<p>I paid $50 to fill up my MINI a little over a week ago. It would cost $54 now. I am lucky I live in a part of LA convenient to the light rail, so hopefully I won’t have to fill up again for another 3 weeks.</p>
<p>I have a feeling the train is going to get more and more crowded.</p>
<p>I passed by two gas stations at $3.26 in MA. Stations in my area are around $3.33 - $3.37. It’s a bit of an adjustment.</p>
<p>I’ve read that there’s plenty of refined product and crude available. The current increase in crude is due to speculation and fear over supplies in the Middle East. The Saudis have increased production and have a lot of excess capacity to contain any potential problems in Libya. The bigger problem is if unrest spreads to other oil-producing countries.</p>
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If there’s a true need for a high speed train then let the private sector build one and profit from it. Of course, there’s not really a need for one in most locations (like running up/down California) so it would have to be heavily subsidized by the taxpayers to be built and to operate. The casinos in Las Vegas might do well to build a high speed train from southern Cal to Vegas to enhance their bottom line so that might be a reasonable investment on their part.</p>
<p>Many areas in the USA just aren’t built like the heavily centralized cities in many European and Asian countries. What works fairly well in Tokyo, London, or Paris doesn’t necessarily apply to Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, and some other areas.</p>
<p>btw - $3.75 for regular at the Shell by my house as of about an hour ago.</p>
<p>$3.59 at the Shell near my house here north of Seattle, I get mine @ $3.29 at Costco. DH and I altered our driving patterns back in 2008 when the gas prices skyrocketed, and never reverted to our old driving habits (“Gee, we are out of purple onion, I think I will make a quick run to the QFC to get some”). Instead, we practice conservational driving and combine errands(“Gee, we are out of purple onions, so I will make something for dinner that does not call for purple onion, and we will pick some on Friday when we will be driving by the QFC after the dinner date at our favorite place on the way from the P&R”).</p>
<p>We do need a commuter rail (NOT high speed train) here in Seattle. The line that goes to the airport… Ahhhh… I envy the folks who take that instead of a bus.</p>
<p>BC - I have heard and read the same thing. The Saudis are concerned that high oil prices will come around the corner and bite them in the rear, and they are ready to open additional spigots, so to speak.</p>
<p>Using the bus system is a far more cost-effective transportation approach than is rail. Of course the bus isn’t high-speed but it is cheap and much more flexible than a train system could be. For those that want high-speed, take an airplane.</p>
<p>$3.69 in southwestern CT.</p>
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I’ll bet a tiny percent of folks in tiny countries like Taiwan drive 5 hours each way once or twice a month. Western US, Canada, Australia, we think nothing of this as a weekend trip. The old saying my English friend taught me: In the UK we think a hundred years is nothing. In the US, they think a hundred miles is nothing.</p>
<p>All that said, oil is traded on the futures market. Prices may or may not have any basis in our ordinary reality.
Give me a LNG car please.</p>