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Originally Posted by wwjdrv
I also heard the price per gallon that would have an impact on our society's fuel consumption was $2.00, then I heard $2.35, and now they are saying $3.00. It was interesting, they expected a huge jump in mass transit riders, but I know in the bay area, they saw an increase of .5-1% depending on what form of transportation.
Im not sure that we will ever really get it.
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If people see fuel prices as a hardship, people get it.
However other more powerful economic forces, such as the house payment, existing car payments, other taxes, insurances, necessary utility bills, etc. prevent people from going out there and changing their transportation method.
Mass transit just isn't particularly feasible in most places in the U.S. For the most part, the only successful mass transit systems are those that are underground or that have been built aside from surface roads (the subway in NYC, the El in Chicago and a few other projects), but most still rely on busses and surface roads, take too long to get people to where they want to go and don't charge enough to pay their own bills. Where I live we have a bus system which is hemorrhaging money. Why? Because there aren't enough riders, the bus routes and schedule are inefficient and frankly the city is too small and the distances between businesses and residential are too large for it to really work. When I drive home at night, going West, which is just about where everybody lives, the westbound buses have very few riders in them, 2 or 3 at most. If you see 5 or 6 people on a bus it was a good day for that bus. The same can be said for mornings where people are supposedly going to work. Eastbound busses, have no more than 4 or 5 people on them.
If I were to try to use the bus, it would take me at least 45 minutes to get to work. It takes me 8 minutes or less to get to work right now. And I can listen to my own music, have the a/c on just how I like and I am entertained by the energy screen on the car.