$4.09 for regular gas. what do you think? (Phoenix, Scottsdale: credit card, employment)

[nitram]

Originally Posted by Ponderosa

A Republican! The Dems would at least GIVE them a blanket instead of making them BUY their own.

Great one, LOL, made my day...

[ArizonaBear]

Originally Posted by w1ngzer0

i know it gets to freezing temps and i don't know how sensitive to temp change old folks are, but couldn't you just buy an extra blanket? There is also clothing like fleece and other artificial cloth that doesn't breathe.

Home heating oil (which is essentially a non street legal version of Diesel due to no road use taxes) is quite popular in states like Maine------and, it gets colder than a well digger's ass there, we are talking Flagstaff class.

Normally I laugh at people who actually like that '4 season' weather; not this time-------we may see a lot of deaths due to hypothermia come Winter 2008 back there.

[Rick Lee]

Man, pretty soon it's gonna be too hot to ride my 50 mpg bike and I'll have to buy my second tank of gas for one of my cars since March.

[twiggy]

I'm saying!!! God, have a heart, they are more sensitive to cold and heat. I would gladly take care of them, take a few bucks out of our paychecks and heat their house. My goodness!!!!

[twiggy]

Originally Posted by TurcoLoco

It is affecting everyone but those idiots with lil wee wees who insist on driving huge vehicles like humvee. I have a V8 truck which I find very useful time-to-time but I ride my motorcycle as much as I can because of the gas prices and more so I enjoy riding my bike.

Also, most days I bring my own lunch or eat at the office caffeteria so I won't have to drive anywhere. If my co-workers and I feel like eating out, then 3 of us go together (taking turns) to save on gas.

Side note: Do NOT go to Costco to get gas at noon during the week days! My co-worker did, it was nuts!

Do you hang your laundry out to dry or put it in a dryer in fricken Phoenix when it's 110 degrees in your yard????? I agree that if you don't need a large car you shouldn't have one, but what if your the brady bunch. It waste more money having 2 cars to do the same job as one. You have to be smart to really save. If you are taking kids to school and you car pool with other mothers in your mini vans you save just as much as if you all drove each child to school in your mini cars. It's not just the size of the car, it's the size of the brain as well. Let's not be too trendy.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by twiggy

I'm saying!!! God, have a heart, they are more sensitive to cold and heat. I would gladly take care of them, take a few bucks out of our paychecks and heat their house. My goodness!!!!

You're welcome to donate all you want. While no one likes higher oil/gas prices, it's not my job to finance people's lifestyles because they failed to plan well. My dad is losing his job at the end of the month and doesn't care about it in the least and my mom lost hers years ago and decided to not bother working anymore. When you spend your working years living beneath your means and never counting on anything from the gubmint, you tend to be better prepared in your golden years. Call me harsh, but if I was one of those people living on credit cards, buying things I couldn't afford and not saving anything, I might expect others to take care of me later. I'm not and I don't.

[fcorrales80]

I think there are pros and cons to the increase in gas cost. For one, I feel sorry for those that rely on their car as their only means of transportation...and in Phoenix that happens to be high. But, honestly, if you're not a real estate agent, and among those occupations that require you to drive everywhere, AND don't make me pull out the demographics and share of jobs which require extensive driving :-), as those professions are quite low in number compared to other market sectors, then I think more people should look into transit. Most people argue that they have to run errands to the store after work and what not, but really, the stores and what not don't close at 6pm...I think most close at midnight in the suburbs...and in the summer, it would benefit you and the environment to run errands in the evening.

I have been told by people at work, and by friends that live in Surprise, Goodyear, Scottsdale, Anthem, etc. that the rapid bus lines are the busiest they have ever seen them. I am trying to get ahold of an acquaintance at Valley Metro to find out if ridership is in fact up. Another thing, this may just be me, but during afternoon and morning walks, I notice traffic flowing a little better through the tunnel on I-10, even for summer traffic flows. Do most of you concur, or is an enigma?

The other thing, even if we had all the gas in the world, I would hope that we produce alternative energy sources as the polluting effects from fuels is horrible and makes the sky ugly and dirty! I hope that more people "force" themselves to use the rapid bus lines as they have room to grow and are 100% better for on-time arrivals compared to bus routes on surface streets, and also consider van/car pooling. Same thing goes for the light-rail, if you live near it, work near it, or come to downtown for sports, dinner, theater, basically anything else use it!

Just a little insight on some progress made in L.A. this last decade, and L.A. is undeniable the car capital of the world. The busiest freeways and interchanges in the world are the i-10 and i-110, I believe the highest levels of flow at peak times ranged from 350,000-429,000 vehicles per freeway. As a comparison, the busy section of freeway in Phoenix is 1-10 at the broadway curve and thus, at the highest times for traffic flow, top out around 300,000 vehicles. After the expanded rail service, express bus, and limited but expanded, subway, on average 30,000-50,000 (numbers increasing as well) less vehicles on L.A.'s freeways are counted. Thats not half, thats not a quarter, but that is a big impact on the flow of traffic. Same thing will happen here, and given that most people (newcomers) to the Valley are from the Midwest, Cali, and the Northeast, I would gamble that they would settle into using transit, again.

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

I am from California and don't know anyone that uses public transit. Also haven't noticed a change in traffic since the LA rail system started. The truth is the metro train in my area runs nearly empty when it leaves the station. Not sure how they run it profitably with few riding it. Another point is with SUV's. That is a personal choice what someone wants to drive, and if you see fit to buy a Hummer H2 then good for you. I would love a F450 four door with a long bed sitting on a set of big beefy tires wrapped around some polished wheels, raised so high you need a ladder to get into the cab. In this nation we don't need the government or anyone else telling us what we can and can not drive. Maybe the price of fuel is an economic factor that keeps someones dream vehichle beyond reach. Fine, but I hope to heaven that it never becomes a freedom that is taken away from the people, if they so choose. I think that is fine for someone to spend money driving around on a bunch of batteries that can clog up our land fills at some point down the road. Now for give me if I am ignorant in the subject, but where I work we have a service come in and remove all the batteries that have been used so they can be safely disposed of. Are the batteries in hybrid cars reusable? If you don't have a hybrid, and drive a strickly battery operated car that you charge up at your home, where is the electricity coming from? Although some areas like Phoenix have the benefit of attomic powered plants many areas produce electricity the old fashioned way, using oil or natural gas to produce the electricity. For me my main daily driver is a Hyundai Accent that gets me 32 mpg on the freeway, when the freeway is moving anyway. In town I can average 28 mpg.

One tip that can save a lot at the pump is to have one shopping day a month that you buy most everything you will need for the month. Takes some time to get to that point though. You need to make sure you know what you will be eating all month long. Chances are you may need to create a menu for the month. We used to run to the store every couple days. Not anymore. Another tip is that we organized our time to make sure that we don't have to be out driving around. I like it better this way.

[fcorrales80]

Well I wouldn't call you ignorant or totally wrong either, maybe just a little to overzealous? Or...just a typcial So Cal resident. Because of L.A.'s dismal public transit, much worse than Phoenix, the typical mindset in L.A. is "you can't take my car." And, "is one car off the road really gonna make a difference?" Well, yes. Because one car will multiply exponentially, you will in fact have 10's of thousands of cars off the road. Not just yours. Also, the amount of gas one car uses in a year, the amount of pollutants generated by a car far outweigh any argument for not increasing public transit and even doing something about it yourself.

Driving is by no means a right, or even a "freedom." Are you free you buy a gas-guzzler? Sure, but if the government deemed it necessary to limit the use of such unnecessary vehicles, then my friend, they can in fact do that by raising EPA standards and setting a limit for MPG (as they have already increased this, but not by nearly enough). In essence, the gas guzzler tax that people pay for those vehicles cause less people to be able to afford them than if this tax did not exist. Remember, driving and having a license is a privelage, one that can be revoked if used incorrectly or in a manner not intended, like being drunk or driving too fast, or altering the vehicle to make it faster and cuasing it to use more fuel and be more polluting.

And do you still live in Oxnard? Thats like someone in Wickenburg claiming that mass transit hasn't done anything for Phoenix. Truth is, traffic will always be bad in L.A. Even in New York, where the majority use mass transit, the roads, freeways, beltways, etc are packed. If not for transit, imagine how much worse traffic would be. No, L.A. has much to work on, given that transit is used much more extensively in Phoenix. 10% of Angelinos use mass transit, 25% of Phoenicians utilize the transit system here. So, as more and more options become available, more and more people in L.A. and Phoenix will choose to ride the subway, rail, and whatever they develop in the cities.

With hybrid cars. The batteries and powertrains in these vehicles, especially newer models and Hondas, are designed to be recycled and reused. Dismantled, sure, but there aren't many people taking out the powertrains and huge batteries in these cars and tossing them in the dumpster or their trashbins.

The generation of electricity: Because cars, and single occupancy cars within one city, say JUST Phoenix, not any suburb, use millions of gallons of gas each year, and there is not much protection from the exhaust, then vehicles use much more fuel and burn it much more "dirty." Now, most power plants, use natural gas to generate electricy, a much, much, much cleaner fuel source and also a much less environmental pollutant than the vehicles we drive. Clean buring coal plants are also much less polluting than vehicles.

[silverbear]

Originally Posted by fcorrales80

I have been told by people at work, and by friends that live in Surprise, Goodyear, Scottsdale, Anthem, etc. that the rapid bus lines are the busiest they have ever seen them. I am trying to get ahold of an acquaintance at Valley Metro to find out if ridership is in fact up.

I can tell you that this past week it has been standing room only a few times on both the Red Line and Route 70 along 24th St. I've never seen that before on Valley Metro buses. One stat I can find is from Valley Metro's recently released scorecard. It shows a 23% gain in express bus ridership over last year. This goes along with what I've been hearing in the national media: Public transit ridership is up around the country, but unfortunately the transit agencies are being hit by high fuel costs and the economic slowdown and therefore cannot expand service to keep up with the demand.

Originally Posted by fcorrales80

Because of L.A.'s dismal public transit, much worse than Phoenix, the typical mindset in L.A. is "you can't take my car."

Nevertheless, I've got to differ with your claim that L.A.'s public transportation is much worse than Phoenix. Los Angeles has the heavy rail Red Line connecting Downtown to Hollywood and beyond, it has multiple light rail lines going to places like Pasadena and Long Beach, it has commuter rail to outlying areas, and it has some bus routes that run 24 hours a day. While L.A. may have an autocentric image, the truth is that someone without a car would have an easier time getting by there than in Phoenix.

Of course, Phoenix is improving and expanding its public transit, and it should be evident from my other posts that I'm a huge supporter of those efforts. Still, we need to be realistic in comparing Phoenix to other cities. Phoenix probably has better transit than cities like Tampa, Detroit, or Indianapolis, but it's still catching up to Los Angeles.