Americans start buying Scooters, Saudis get nervous

[Harlowe]

The scooter thing is more of a commentary on what it's like here. I don't know how it is in your neck of the woods, but I have several co-workers now busing it, a couple carpooling and now FOUR co-workers (in the past week) that have switched to riding scooters to work. The IS Director only lives 5 miles away so he rides his bike or all electric scooter (I think it goes 20mph). Now all together that is around 35% of the company finding alternatives to driving to to work.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/19/news/in ... 2008061913

[Ddrak]

The US could go a long way just figuring out that you don't need something with a 5 ton truck chassis to drive around in unless there's a chance that you actually want to haul something weighing 5 tons.

Having said that, I take the train to work here (gas is about $1.50/liter which works out to USD 5.25/gal) but mainly because it's a hell of a lot more convenient than driving. I live and work 5 mins from train stations on the same line.

People here are definitely becoming a lot more conscious of gas usage, but they haven't gone to scooters in any sort of serious method. The biggest thing we have is a lot of people riding bikes to work, but there's a lot of bike tracks around the city here so that may not apply in the US.

Personally I'd rather drive than take a bus, but would take a train over driving. Busses are just annoying.

Dd

[Arathena]

I would happily take the bus... if it was an option.

I ran the numbers: At current monthly fare, I would break even on a bus ride to work at ~14.00 per gallon of gas. I would have to be willing to leave for work at 6 AM, and arrive at home at ~10:30 PM. No, just.. no.

On other notes, it will be interesting to see what the Saudis can do in the face of the other major gasoline powers - Iran and Venezuela heavily subsidize their economy from the sale of oil, so they are relatively insulated so long as it continues to sell, and their dictators have axes to grind with the world in general and the US in particular.

[Ddrak]

Yep - those fares are just stupid (and mirrors my memory of the bus services in Pittsburgh).

I've actually timed the train ride for me - it's faster than driving even with no traffic around, except for the 5 minute walk which probably does me good anyway. Fare is $20/week. Hard to pass that up.

Dd

[Arkaron]

So much of it depends on where you are. In Portland, tons of people use TriMet to get to work and school because even with the fare increase due in September, its always been cheaper than driving and worked even for late shift people like me.

Now that I'm in small town Oregon again, friends are all astounded that I walk to work. Google tells me it's less than two miles...wtf is wrong with people? Plus I feel better and sleep easier in the morning if I get that walk in.

[Tarfang_Trubasher]

I live in an extremely rural, agricultural region (southern Indiana).

The nearest Wal-Mart is 25 miles away. I have no Chinese or pizza delivery to my house.

Having lived in multiple states over my lifetime, this is the case pretty much everywhere in the Midwest. Even the bigger cities barely have mass transit. Those that do, they use bus services, which fares have gone up on due to gasoline/diesel being so damn high.

With the poor economy, waning dollar, and high costs of living these days...just going out and buying a hybrid, scooter, etc. is just impossible. Moving out of the sticks and into a city is also ridiculous.

I'm happy folks are finding a way in other parts of the nation, though. I just wonder what "the rest of us" can/will do. The farmers are already freaking out about the high gas prices in terms of their harvesters.

-TF

[Partha]

You live in 9th district? I've got a friend running against Mike Pence in the 6th.

[Klast Brell]

I would take the bus/ride a bike if I could. I work about 30 miles from home and the nearest bus stop to my office is about 5 miles away.

[Torakus]

The sad part of this whole oil price fiasco is that we could put a serious dent in the price by simply investing in the repairs of the pipeline out to the Al Basrah oil terminal. The pipe is wafer thin, so it cannot be pressurized enough to let the two oil platforms pump anywhere near to capacity. Replacing the pipeline would serve the dual purposes of getting more crude out into the market and provide a surge of money back into the Iraqi economy. The exports from ABOT and KAAOT represent something like 90% of Iraq's GDP right now and are operating at a fraction of their capacity. KAAOT sits idle a lot. When I was there last month, I think only one tanker was being filled there and that took several days. Right now only about 1.5 million barrels are being loaded each day, most of it at ABOT. That number would be 10 times that with a proper pipeline and all four berths operational at both terminals. We are talking about a relatively low tech pipeline of roughly 30km that needs replacing and can be done while the old pipeline continues in operation. I just cannot figure out why we are not doing it now. We have had 5 years now to get it done. We spend millions of dollars each day protecting these two platforms.

Anyone out there care to hazard a guess as to why we (the coalition) are dragging our feet concerning the refurbishment of these terminals? I can't figure it out.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

No, the sad part about this whole oil price fiasco is that speculators have so much control over the market.

[Tarfang_Trubasher]

Anyone out there care to hazard a guess as to why we (the coalition) are dragging our feet concerning the refurbishment of these terminals?

I'm honestly just hazarding a few guesses here...

Continued investment of foreign soil construction?
Seems to me if we were going to "lay pipe" anywhere, we'd want to do it on our own soil. Though, special interests love to block that stuff.

Lack of interest in continuing the supply of oil.
Obama has said he thinks it's a good idea that oil prices have gone up. This will force us to look into alternative fuel sources and conserve our oil.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQUKPKNMNGA (as a quick aside, can anyone afford to buy a new car? -- how about the gov't taking over the retirement of auto companies )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gehaf7_TBAs (title of this is dumb, but the content is good)

-TF

[Partha]

Anyone out there care to hazard a guess as to why we (the coalition) are dragging our feet concerning the refurbishment of these terminals? I can't figure it out.

I'll guess it's related to this. Possibly.

[Ddrak]

Anyone out there care to hazard a guess as to why we (the coalition) are dragging our feet concerning the refurbishment of these terminals? I can't figure it out.

Politics.

The original architects of the Iraqi invasion assumed that oil revenues would be used to pay the bill for it. This fell apart rapidly as the "war for oil" theory became rather unpopular and the replacement "liberation and shining light of democracy" theory took hold. Given that we were supposed to be "liberating" them, the distribution of natural resources would then fall on the new government, who would hopefully start paying for reconstruction. Unfortunately, the new government is pretty much stuck on anything to do with money so the pipeline is effectively stalled until they can actually sit down and agree on something useful.

Similarly, the US isn't about the fork out money for foreign oil infrastructure without it either looking like they are trying to lay claim to the oil or risk the control of the shiny new pipe falling into someone else's hands. Spending non-war money in Iraq isn't going to help win in '08.

Dd

[Embar Angylwrath]

I would take the bus/ride a bike if I could. I work about 30 miles from home and the nearest bus stop to my office is about 5 miles away.

What about riding your bike to the bus stop (would take you all of 10-15 minutes) then taking the bus the rest of the way? Most buses have bike racks now.

[Klast Brell]

I would take the bus/ride a bike if I could. I work about 30 miles from home and the nearest bus stop to my office is about 5 miles away.

What about riding your bike to the bus stop (would take you all of 10-15 minutes) then taking the bus the rest of the way? Most buses have bike racks now.

Because I can't ride 20 to 30 miles an hour that long. (do the math) FYI the average speed of the Tour de France was about 25 MPH in 2005 http://www.bikeraceinfo.com/tdf/tdfstats.html
A more reasonable speed for me might be 10 MPH. But at that rate is would be 30 minutes from the bus stop to the office. throw on another hour at least for the bus ride and you have me spending 3 hours a day commuting. I don't want to do that any more than you do.

[Ddrak]

FYI the average speed of the Tour de France was about 25 MPH in 2005 http://www.bikeraceinfo.com/tdf/tdfstats.html

Well, if the terrain between your house and the bus stop is akin to the French Alps, then fair enough!

Seriously though - when public transport takes more than about half as much time again as driving, it becomes worthless. The only reason I use it is it's actually convenient.

Dd

[Arathena]

Speaking of such.. They decided that the terrain along my daily commute would make for a good professional bicycle race: http://www.tourofpa.com/stage5.html

[Ddrak]

You're commuting dahntahn these days?

Dd

[Arathena]

You're commuting dahntahn these days?

Dd

Nah. Dahntahn Picksburg scares me. I go the other direction, to the point they have marked the 'feed zone'.

[Ddrak]

lol - they're making them ride on US30? Poor, poor cyclists!

Dd