Comments on: Is there a breaking point with gas prices?

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 07:46:58 +0000

After more than a year of being blockaded by the Isreali government gas prices in the Gaza strip is up to $50 / gallon. Since it’s also one of the poorest places on earth people are finding other solutions. I’m sure bikes are getting more popular, but I guess import of bikes are also blockaded.

By: ohio biker

ohio biker — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:15:47 +0000

If gas went up to $20 a gallon this week, I don’t think
you would find everyone riding a bike next week.

There is likely no single neatly defined “breaking point”.

Some people will react to spikes in price, while many
others will only react after some time. Of course, the
longer the price lingers above any given level, the more
people who are ever going to react at that level, will.

For any given price, some will react to it, while others
will not. As the price increases, the number of people
who will react increases.

For any given price/time combination, there is a percentage
of drivers who will begin to seek alternatives to burning gas.

I suppose you could plot a three dimensional surface ….
with time and price being two dimensions (like x and y)
and height (z) being percentage of drivers who will seek
alternatives. Clearly as price and time increase, the percentage
increases as well. Apart from stating this obvious fact, the
actual shape of the surface can be quite interesting.

For as many people as are drivers, there is a good fraction
of that many different price/time points at which they will react.

If we consider prices up to $100 in $.1 intervals, we have 1000
levels. Then if we consider times from 1-day to 1000 days, we
wind up with a million different points, each of which has some
percentage between 0 and 100 of drivers adapting alternatives.

If you were to ask, at what prices/times 50% of drivers might
seek alternatives, there could easily be a number of points
where the 50% height intersects our surface. If you ask, at
what prices/times 30% of drivers will react, you wind up with
a different set of points.

So there is not one magic ‘breaking point’.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:29:06 +0000

In Stockholm the gas price is close to $9 / gallon and the government is planning new freeways. People are complaining about prices, but they still love their cars.
You Americans have a long way to the breaking point.

By: Hugh Rection

Hugh Rection — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:13:21 +0000

Lets face it, there are a lot of people in this country who make good money. Families with 2 people working each with a good salary, are probably not really affected by current gas prices, even though the media will have you believe otherwise. I know I haven’t really been affected yet, and I’m by no means a wealthy person. I still have plenty of disposable income after filling up my car a couple times a month and I have a feeling that a lot of people are the same way.

And then you have the wealthy people who could probably care less and will continue to drive their Escalades and Lexus SUV’s.

I think only the poor people are currently being affected.

By: Mauricio Babilonia

Mauricio Babilonia — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:20:56 +0000

The breaking point won’t have anything to do with price. It’ll be availability.

By: Stuart M.

Stuart M. — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 04:48:53 +0000

Dear r., I know where you’re coming from. I have been disgusted with consumerim, too. It’s part of the capitalist economic model that is dependent on never-ending growth. Rather than concentrate on providing real needs, like affordable housing, secure jobs with a living wage, or identifying an environmentally sustainable level of economic activity, we are force-fed an endless list of “must-haves,” usually ones which are far in excess of what we need (pickups and SUV’s, giant flat-screen TV’s, extreme sports/travel, etc.). Well, the debt bubble that has built up as Americans lived way beyond their means has finally burst. High gasoline prices are just the tip of the iceberg, other vital things like fertilizers, plastics, and agricultural mechanization are also heavily dependent on petroleum products.

I sometimes remember the aftermath of the 9/11 attack. America was stunned and the whole world felt sorry for us. That might have been a moment when a real leader could have led us in a life-affirming direction, like adjusting the American economy to less wasteful dependence on petroleum products, on creating a more sustainable life-style. Projects like mass transit, renewable energy come to mind. But no, we didn’t have Al Gore in office at that time. Estimates of the total cost of the Iraq War (including all future costs like rehabiliating soldiers, etc.) range up to $3 trillion. Imagine what could have been done with $3 trillion dollars to make America a better country? It’s enough to make me cry.

By: r.

r. — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:40:41 +0000

I lived without a car for almost ten years. I now own a Corolla and it gets pretty good gas mileage (28 in the city, 32 on the highway). i’ve always thought it was wasteful to drive 4 miles to my friend’s house so i bike. we then carpool to the movies out east, about 6 miles away.

I don’t care if gas goes up to 19 dollars a gallon, secretly it’d make me happy. It only costs me $30 a month to drive to and from work. other than that, my car stays parked. I just got a trailer for my mountain bike and do my chores by bike. I also have a assortment of messenger bags and panniers, so being a utilitarian cyclist is easy.

I would love to bike to work again. I miss it immensely, but as long as i stay in Memphis it won’t happen. I’ve been applying for jobs in the Portland, OR area with my company, but I haven’t heard back on anything so far.

I agree that gas is part of the bygone era, but some of do not have access to safe cycling facilities. They are definitely lacking in Memphis, TN and the city is proposing unacceptable infrastructure that should be in place by 2035!!

So, i guess it comes down to lifestyle choice. As long as Americans choose to eat fast food they will be fat, and as long as they decide to continue to drive they’ll be whining about expensive gas. it’s an individual choice to not be a mass consumer. i know it’s mean of me to say that, but our culture has been nothing but mass consumption for the past 30 years.

I think it’s good that we’re now getting hit with some reality. I hope it continues. Maybe cutting back on things will teach us to consume
less which is always environmentally friendly.

By: Stuart M.

Stuart M. — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 07:13:37 +0000

I hate to say this, but I think history is repeating itself. I love biking and am happy people are biking again, but I think the current interest in biking is similar to the first wave of interest in bikes in the late 1800′s. Bicycles back then ended up being just a transition from horses to the later invented automobile.
Once again, bicycles (and in Europe, electric bicycles) are being touted as a transportation solution, when what they really are is just a transition from gasoline-powered cars to electric or plug-in hybrids. Once electric cars or plug-in hybrids come onto the market in a big way, people will again forget the bicycle. They will again get fat and stressed out in their old-fashioned traffic jams just like in the by-gone gasoline era. Sad, but likely.

By: Cafn8

Cafn8 — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:24:12 +0000

Oops, I meant “Breaking Point.”

By: Cafn8

Cafn8 — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:17:36 +0000

The “tipping point” in addition to being a geographic matter, an economic matter and everything else stated so far is also a very personal matter. I don’t even remember what the price of gas was the first time I rode my bicycle to work. I did it because lifestyle changes had forced me to all but quit mountain biking. My weight and blood pressure were up, my energy level was down and I really missed riding. One day my sister-in-law told me that she bought a bike and was riding to work. The paradigm shift from Bike=Recreation to Bike=Transportation took someone else to plant a seed in my head. It “took” because I already loved to ride. To take this one step further, the mind of a person who has never gone anywhere except in a private vehicle since the age of 16, doesn’t like to sweat, and is overweight from inactivity and/or overeating is a much less fertile place for the seed to fall. Sadly, this demographic seems quite large in the US.