Could take the train… if we had a train

Today, the local gas station is listing 3.90/gallon for gasoline. I paid $51 for a tank of gas that was 85% of my fuel capacity. I never thought I would be paying so much for gas right now. Between both vehicles, I am paying about $85/week for fuel and believe me that is doing some serious to the household budget.

Yet, what can I do?

I work in Greensboro which is a half hour drive away , about 55 miles/day. I looked at the intercity bus line, PART, as an alternative to driving myself from Winston-Salem to Greensboro. The schedule is useful with buses running every half hour but the problem is that the hubs are located quite a distance from where I live and where I work. Taking local transit in tandem with the inter city will probably take 90 minutes of travel. transfer and waiting each way. In that respect, I might as well drive despite the cost.

I remember how easy it was to get around Toronto from one end to another using the local transit, a mix of buses and subways. How convenient the transit system in Frankfurt Germany with the intercity train that took me from Sachehausen where I lived to the west end of Frankfurt. Nothing like that around here.

Many times I lament the lack of transit in much of the states especially in the south. The car remains supreme. Even with the surge in gas prices, it will require sustain high prices before cities start expanding their transit options. Having more bus routes and a higher frequency of service would be critical factors for transit to succeed as a viable choice. The local route for me would require driving 5 minutes to a stop located at a Walmart for a bus that comes by once a hour.

Still there is a problem that most businesses where people work are scattered all around the city. It will be not cost effective to service all parts of the city’s industrial and commercial areas outside of the business rush hours. So in a way you are in a bit of a bind if you need to have a more flexible work day. Perhaps, this will lead to more businesses concentrating closer to each other and other business districts.

In a way, high gas prices, if sustained for a lengthy time may lead to the re-urbanisation of America much in the way the Northeast states were for much of the 20th century.