I Bought Gas on the Day it Peaked in St. Louis
Every six months or so I do a post on gas prices. As gas prices climbed the last few years I loved being able to fill up my scooter (since sold) for under $5. After returning home from the hospital at the end of April 2008 I began to plan my return to car ownership and driving. By mid-July 2008 that had happened. In fact I bought my first tank of gas for a car in over a year on July 14, 2008 — the very day gas prices peaked in the St. Louis area.
That day I paid $3.979 per gallon. It took 10.017 gallons to fill the tank on my Corolla. My last fill-up was on 12/30/08 with 10.548 gallons at $1.339/gallon.  $14 vs. $39. Today’s pricing, the result of a global drop in demand, does not encourage me to drive more than in July. I think many drivers are in my shoes — personally relieved by the reduced prices but still thrifty. That is a very good thing.
The appeal of the big V-8 SUV has been broken. Families still require more seating capacity than singles. Some construction workers still require a truck to apply their trade. The pressure is on automakers to focus on fuel mileage.
More and more I’m seeing people thinking about living more toward the center of the region. This does not mean they all want to be my neighbors in the downtown loft district. It just means the long standing draw new development on the far edge of the region has lost it appeal to the masses.
As President-elect Obama (I still love hearing that) works to rebuild our economy we will see gas prices return to the July 2008 peak and beyond. Just like a fundamental shift was taking place 50 years ago — one out of the core, we are in the early stages of the shift back inward. I strongly believe our course as a region and country will be very different in the coming 50 years vs. the prior 50 years.
Hopefully in a few years I’ll be plugging in an electric scooter rather than buying gas for a car. Hybrid autos will someday out number internal combusion only vehicles out on the roads. Youngsters will walk or bike to school. By removing legal obstacles, such as Euclidean zoning, we can help this process along.
CEO Tillerson of XON (for the first time) called on Congress to enact a tax on greenhouse-gas emissions in order to fight global warming. In a speech in Washington he said that a tax was a “more direct, a more transparent and a more effective approach” to curtailing greenhouse gases than other plans. He also said a cap-and-trade system would be costly, bureaucratic and create a “Wall Street of emissions brokers.”
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Calling on a hard to administer, politically unpopular plans may just be a political ploy. No one trusts Wall Street now and in 2007, Tillerson said he didn’t support any particular policy for curbing carbon-dioxide emissions. To create a groundswell for CHANGE requires at least three major revisions in how transportation infrastructure is administered: 1. Much higher federal gas taxes implemented in the wholesale market to improve administrative responsibilities, 2. All federally financed highways, past & present, to implement tolls, and 3. stronger EPA regulations on environmentally unfriendly parking lots coupled with new federal taxes.
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Of course all these new taxes should be coupled with reductions of federal taxes on income and labor. The imbalances in our system of governing transportation choices will be done intelligently or will be forced by erratic external forces. Depending on an outdated electrical grid, better batteries and more coal to solve our problems will only create more of the same. Will prez-elect Obama tell it like it is or look for short cuts in a weakening economy?
I had mixed feelings about the high gas this summer; it affected me financially, but I was very heartened that people were seriously talking about conservation and responsible driving practices (minimizing left turns, combining errands).
Now that gas has plummeted in price, we must focus on easy commutes to jobs and entertainment as major draws to live in St. Louis. The problem is, the interstates in St. Louis are so damn convenient! I had to visit a friend in O’Fallon, MO last weekend, and it only took me a half hour to get there from South Grand! But my commute to my job is only ten-fifteen minutes, which is awesome. I arrive at work less stressed out and in a better mood.
The elephant in the room, that high gas prices and hip restaurants and bars cannot overcome are the St. Louis schools. That ultimately is the greatest barrier to St. Louis’s revitalization.
I agree there are very good school districts inside of I-270. However, in most of those areas the home prices are at a premium. People are willing to pay more for a house in a good district. That means not everybody can afford to live in those good districts within the 270 ring.
On the otherhand, there is plenty of affordable housing in good districts before you hit the likes of Wentzville. Those people are just nuts.
There are thousands of bright kids in city schools and inner ring suburbs. Plus, those kids are more than just “book smart”. The elephant in the region is suburban sprawl, not city schools.
The high cost of fuel this past year did serious damage to our economy and society. After a brief reprieve gas prices are inching back up again. Our nation should not allow other nations to have such power over us and our economy . We have so much available to us in the way of technology and free sources of energy. WE seriously need to get on with becoming an energy independent nation. We are spending billions upon billions in bail out dollars. Why not spend some of those billions in getting alternative energy projects set up. We could create clean cheap energy, millions of badly needed new green jobs and lessen our dependence on foreign oil all in one fell swoop. I just read an eye opening book by Jeff Wilson called The Manhattan Project of 2009. It would cost the equivalent of 60 cents per gallon to drive and charge an electric car.If all gasoline cars, trucks, and SUV’s instead had plug-in electric drive trains, the amount of electricity needed to replace gasoline is about equal to the estimated wind energy potential of the state of North Dakota. Why don’t we use some of the billions in bail out money to bail us out of our dependence on foreign oil? This past year the high cost of fuel so seriously damaged our economy and society that the ripple effects will be felt for years to come. http://www.themanhattanprojectof2009.com
I’m totally okay with people downsizing their cars. Just don’t use the force of government to make it fit your green agenda.
Government does not rebuild economies. Small business owners like me rebuild economies. Confident investors rebuild economies. People getting educated and learning new skills rebuild economies. Creative people build economies.
At most, government can undo the policies it put in place to ruin things in the first place. Government is the least creative, worst cause-of-the-problem solution imaginable.