - 3:43pm

I appreciate your POV, but in no way does it prove that my statement is a fallacy. The article you provide does much in the way of proclaiming the virtues of living in NYC.....but this does not, on its own, create a logical case against my claim.

NW NJ is completely water-independant. The vast majority of homes use well-water and are within walking distance of lakes and rivers.
NW NJ was originally a river/mining economy with extensive canals and raw material reserves.
NW NJ has an astounding amount of arable land. Many farms are spread out over the landscape. Before the suburban sprawl the area was food independant.
My area provides NYC with most of its water and food. The NY Orange Cty black soil region is immediately north of me, and the Delaware valley is immediately to the west. The entire western half of NJ maintains major agricultural resources.
Most people native to the area do things like hunting, fishing and hiking for recreation. These activities are not energy intensive.
Most towns in the area still have main streets and a variety of markets, are are not McMall venues.

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CarCulture on May 16, 2006 - 3:58pm

I just find it hard to believe that living on a crowded island is more energy efficient than living in the area that produces most of what the city dwellers have trucked in on a massive scale, on a daily basis.

is your commuting more efficient? of course.

is your space management more efficient? is your electric bill lower? yes and yes.

is this because you live in an economic black hole?
YES. it is artificially supported. it has a lot of gravity and sucks everything in, but ultimately, cannot sustain itself.

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The Interloafer on May 16, 2006 - 4:37pm

I think the important thing is to separate out the points about being "far more sustainable" and "using far less energy." Yes, cities are dependent on rural areas for food and water. So your statement about problematic sustainability I'd say may hold. But urban residents use less energy per capita than those of rural or suburban areas, as you alluded to with the commuting and space management points. So the sustainability and the energy use are separate matters.

The crowdedness is a virtue that makes energy efficiency possible. Yes, stuff is trucked it, but imagine if the 1.5 million people who live on Manhattan were spread out evenly over Northwest New Jersey. You'd have no space for the farms and you'd be trucking things all over every different direction, which is less efficient than going all to the same overall destination. Anyway, we should be using rail for freight, not trucks. Rail being less spread out than highways concentrates shipments into urban cores.

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CarCulture on May 16, 2006 - 6:12pm

Interloafer, thanks for the well-timed interjection. The key is to put things in perspective and try and find solutions rather than tell people their way of living is at fault and needs to fall in line with someone else's way. I'm certainly guilty of being attached to one way of life and it shows in my bias. I'm just over-reacting to what I thought was the prevalent, urban POV on the sight.
If anything, I'm glad we got to see people chime in and give their 2 cents on the whole urban/suburban/rural issue in regards to the coming energy crunch. Its good to see people with different ideas jump in the fray and try and understand things the way I think people have just done here, because all ways of life need to change, and people have to understand the give and take of how its going to have to be done.
The way I am doing it is clearly going to become impossible soon, and thanks to this site I have begun to actively try and find another way to live.

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Glenn on May 16, 2006 - 8:35pm

I love seeing threads end like this!

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Yankee on May 16, 2006 - 11:44pm

I'm not sure that the overwhelming bias on TOD is for urban areas. If anything, I'd think that more people are in favor of the Kunstler-esque small town model where the size is manageable, there's farm land ringing the "urban" center, and people can get around more or less without cars.

Along these lines, I think that towns (not suburbs, but towns with a center and mixed residential/commercial usage) probably have the best hope since they might be more or less self-sufficient. Rural areas aren't going to work, because individual houses on 5 acre plots that are 5-10 miles from the nearest amenity are going to be too isolated. Yes, it's true that one can put up solar panels or a wind turbine (as Eric Blair criticizes me below), but that's not going to be enough for existence. One will still need goods and services from other community members, which will necessitate a somewhat denser living arrangement. This is my opinion.

For the record, I don't think that mega-cities like New York could survive a total energy blow out, if that's what ends up happening, but I might point out that there have been cities all over the world way before there was an industrial revolution or a green revolution. So a place like New York--like most other places--will suffer a big decline in population, but it won't be obliterated from existence altogether.

Which leaves this as a remaining question: if and when the population of New York City suffers a major contraction, will I be one of the survivors should I choose to stay here? Unfortunately, I can't know the answer to that right now.

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Beantown Pedestrian on May 16, 2006 - 5:59pm

Keep in mind that in urban centers, everything can be used closer to maximum capacity. An air conditioned theaters serves more in a day in NYC than it does in some exurb in the South. In an urban center each liter of water in your water system is pumped, on average a shorter distance, space is tighter AND the ratior of living volume to living area is higher, so energy expended on environmental control is lower, etc. etc. Oh and I'd imagine sewerage is dramatically more efficient than in so called "rural" areas. I'm sure you don't use a septic tank or composting of your fecal matter. That's getting helped out the door, so to speak. I'm from Louisiana and the infrastructure is remarkably similar in many parts of that backwards state to large urban areas, except all the service lines bringing natural gas, electricity, water, etc are longer and serve fewer, except for the very few places that are off the main grid. I think "rural" is Alaska or Montana, not many places east of the Mississippi. Oh, and don't forget school buses, patrol cars, etc etc etc etc. And POORLY those services are provided because they are spread so thin.

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eric blair on May 16, 2006 - 11:09pm

However, please don't spread fallacies!

Then you are going to debunk? Cool!

In 2004 the New Yorker published an article called

So you have opted to use a source that is all about talking about New York to show how New York is a fine idea?

Wow. that's like asking the Saudi oil ministry what they think about Saudi oil.

5 rural acres can feed a family with what is grown on it.
40 acres can provide enough trees in rotation to heat a rural home VS exactly HOW sustainable a New York apartment dweller is?

but amount of energy use is probably not one of them.

Ever tried putting up solar panels or, better yet a wind turbine in New York city? In a rural location you can do that. The wind turbine is why I want a rural location. (im my ideal world the wind turbine would have so much excessive power I would not be able to do the 20kw grid intertie, and I'd have to shunt power to big outdoowr water tanks.....)

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BrianT on May 16, 2006 - 3:31pm

What is your plan for when your commute cost goes to $975 a month (gas at $9)?

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CarCulture on May 16, 2006 - 3:47pm

see below. when gas costs $9 a gallon, interest rates rise, spending decreases, and companies scale back, i will out of a job and on the streets.

where will you be?

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BrianT on May 16, 2006 - 3:57pm

Costa Rica. My money in the Caymans. Currently I am in Toronto. Not a bad place- very easy to get around with little use of a car.

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ryvr on May 17, 2006 - 1:32am

"On the streets" you call it?

I call it blissful liberation from the capitalists when my tribe and I will grow wonderful food and celebrate our humanity and rejoice that there is no more oil to make things as bad as they were in the first 6 years of the 21st century.

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westexas on May 16, 2006 - 4:23pm

"To answer your questions, my typical commute is 2.5 hrs a day if I speed. I drive a 2 liter 4-cylinder manual. My commuting cost is about $325 a month at average current mpg figures and 3$/gallon"

I suspect that you are underestimating the true cost of your 2,000 mile per month commute. You need to include depreciation, maintenance, insurance and fuel. An average new sedan is about 50 cents per mile. Very large SUV's are in the 75 cents to one dollar pre mile range. IMO, your true cost is probably at least 25 cents per mile, or $500/month. I assume that there may be some parking costs also.

You also need to consider the time. 2.5 hours times 20 days = 50 hours. At $20/hour, this would be $1,000.

So, using the above assumptions, I would put your true commuting cost in the range of at least $1,500 per month ($18,000 per year). The more expensive your car (and the higher that gas prices are) and the greater your income earning potential, the greater the commuting cost.

In regard to your weekend leisure pursuits, why not move close to your job and then take the mass transit that is available to leisure activity areas. Or, if you have to, drive there on weekends.

There is one other factor. By driving 2,000 miles per month, you significantly increase your chances of dying (or becoming disabled) in an auto accident.

My #1 recommendation continues to be to try to reduce the distance between work and home to as close to zero as possible.

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CarCulture on May 16, 2006 - 6:46pm

WestTexas:
I want to be clear with you and make sure you know I understand and agree with what you are saying. I am very well aware of the true cost of my commute, because although I own my car outright as I bought it very used, I have had issues with maintenance that cost a lot of money.

I also have come to the same conclusion that you are suggesting, although, with a different kind of connotation. I need to find another area to live in, one that isn't so metropolitan that the distances between the city centers and the rural areas aren't quite so large. I don't think I have been clear enough in pointing out that as time goes on, and students become more and more financially responsible for their own education finances and all the peripheral costs college entails, we are going to see a larger class of professionals who start out with the kind of debt loads usually associated with car or home ownership, but with no assets to speak of save for a degree. Therefore, these people will be forced to live where it is cheap, and work where they can make more money than they are worth (read: corporations, urban centers).

In NJ, you either put up with urban living, or you drive a lot. Just ask anyone from the area; the amount of people living in PA and commuting to NY or NJ has increased to ridiculous levels. Around here, a 100 mile or so commute isn't all that uncommon. This is not going to be possible anymore when we are forced to reckon with the true cost of gasoline.

It is the perfect example of unsustainable suburbia/ rural-urban commuting.

You mentioned that the only wise course of action is to move closer to work, and I agree, although I would never sacrifice my way of life to the degree necessary to live in the NY/NJ urban area (and most of you who live elsewhere wouldn't either if you knew what it entails!).

I think the key is to move away from the older metropolitan areas and towards the more flexible populated regions that offer a better living/working dynamic in a smaller relative area. Major urban centers such as NYC tend to negate the possibility of a balance and I am currently trying to find a smaller city that offers working opportunities and public transportation that hasn't pushed the rural periphery as far away as NYC has. The whole NYC/Philadelphia corridor is an urban/suburban sprawl that I refuse to live in/can't afford to live in. I know many people who are in the same boat as me, and I see my friends scattering to the wind in order to find a place they can afford to live in. As oil prices go up, and the economy goes down, it becomes crucial to get out of the `in-between' way of life I currently live.

From what I have heard, Portland is a good choice, offering jobs, excellent public trransportation and easy/near access to nature.

Anyone hiring?

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eric blair on May 17, 2006 - 11:29am

You also need to consider the time. 2.5 hours times 20 days = 50 hours. At $20/hour, this would be $1,000.

Right. Because reading TOD is worth your bill rate, as is making your own food for you to eat, and reading the joke e-mails and.....

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Mad Maxout on May 16, 2006 - 10:33pm

An awful lot of people are in that long range commute trap. The housing market went haywire to cause the problem. A small segment of the population makes nearly infinite money compared to workers. They merely bid up housing to orbital levels. Developers know that this top earner group are the only ones with money to sell houses to, so they build sport utility homes and crowd everyone else out. The result? Sprawl and commutes that are so long that the only appropriate vehicle is a Harrier jet if you want to find an affordable house. Otherwise, the "housing" you can afford is barely the size of a CLOSET in one of those sport utility homes!

I live in a studio apartment becuse rents for anything bigger are prohibitive - and I make $45,000/year! To find a house at my income, I could do like a coworker and drive 80 miles each way, and that's 80 miles as the crow (or a Harrier) flies. Even if gas was a dime a gallon like Caracas, a 2-hour commute is a deterrent par excellence. Any farther, and you'd need a plane to commute with. Good thing I work at an airport. But don't laugh...

Jokes aside, someone working by Microsoft apparently lived far from work and wanted a ranch. One foggy day in 1999, he got his Cessna tangled in high voltage lines. He was "driving" to work!

Once, a radio station had a contest to see who had the longest commute. The winner drove (a car) 3 hours each way! Of course, affordable housing was the motive.

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CarCulture on May 16, 2006 - 3:21pm

Also, if gas goes up to $8 per gallon, and I cannot find a more amenable region of the country to live/work in, I have a simple option.

Bankruptcy. Assuming the best, of course: assuming that I am still employed.

That's the reality for many recent college grads. If and when the US loses its gasoline price advantage, and the economy loses much of its steam, its people like me that are going to play the role of the canaries.

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Everett on May 16, 2006 - 6:34pm

Keep in mind that those student loans are bankruptcy proof. Of course, the easy credit lifestyle will be going away for everyone anyway, so it probably doesn't matter. Hyperinflation is the borrower's pal.

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fallout on May 17, 2006 - 8:24am

There is an old southern saying that seems applicable here,"You can't get blood from a turnip." When our present arrangements are falling apart at the seams, trying to collect on those defaulted students loans will be an exercise in futility. I liken it to trying to locate a particular person in New Orleans during the week following Katrina, only imagine that on a nationwide/worldwide scale, and continuing indefinitely. Good luck!

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clifman on May 16, 2006 - 1:25pm

Here's a crazy idea I've had for awhile... Mary lives in city A, and commutes to her job as an administrative aide in suburb B every day. Jane lives in suburb B, but commutes to her job as an office manager in city A daily. Joe lives on the west side, and commutes cross-town to his job as a shipping clerk on the east side. Bob lives on the east side, but commutes to his job as warehouseman on the west-side every day.

What if there was an outfit to match such folks (like the many dating services out there) who could then, upon assessment of specifics, perhaps some negotiation, and approval of the employers - switch jobs. I wonder how much of an impact such a system might be able to have on our need to commute? Just a thought.

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The Interloafer on May 16, 2006 - 1:38pm

A great idea from an energy use perspective. But from a psychological perspective, it might make people feel that they're just cogs in a wheel. This may be true, but it is nice to preserve that illusion of uniqueness that we all have.

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clifman on May 16, 2006 - 2:03pm

Well, I feel pretty much like a cog. I wonder how many others do?

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step back on May 16, 2006 - 3:50pm

What if some cogs are more equal than others?

What if the Mary cog finds out that the Joe cog was paid more for a simlar cog job than she was because of her gender or race? That could make some manager cogs uneasy. Don't want the lower cogs to know too much.

Cog swapping can lead to information swapping.
We don't want that to happen do we?
In a "free trade" society one is not allowed to trade information. That is a big managerial no no. Must keep all cogs in their place.

Be forewarned Clifman cog, even thinking is un-cog-like behavior. Please don't do it anymore. ;-)

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fallout on May 17, 2006 - 8:26am

We are not actually people, we are just "human resources", remember?
A faceless, transferable, disposable unit of labor.....

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clifman on May 17, 2006 - 8:57am

I shall cease and desist forthright!

(Thx Step Back, that evoked a good laugh - pretty rare for me these days...)

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westexas on May 16, 2006 - 1:58pm

"What if there was an outfit to match such folks (like the many dating services out there) who could then, upon assessment of specifics, perhaps some negotiation, and approval of the employers - switch jobs"

A variation on this idea is to switch houses/apartments.

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Substrate on May 17, 2006 - 12:04am

That's my take on it...swap houses. Have a system to match people who'd want to swap and set up some means to settle the monetary differences. It'd be better than the process of selling the house, then re-buying.

That was like a perfect idea that went bannannas at the end by suggesting a carreer swap.

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clifman on May 17, 2006 - 9:11am

Re: bananas - I guess my own bias/proclivities leads me in that direction. My job means nothing to me. (Its only benefit beyond the bucks being that I can spend mucho time reading TOD.) My house, on the other hand, does. Even though I have no real roots there (how many of us do, anymore?), I've modified it to be partial passive solar, we have two acres, which provides wood for aux. heat, and space for our large (2k+ sq ft) garden, backs up to state parkland, and yet is just an 8 mile commute to work. So it's highly unlikely that we'd find anything suitable to swap for. Y'all may be on to something when it comes to cookie cutter houses or apts. But for me, the job could go way before the homesite. But I appreciate all the comments. My thought got far more mileage ;-) than I ever expected. And re: the above part of this thread, my other half and I commute together in our Prius, 17 miles roundtrip, so about a buck a day for two of us. If/when we can go to a plug-in hybrid, we'd be able to do the whole thing sans gas, and even on days that include errands, we'd be 75-90% electric. Bring on the plug-ins!

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Glenn on May 16, 2006 - 2:30pm

Like a real estate agent, but without the friction costs?

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MUDLOGGER on May 16, 2006 - 3:17pm

Spot on!

We have exactly this situation in Aberdeenshire where Teachers, Teaching assistants and others commute to other towns and villages.

If anyone could start to look at this, it is likely that (IMO), the local government workers such as above could enact this sooner than the private sector.

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Mad Maxout on May 16, 2006 - 10:48pm

Switching jobs wouldn't work - but switching housing could in theory. Wait. Isn't that what a housing market supposed to do? Were it not for zoning laws and municipal corruption and increasingly creative mortgages (most of which are fiscal bombs) the market would work that way, though with friction. Worse, the gross disparity of incomes worsens matters greatly.

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Substrate on May 17, 2006 - 12:16am

A system that would allow you to look for someone to "trade" houses with would solve some pretty hefty issues such as: the annoyance of having to sell your house to have the money to buy another house, and having someplace to live while waiting for another house to come on the market. You can imagine how much easier it would make it to have a house already lined up and the move could be decided on any given day the two parties decided to actually swap. Everything could be planned in advance and there's no uncertainty in having to find someplace to live in the meantime, and no putting your house on the market and having to go through the trouble of selling it. Any price difference in the houses could be settled in some means, and in the more perfect situations the houses being swapped would be of near equal value.

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AlphaMaleProphetOfDoom on May 16, 2006 - 5:55pm

CarCulture,

On the one hand I completely sympathize with your situation. I live car free but that is going to end if I want to take some organic ag. classes at the local junior college. It would be absolutely impossible for me to run my usual errands plus get out to the jc a couple times per week on the piss-poor public transit we have here.

The only reason I can live car-free now is because I work from home, have no kids, and no outside obligations. If any of those variables were to change, I'd have to not only get a car but use it considerably unless I wanted to move.

On the other hand it sounds that between your commute and how much your paying for gas, I'm thinking you aren't much more than your own car's personal bitch.

Best,

Matt

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Glenn on May 16, 2006 - 8:44pm

You need to get a girlfriend with a car to drive you around.

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eric blair on May 16, 2006 - 11:21pm

You need to get a girlfriend

Perhaps he wants a boyfriend or a young ward?

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john milton on May 17, 2006 - 12:37am

"Young ward"?
Na, Batman never let Robin drive the Batmobile ;)

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TrueKaiser on May 17, 2006 - 2:16am

speaking of the batmobile, i wonder how good or bad it's miles per gallon rating is.

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fallout on May 17, 2006 - 8:42am

Considering that it was actually a Ghia-built 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car under a George Barris cosmetic makeover, with a 330HP 1954 Lincoln y-block V8 under the hood, I'd guess about 7 mpg.
http://www.1966batmobile.com/background.htm

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fallout on May 17, 2006 - 8:47am

Scratch that....apparently Barris replaced the original motor with a more modern 390ci V8.
http://www.1966batmobile.com/spec.htm
http://www.1966batmobile.com/engine.jpg
Call it 8 mpg.

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DelusionaL on May 17, 2006 - 9:23am

In our enlightened Portland Oregon area we have light rail and on high smog days you can ride the train for free if you "drive" to the closest safeway and get a free voucher. You wonder why we have a problem...

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