The gas price factor: does it/will it ever really affect driving?

This posting is more of a question mark than anything else.

It's a fact that oil prices are at all-time record-breaking high.

Will gas prices soon follow? Again?

According to Business Week, gas prices are on the upswing--yes, again.

"$93 Oil: Coming to a Gas Pump Near You"

How will this affect your driving?

We talked about this before in a post last year:

"WHY driving sucks: the rising price of gasoline"

and we also talked on the same post about some myth-busting by Mr. John Stossel of the ABC newsmagazine 20/20:

"Price-Gouging" and the myth that "The World is Running out of Oil".

Has anything changed? Will really expensive gas really change people's driving habits?

What do you think?

WHY driving sucks: the rising price of gasoline

WHY driving sucks: the rising price of gasoline

There are two interesting articles in today's nytimes.com site on the rising price of gasoline:

"Full Tanks Put Squeeze on Working Class" by By ROBIN POGREBIN and "Gas Prices and Rate Worries Rattle Consumer Confidence" by VIKAS BAJAJ and JEREMY W. PETERS.

The first article says that "The latest New York Times/CBS News poll showed that 63 percent of respondents had cut back on their driving because of the gas price increase." The second article, apparently contradicting the first one, says, "[...] economists note that for all the worries over gasoline, expressions of lower consumer confidence often do not translate into weaker overall spending. That may be particularly true when incomes are rising and jobs are plentiful, as they appear to be today."

Whichever article is closer to reality, one thing is clear: it is those of lower means who are hardest hit by the price increase in gasoline as the first articles explains.

The question is, how much of a difference in traffic is that making? And if it is making a difference, is it fair? Will the high price of gas make driving a privilege affordable only to those of higher means while those of lower means have no viable alternative?

The first article goes on to say, "Ms. Lopez could try to car-pool. But she values her autonomy. 'I don't want to depend on nobody,' she said. 'I'm not that kind of person.'" So if car-pooling is not an option and public transportation is not an option, then what's the alternative? Biting the bullet?

In his 20/20 Special last night, John Stossel was debunking the myth and singing the praises of "Price-Gouging", while at the same time he debunked the myth that "The World is Running out of Oil".

Stossel argues, with the help of three Nobel Prize price-winning econonomists, that price gouging is the only incentive to bring in badly needed supplies in a disaster situation such as hurricane Katrina and that the alternative is scarcity. Images of gas stations with signs that read "NO GAS" from the 70's flashed on as he said this. Meaning what?

Here's what he had to say about the myth that "The World is Running out of Oil":

"With the price now up to $70 a barrel, and gas at $3 a gallon, how can that not be true? Isn't that why the price is high?

But what people don't know is that there's a vast supply of oil just 500 miles north in Canada.

'The tar sands of Alberta alone contain enough hydrocarbon to fuel the entire planet for over 100 years,' according to Peter Huber, co-author of "The Bottomless Well."

What is he talking about? The Canadian tar sands are a Florida-size patch of sand and rock, mixed with oil. Lots of it.

Huber said people think we're running out of oil because we're running out of cheap oil, the kind that's found in the Middle East, which is already liquid, clean and ready to refine.

"It's very cheap to get that oil out of the ground. So, of course, that's where people go first,' Huber said.

They can pull it out of the ground for five bucks a barrel.

It costs three times as much to get oil out of Canada's tar sands, because they have to add hot water to the sand to separate the oil. But now that oil is expensive and likely to stay that way, companies find it profitable to do this. " [emphasis mine]

In other words, if you want to keep driving hydrocarbon-fueled vehicles and you don't want to see lines at the pump, expect to pay for gas as much as--if not more than-- you are paying now. There is plenty of oil, but if you want it, you'll have to pay for it at the pump because "cheap" Middle Eastern oil is getting too "expensive" politically and militarily.

Is this good news for traffic? Is it an incentive for public transportation to get its act together? Will driving become a luxury? How long before you get a howl out of Detroit and Japan? The car industry and the oil industry go hand in hand. The minute car sales drop, there will be pressure on the oil industry to find a way drop prices or find cheap oil.

The answer to this is, of course, hybrids (many of which are already on the road in L.A.) or alternative clean-fuel engine cars. But then, if Detroit and Japan were to produce a lot more such cars, you'd a get a howl from oil industry, "hey, wait a minute!"

You can't win. Like the health care system and the pharmaceutical companies, the car and oil industries are far too powerful and have a vested interest in keeping things just the way they are.

America is not Europe or Japan with their well-established and comprehensive public transportation systems. America is the car, the freedom of the open road, individuality on wheels. Try to take that away and you'll get the second American Revolution.

TIP: cheap gas in Venice/Santa Monica

Here's a tip on where to find cheap gas in Venice/Santa Monica. The United Oil gas station on the corner of Washington at Abbot Kinney in Venice had the lowest prices in that area. Sometimes, the Arco station on the corner of Pico at 4th Street in Santa Monica would beat their price, though. If you are in that area, check them out. I always refueled at either one of these two.

Anybody has any tips on where to find cheap gas in the rest of L.A.?


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The mirage of high gas prices: addiction-driven demand?

The mirage of high gas prices: addiction-driven demand?

In Angelenos for Higher Gas Prices [http://www.dynamist.com/weblog/archives/002138.html], Virginia Postrel writes,

"At $3.50/gallon Mickey Kaus is channeling an observation I made when L.A. gas crossed the $2.00 mark: 'After a week in L.A., with a car for a few trips downtown, I'm starting to feel pretty friendly toward high gas prices. Having to pay more than $2 a gallon does wonders for the traffic.'"

Really? Has anybody noticed that much of a difference in traffic because of high gas prices? I'm skeptical of high gas prices as the solution to traffic problems. You know what they say, "Anything that goes up must eventually come back down." The oil shocks of the 70's made Americans give up their "gas guzzlers" for highly fuel-efficient compact Japanese cars in the 80's and 90's but they didn't exactly give up their cars altogether for public transportation. If high gas prices are indeed making angelenos drive less, it is an ephemreral illussion. As soon as the prices come back down (and they'd better or they'll have the President's head and that of the heads of the major oil companies on a platter), they'll hit the road again right away . Take my word for it.

On his blog http://blog.lib.umn.edu/levin031/transportationist - Value of time vs. Cost of gas, David M. Levinson comments on the above observation by Ms. Postrel,

"In Dynamist Blog: Angelenos for Higher Gas Prices Virginia Postrel notes the upside of higher gas prices ... less traffic. We can do a back-of-the-envelope calculation. So let's say her car gets 30 miles per gallon, and gas is $3 per gallon, she is paying $0.10/mile. If she were traveling at 50 miles per hour when gas was $2 per gallon ($0.067/mile) and 60 miles per hour now (at $3/gallon), she is traveling 20% faster (a one mile trip used to take 1 minute and 12 seconds but now only takes 1 minute). (I doubt average speeds have increased that much, but if she is noticing it, it is probably at least 10%)."

In other words, if I understand well, the speed of traffic is directly proportional to the cost of gas? The higher the price, the higher the speed (fewer cars on the road); the lower the price, the lower the speed (more cars on the road)? And the faster the speed, the sooner you get "there" and the more time you save? Academics love calculations right down to the last digit. I prefer the SOLID PERCEPTION of getting in a car and driving to my destination without frustrating delays to the misleading comfort of numbers and percentages.

High gas prices are not like a cholesterol-reducing drug for an obese person (if I may, again, use my recurring analogy). An obese person doesn't stop eating because food is more expensive anymore than a drug-addict stops using drugs because the price of cocaine has gone through the roof. Nothing can replace good diet and exercise (or rehab). Driving (or going out for no good purpose at all) can be a necessity, it can be a convenience, but it can also be an addiction. The job I was doing required me to drive all over town to meet clients. Sometimes, stuck in traffic in the middle of the day, I'd wonder, "what in the world are all these people doing out and about at this time of day? They are not commuters. The commuters have their cars parked at work." Academics and staticians interested in numbers might want to find out what are all those people doing on the road at ALL TIMES of day and night in L.A. One of the best solutions to the traffic problem may lie in the answers to that question.
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