At this point, I'm surprised anyone thinks gasoline is going to become dramatically cheaper again. If it can be well above $3/gallon during a severe downturn, imagine where it will be when the economy comes back and demand increases. Imagine where it will be as the middle class of the global south grows and buys cars and if we tax it like we should to account for and mitigate its environmental effects.
It's a good call to try and set up your life so that you're less reliant, and can say "so what?" to the price of gasoline. "High" prices help to create incentives to do just that. I only wish we would ease ourselves into high prices through taxation, instead of letting markets do it for us in unpredictable and potentially disruptive ways.
I'm 25 years old. I'm a graduate student of political science at UC Riverside and an 8-year resident of Riverside, two of those years spent without a car, and now car-free again! I still take the bus every day. I'm also the Parking, Traffic and Streets Commissioner for Ward 2. I'm a long-haired liberal and damned proud of it.
(Disclaimer: I'm not a public transit planner. I'm not even studying to become one. I'm just a guy who's spent way too much time on the bus. Also, any opinions on this site are my own and don't belong to any organization with which I'm affiliated.)
At this point, I'm surprised anyone thinks gasoline is going to become dramatically cheaper again. If it can be well above $3/gallon during a severe downturn, imagine where it will be when the economy comes back and demand increases. Imagine where it will be as the middle class of the global south grows and buys cars and if we tax it like we should to account for and mitigate its environmental effects.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good call to try and set up your life so that you're less reliant, and can say "so what?" to the price of gasoline. "High" prices help to create incentives to do just that. I only wish we would ease ourselves into high prices through taxation, instead of letting markets do it for us in unpredictable and potentially disruptive ways.