[Canuk]

Getting Off The Road - $7 gas.
link A research article by an economist who predicted the current oil spike. Sorry about the cars...

[Canuk]

Noticed that some peope have looked at the topic but no comments so I though would post some synopsis to arrouse some interest.

"... the freeways are about to get less congested. Not only will the number of vehicle registrations in the United States not grow over the next four years, but by 2012 there should be roughly 10 million fewer vehicles on the road in America than there are today."

"Our updated oil price forecast of $200 per barrel oil by 2010 points to Amercans paying as much as $7 per gallon for gasoline within the next two years."

"Gasoline consumption is ultimately about how many people drive, the distance the drive and the tpe of vehicles they drive. On all three counts American face a massive change."

"The focus is on those who can least afford to operate a car when gasoline costs $7 per gallon. No less than 80% of low income Americans (o roughly 24 million households) with less than $25,000 annual income own a car. With gasoline bills surging to record highs, they will be the first to come off the road"

[IgnoranceIsBliss]

Fewer cars on the road sounds good to me, but I think most of us would agree that $7.00 gas will result in a major recession/ depression scenerio.
Car makers will go belly up when sales crash. Demand for public transportation will increase, but we can't afford to build any of it and the time lag is way too long to help us now.

The trickle down effect will be terrible.

With $7.00 gas (of even before), I see major unemployment, food shortages, hungry people, etc. Large demand for government handouts. If 24 million low wage earners can't afford to drive to work, how will they support their families? Restaurants and stores will close. Schools will have to cut bus services (as we are already seeing in some areas) and possibly reduce instructional hours. Credit card defaults will be rampant.

I fully expect gas to reach $7.00 sometime in the next 2-4 years. However, my husband and I recently traded our 4 cylinder Honda CRV (only getting about 22 mpg anyway) for a Ford Expedition. It worked out to be an even trade. Our only reason for doing this is for the safety of our two young sons. We've almost been hit twice recently by red light runners who are doing 50+ mph, which would have almost certainly killed us all in the CRV. We are willing to pay the price for safety at this point. We only drive about 5,000 miles per year in each of our two vehicles. We fill my husband's truck up once a month and my car maybe twice a month. (which could be cut back a lot).

So it seems likely that lots of people will "come off the roads" but there is no other alternative for them to get around. In my area, you can't even ride a bike around town. The roads don't have bike lanes or any shoulder. You would have to ride on narrow, high speed roads with high tractor-trailor and dump truck traffic. Our local taxi services are reporting that their business is booming, so maybe that will be an option but not for daily commuting to work.

[Cloud9]

The under class will revert to scooters. Even the cops ride scooters in Italy.

[Canuk]

Fewer cars on the road sounds good to me, but I think most of us would agree that $7.00 gas will result in a major recession/ depression scenerio.
Car makers will go belly up when sales crash. Demand for public transportation will increase, but we can't afford to build any of it and the time lag is way too long to help us now.

The trickle down effect will be terrible.

The short term positive of avoiding infrastructure like sidewalks and transit was that it was cheaper to build and maintain - the unfortunate flip side is it locks you into a single mode of transportation.

With $7.00 gas (of even before), I see major unemployment, food shortages, hungry people, etc. Large demand for government handouts. If 24 million low wage earners can't afford to drive to work, how will they support their families? Restaurants and stores will close. Schools will have to cut bus services (as we are already seeing in some areas) and possibly reduce instructional hours. Credit card defaults will be rampant.

I fully expect gas to reach $7.00 sometime in the next 2-4 years. However, my husband and I recently traded our 4 cylinder Honda CRV (only getting about 22 mpg anyway) for a Ford Expedition. It worked out to be an even trade. Our only reason for doing this is for the safety of our two young sons. We've almost been hit twice recently by red light runners who are doing 50+ mph, which would have almost certainly killed us all in the CRV. We are willing to pay the price for safety at this point. We only drive about 5,000 miles per year in each of our two vehicles. We fill my husband's truck up once a month and my car maybe twice a month. (which could be cut back a lot).

So it seems likely that lots of people will "come off the roads" but there is no other alternative for them to get around. In my area, you can't even ride a bike around town. The roads don't have bike lanes or any shoulder. You would have to ride on narrow, high speed roads with high tractor-trailor and dump truck traffic. Our local taxi services are reporting that their business is booming, so maybe that will be an option but not for daily commuting to work.

For years a handful of architects and others have been warning that the current zoning and building styles would lead to problems now I guess they can say They told us so.

The economic hardship will be extreme especially for the lower wage earners in a suburban or rural area - on the plus side there will be a lot less dump truck and tractor-trailers on the road as well. The US especially is in trouble with a perfect storm of housing collapse, banking crisis and debt crisis all occuring at what is likely the peak of cheap oil - bad planning indeed.

I know my wife and I were looking at a home outside the city but here in Southern Ontario that is hard to come by and with the coming oil crisis I think our more intrusive central style of government may be able to mitigate the costs better - as things get tough the inconvenience of city living will be offset by the economy of scale in transit which will hopefully keep things from falling apart.