Hey! The price of gasoline has dropped below $4 a gallon. Who can resist such a bargain?
But diesel is still way up there. What if you had to fill up this baby?
There is one good answer to this, public transit. Let’s take a look at the difference in cost.
Right after I took the shot of the pickup, the driver and his young son came out of the gas station’s convenience store. After mutual greetings, the conversation with the young daddy, a friendly man, went something like this.
“Do you use this truck for work?”
“Oh, no. It’s my play thing, but I do drive it to work.”
“Any idea what gas mileage it gets?”
“Not enough,” he answered with a smile.
“How much?”
“Oh, on the highway, about 18 miles to the gallon.”
“That’s pretty good for a truck that size.”
“Yeah, not bad. In town it’s about 13.”
“What does it cost you to fill it up?”
“About a hundred dollars.”
“How often?”
“Once a week.”
“That means you are paying $400 a month for gas.”
“Well, actually, 500.”
“Do you plan to switch to a smaller vehicle?”
“No. This one is paid for.”
“What you are paying a month for gas amounts to a good car payment.”
“That’s true, but this one is paid for, and even if I wanted to switch, I couldn’t get much of a trade-in for it now. The capital expense would mean I wouldn’t save by switching.”
Just think, if he were still making payments on it, and paying for maintenance and repairs, it would be close to a thousand dollars a month.
Well, what if he used public transportation? In Columbus, at $2.50 a day for round trips to work, it would run him something like $55 dollars a month. That’s $55 compared to $500. In Atlanta, it would run him about $77. In New York, $88.
Even if he considered taking a bus, he probably couldn’t because he probably lives in a suburb which has no public transportation. I didn’t think to ask him, but the chances are high he does live in a suburb because so many people do. And that’s another big problem. It’s called sprawl and it’s all over America.
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Tags: Buses, Cars, Gas prices, mass transit, oil, public transportation
