I just checked the tax thing, I've always wondered.. seems that with 95 (regular) it's about 60% is tax (includes 4 different ones) For diesel it's lower, about 47% but then it has the other tax that you don't have to pay if you drive car that uses gasoline... Oh I love the website that shows current prices (lowest and highest and where) Highest for 95 is 1.599€/litre and cheapest 1.419€/litre and for diesel that is 1.429€/litre as the most expensive and cheapest 1.249€/litre
I know in the Toronto area a lot of people drive the large SUV and mini vans for family reasons. When you travel back and forth to the cottage each weekend you need the space to put the kids, the pets and whatever else your need. This time of year when parents have kids in hockey they need the vehicles for all the hockey gear. Also, the larger vehicles usually come equipped with DVD players. Instant entertainment for the kids so they don't fight on the road trips. This was the editorial cartoon in one of the papers today
Not everybody, I drive an economy car and to fill mine up it's only $12 bucks, and it lasts for like two weeks
If you drive a lot, it's cool. But in big cities, I don't know why people even need a car when public transportation does exist and is good. We drive a lot and small citysuv's are cool, since you can see a lot better from them. And I have to buy my first car this spring.
And for us in Toronto we don't have a good transit system thanks to the previous mayor. Instead of spending the time and money expanding the system to serve the suburbs he concentrated on the 'downtown' core. He wanted surface routes instead of putting the service underground to actually serve more people. When we drive to the store it can take us anywhere from 30 minutes to a hour to drive 25kms. The time varies depending on the time of day and whether you've got 2 people in the car or are driving solo. If we relied on public transit then it would most likely take us 2 hours. Also for those that work flex hours public transit may not work because of the service that only runs in rush hour. There are at least 4 different transit systems in the Toronto area and they're not all the same fare. You could end up spending about $10.00 a day on fare if you don't have any passes. Those passes don't work in every system either. Some people look at the cost of driving to work is actually cheaper than the paying the transit fares and for some it's faster to drive to work. Also for many people they live further out from their work than we do. Some people have no choice but to drive to work as they don't have access to the public transit. Yesterday's gas was $1.20/litre.
Around here it not only depends on which station you go to it matters where it is too. The same name brand gas station on opposite sides of the city can be as much as .10 to .15 cents different in price. They said on the news we went up .17 cents in one week. The station across the street from the supermarket yesterday was at $3.39 per gallon of regular. That said the supermarket we usually do our weekly shopping at has a deal still going that for every $50 spent on grocery's you get .10 cents off per gallon of gas at selected stations. We spend between $100 and $150 a week on grocery's and right now my mother is up to $1.30 off on her next fill-up. Susan
Heh... yesterday my husband and I were driving to go pick up art supplies for me. Haven't done a drive that lasted more than five to ten minutes for a long time, so hadn't passed a gas station in even longer. I think the people in the cars next to us heard me cursing when I saw the price of gas... I was, um, shocked? Man... $1.20/L?! Yikes. I miss the days back when I was a teen and my Dad used to complain if gas was over $0.45/L! Thank goodness we've got a lil' chevy cav that doesn't exactly chug gas. We only spend about $80/month on gas, whereas my brother-in-law was spending over a grand each month since he had a truck/SUV.
Now that's strange way to see it. At least Helsinki (population bit over 500,000) there's tram, subway and buses. I love trams there. I don't know if locals do, I think those are the best to be on time. I was working there for 2 weeks for World Championships in helsinki and even without that I know tram routes pretty well. So I few years ago I was there with my bf and two tourists ask "excuse me, do you know how to get Linnanmäki amusement park?" and I just say "oh yes, tram is easiest, go to the other side of this street, there's a stop for tram 3T and that takes you there. You see the park and right stop from the flags and it says Linnanmäki" :lol::lol: My bf just asked "how the hell you know that so well? I was already saying that sorry don't know and you just start explaing how" :lol::lol: Oh so many times I've gone there myself, so many times I've travelled with 3T and 3B and those two weeks gave me pretty good idea about the routes [I visit Helsinki probably once in a year] And I think those work just fine. Except erm this winter because Helsinki (surprisingly) has gotten most of the snow, I think last time there was so much snow was in the 20s - anyways, our railways are suffering and local trains or those that travel in Helsinki area and people use to go to work - it's been a nightmare. And a Finn usually gets upset if train is more than 2 minutes late [yes, buy more italian trains that won' t work with our snow, ice and cold weather] Helsinki city the ticket is usually 2€ if bought beforehand by your cell phone or so. I use cell phone, because the drivers are usually silent grumpy drives, who get mad when stupid visitors don't know where this line 503b is going at this hour. And my sister lives 60km from Helsinki and she said buses to Helsinki go ever 30mins or so. I'd think that every big city for now would think that it's easier to have a good public transportation than have city centre full of cars. Of course I live in rural area so we do have public transportation twice a day to east and twice a day to west and since those buses take kids to school, they don't drive outside schooldays.
It depends on the city too, and how well planned it and the public transit are. In Halifax, there were some bus routes that went all around winding streets and stuff, and in some cases it was faster to walk where you wanted to go. I think they've redesigned and improved on routes a lot, but the layout of the city itself makes it difficult sometimes. I don't ride public transit much in Calgary, but I'm sure that if I worked downtown, I would use it - parking alone costs more than a bus pass. From what I've seen, Calgary is similar to London, ON, with a central downtown area with a lot of routes going through it - which makes it easy to connect between different parts of the city. Driving is definitely good for shopping though - I hated carrying bags of groceries on the bus (I don't go shopping often enough, so I always buy a lot when I do :lol. Gas seems to have dropped a little bit here - been around $1.08/L for the past couple of days.
In Bedford, U.K. it's £1,32.9 a litre for petrol and £1,36.9 a litre for diesel. Gone right up this last week or so, it was £1,30.9 (for petrol) at the beginning of last week. I live out in a village on the outskirts of Bedford so rely on my car and have to travel to get petrol. The last time my car was out of action I ended up cycling a round trip of 8 miles a day to get to work and the way back home was uphill a lot of the way. I have a feeling I will be resorting to my bike to save some money. The positive is I'll get very fit, the negative is that it's very exhausting to do after a long day at work.
We may not have hit 4 bucks yet but it's close. Chicago always has some of the highest prices in the nation for some reason.
I filled up yesterday and the gas was $1.235/litre. To me there is no point in only filling up part of the tank as it's just as likely to up as it is down so I spent over $70 for gas and a car wash. We've talked briefly about trading my vehicle, which is an Escape, in for a Smart Car. Me thinks if the gas continues to keep climbing we just may.
:wtf:YUP, I saw it on the news this morning, it's over $4.00 now some premium gas is $4.19 in L.A., outrageous:scream: