patrick.net

People drive cars because mass transit is often inconvenient or non-existent. In many suburuban communities, the trains and busses only run once an hour in between the AM and PM rush hours. Miss the train by 3 minutues? I hope you have a book to read because you have a logn wait ahead of you. And don't think that your wait will only be 57 minutues long because if there is a delay, you could easily wait an hour and 20 minutues.

This is true. I have access now to decent mass transit but that's not always been the case. Using mass transit requires more planning but it sure makes you punctual.

Cities often cut mass transit funding at exactly the time when more/better transit is needed. Like when gas goes up or the economy tanks.

For those unfortunate people who've lost their middle finger to amputation, they can't drive at all and must rely on transit. ;-)

HousingWatcher says

People drive cars because mass transit is often inconvenient or non-existent. In many suburuban communities, the trains and busses only run once an hour in between the AM and PM rush hours. Miss the train by 3 minutues? I hope you have a book to read because you have a logn wait ahead of you. And don’t think that your wait will only be 57 minutues long because if there is a delay, you could easily wait an hour and 20 minutues.

Mass transit makes little sense, since employers over the course of a few years always move to another location. This has been true time and time again in the Bay Area. Add to that the high count of employers failures and M&A activity, mass transit becomes fruitless local government spending over the long run. It doesnt pay!

Of course some people around here really over do it, with SUVs and Benzs, guzzeling gas like drunken sailors. But that is elitist egos gone amoke.

Most mass transit is poor in most cities, which leads us to require a car. Once we have a car, then 1 mile or 5 miles makes almost no difference. 5 miles to 10 miles, well how much difference does that make? The hurdle is getting the car, once that has been done, it's pretty hard to justify mass transit, unless you're in NY, or some European cities.

It is a lot easier to clean up 1 city block that as hundreds of people on it, than to keep the 5 miles to a suburb clean + keep the entire suburb clean. Cleaning up garbage strewn all over the place over a 5 mile stretch isn't easy. Hauling water out there, creating roads, handling sewage from all these random suburbs isn't cheap, friendly or easy either.

As far as hybrids, they are already showing to have low maintenance costs, with a 10 year battery warranty. Average car in the US lasts 17 years now. So one replacement might be necessary. Cost might be high for that single item, but the savings in having a simpler car are likely to make up for it. Brakes needing replacement, mufflers, engine issues. Small engines running at a constant rate run forever, and that is what a hybrid offers. Not to mention, even without the batteries, many of these cars get amazing mileage.

sybrib says

You can sticks and stones all you want about the registration cost in California, but if you do the math, the variable costs of fuel (that we make war for, and that we pollute the Gulf for), and the maintenace of the vehicle, swamps out the fixed cost of the registration, whether it’s in low-cost Florida or high-cost Cal.

Oil doesn't pollute the water, greed pollutes the water.

This fault for this lies in everyone that ever partook in the following.

Investors jacking the cost of Commodities even though fundamentally the "Supply and Demand" didn't demand it.

California Liberals enforcing the investors case, by politicizing the "Fossil Fuel" Armageddon farce.

Oil Companies obliging both by making stock disappear.

Politicians, using misleading data from all parties to show we are low on Oil supply and need to Drill somewhere anywhere now!

Energy investors giving the Oil companies gobs and gobs of money to drill more precarious locations. Along with all of the factors fraudulently rewarding them handsomely for their efforts.

If it was a perfect world of electric cars, then there would probably be billions of gallons of Battery Acid in the Gulf or somewhere.

Fault "lies" with all them, but not with solo commuters who drive too-big cars that burn too much petrol to their too big home that use too much utilities in communities that are too far away.

Righhhhhht.

sybrib says

Fault “lies” with all them, but not with solo commuters who drive too-big cars that burn too much petrol to their too big home that use too much utilities in communities that are too far away.
Righhhhhht.

Errr... sorry sybrib. That guy looks like a hired driver rather than home owner. Of course, it depends on how big is too big though.

I used to had no probelm taking bus when the bus is the only bus in the town when I was in rural PA back in 1995. Now I got tens of them and I don't even know where half of them are going.

And another pissing off news got announced today. DC metro approved fare increase today. I think it's like 50cents plus another 20cents at peak hours. Sad thing is that today is the one year anniversity of horrible metro train accident happened to kill 9 people. That's the kind of gut DC mass transit has.

Kennedy,

Your way of looking at the cost of driving is not representative of reality. There are fixed costs and variable costs. As you point out, the purchase price threshold, after it is crossed, is no longer an out of pocket expense, so you can ignore it if you want to think of it that way. Edmunds.com calls it depreciation, and has a cost per mileage associated with it. Registration is a fixed cost. A portion of the insurance is a fixed cost, but if you drive under a certain number of miles per year you can get a lower premium, so there is a fixed cost portion and a variable cost portion.

Then there's the fuel and maintenance/repair, unless your mommy or daddy is paying for your transportation for you, every mile you drive your vehicle you incur those costs, even if you think you don't.

My Camry, built in Ohio by Americans, according to Edmunds has a variable cost per mile to operate of 26.7 cents per mile not including gasoline, which is easy to figure on your own. I think their maintenance plus repair cost is a little bit high, I think mine is more like 12 cents per mile, plus about 15 cents per mile for fuel. So it costs me 27 cents per mile to drive to work, versus 8 cents per mile to take transit with the monthly fare pass. And on my commute, because of the congestion, transit is a few minutes shorter than driving.

http://www.edmunds.com/apps/cto/intro.do

http://www.edmunds.com/apps/cto/intro.do

pkennedy says

Most mass transit is poor in most cities, which leads us to require a car.

I don't think the cause and effect works that way. The cause was the way cities were planned and built.

When cities are planned as sprawling suburbs, with remote retail centers to serve daily needs, mass transit makes no sense. Even if you took away everybody's car, and started from scratch. There is no mass transit system that exists that can serve a disperse population with high frequency economically.

In dense urban centers it's the opposite. It makes little sense to form a transportation system around private automobiles. They just sit around taking up precious space 95% of the time, and the traffic is hellish with everybody in a car. Wise, high density cities like Hong Kong and Singapore have fantastic mass transit systems (HK even has a a public escalator about 1km long)

Mark,

I live in one of those sprawling suburbs you mentioned. But, I live in walking distance to a major hub for the buses, and two long blocks from an express bus. Express bus uses the carpool lanes, and also has some kind of transponder that can remotely change the traffic lights head, making the solo drivers queue even longer at the traffic light (but, if you are driving in the direction of the express bus, stay close behind them astride in the center (non-carpool) lane, because then you will miss most of the lights).

So my point is that not all of the suburban sprawl is impossible without a car.

@sybrib

I agree with your assessment of deprecation. However, if you drive 1000 miles a year, or 5000 miles a year, the cost difference is negligible. If you drive 1000 miles a year, your deprecation is going to be very high, you'll be selling a 5 year old car with "less" miles on it, but that doesn't make it hugely more valuable. Also, many of the mechanical issues arise from cold starts, so driving 3 miles 300 times is nearly thesame as driving 50 miles 300 times.

My main point was that once you own the car, your costs are pretty much fixed. Edmunds assumes you're driving like a "normal" American. X miles to work, X miles back. X on weekends, etc. And your premium on insurance might change, but going from 10,000 miles a year to 25,000 doesn't change it by much. Maybe 15-20%? I think mine was like 5% but definitely not 250%.

If you look at the cost of driving vs taking a bus (once you own a car) it's pretty minimal. If your car is sitting at your house, it's depreciating. If you don't drive it tomorrow, you're still paying for insurance on it. It's still going to go down in value. If you don't drive it one day for 10 miles, it's unlikely you're "saving" that $2.70 in cost. More likely you're saving like $1.50-$2.00.

If your options are to take a bus 10 miles for $2.50, or drive for approximately $2.50, it's a no brainer. If you didn't have a car, and your options where to buy a car, or take the bus, it becomes a no brainer as well.

@markinsf
Well most cities were decently compact before cars, the car allowed us to move to the suburbs. If we had horse and carriages, we wouldn't get putting 30 miles between us and work. Once we force ourselves to get a car, then the distance between work starts to become moot like I was saying.

Some cities could have better rapid transit. I just can't believe Bart/Caltrain in the bay area are the best way to move up and down the peninsula. I know many people who take them, but many more would use the system if it worked a little better. If they could actually move people at a decent speed and not take 2 hours to go up and down the entire peninsula it would be great.

Kennedy,

My cost is 15 cents per mile for fuel and I reckon, 12 cents per mile for maintenance, not the 26 cents Edmunds says. The bus is 8 cents per mile.

And because of the traffic, the bus is faster.

It IS a no brainer.

WIthout driving to work every day my mileage went below the 7500/year (I think it was 6800 miles last year) which took about $250 off the annual premium.

sybrib says

I live in walking distance to a major hub for the buses....So my point is that not all of the suburban sprawl is impossible without a car.

I used to commute by Caltrain from San Mateo to San Francisco, with about 1/2 mile on each side, so I understand what you're saying.

But for MOST people living in suburbs, commuting by mass transit is not practical. And for things like eating out, shopping, going out on the town, and other activities walking and transit are not really even seriously considered in the suburbs.

So, I have to disagree. It is impossible to live without a car in the suburbs, unless you want to confine your life to work and home, and you're in walking distance to mass transit for a work commute on both sides.

America is simply the car culture of the world, we build the first car, build a network of highways to connect north to the south, east to west and barely tax anything associated with it from free roads, low tax/fees, cheap gas and free parking. This culture requires us to expand our borders even further and result in the suburbs we see today.

According to wiki, there is now more than 250M vehicle registered in the US. The US population is 300M+ people so that is 5 cars for every 6 adult, child, and elderly. An average household owns more than 2 vehicle. That pretty indicates that Most people cannot survive without their cars. This has become a necessity not a choice.

Most big cities have some form of mass transportation system that centralize to downtown. 70% of BART commuters travel through Embaracadero, Montgomery, Civic Center, Powell. Without that core, BART is pretty much useless. The ferry, local bus and intercounty bus are the same way. Trying to connect from one suburb to another is an absolute money losing disaster. Someone mentioned it costs only 8 cents a mile to travel by public transportation, but that doesn't even consider the effect of gas tax, sales tax that goes into the bus system to make that happen. I think fares make up only 30% of the revenue as the rest is subsidized by taxes and fees.

San Francisco is fortunate to have three main core, San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. But nevertheless, public transit is money losing without subsidy. Unfortunately, unless you plan to just go to downtown in daylight hours and nowhere else, not having a car will really suck. We have so many people with cars on the road that unless you're at an airport or outside a busy hotel or very late outside some bar/club, you will not see a taxi. Los Angeles does not have an effective transit system because there is no identifyble core, people just go north, south, east, west and there is no network.

For those that voted for the train to be built from SD to LA to SF, it would be a guaranteed financial disaster. I doubt the state can finance the thing wth bond money with future revenues tied to the system. The problem with LA is once you get to LA or SF via train, now what? you'll need to rent a car anyway to go to where you need to go. This is unlike Japan where you are connected from network to network to take you where you need to go and cut out the car altogether.

The bus depends on how far you're going. In the bay area, I believe it's about $2.50 now each way. To get 8 cents a mile, you would need to travel just over 30 miles by bus!

Some transit isn't profitable, but some of it is. NY has a great system that's been paid for. The system is just filled with excess and waste unfortunately. My favorite bus system that I saw was in a small city in Turkey, where they had a "bus" route with essentially taxis. You would flag them down, they would pick you up, you would let them know when to let you off. There were of course up to 4-5 passengers in the car with you, doing the same thing. Convince and efficient. Brazil had similar situation with mini buses that would fill up and then simply not stop until they reached the next city/area, where people where to be let off, and they could just hum along.

I agree with LA. SF has it a little better because BART essentially covers the main routes, it's just not that fast I find. Perhaps if I had to do that commute every day I would love it. I'm just adverse to commutes :)

Many of the little cities/suburbs around here are fully contained, so if you didn't have a car you could survive. Work/Home, yes. Movies, restaurants, and entertainment are all provided in most of these cities as well. Of course no car and no where NEAR the nearest city center is useless. If you're living anywhere along the BART line (which you would need to, to live car free), it basically passes through the heart of every city, so you're likely near some small city center as well.

Exactly agree with original post. Our society is SO oriented around automobiles, it defacto discriminates against the "auto-challenged". I live in Davis California which refers to itself as the "bike capitol" and it's quite a nice place to live. I can get most anywhere that matters by bike in town, and my daily commute includes a bike trailer so I can drop my toddler off at daycare. Without looking at the statistics there seems quite a lower obesity level here as well.

SF ace says

we build the first car,

LOL, folks keep repeating this mantra again and again.

First car (in modern sense, there were some French built vehicle with steam engine before) was built by engineer Benz in German factory owned by Daimler and was called Mercedes after Daimler's daughter.

I believe first mass production line of cars though was in the US.

Big difference of course! But the gist is we became very dependent on cars very fast.

SF ace says

Los Angeles does not have an effective transit system because there is no identifyble core, people just go north, south, east, west and there is no network.
For those that voted for the train to be built from SD to LA to SF, it would be a guaranteed financial disaster. I doubt the state can finance the thing wth bond money with future revenues tied to the system. The problem with LA is once you get to LA or SF via train, now what? you’ll need to rent a car anyway to go to where you need to go. This is unlike Japan where you are connected from network to network to take you where you need to go and cut out the car altogether.

LA is much better now, Rapid Metro buses helped a lot. They stop only every 1/2 mile to a mile. Depending on a route it makes sense to use them for a ride of up to 5-7 miles. For longer rides You need to be close to Light Rail/Subway/Express Bus station and to go to a place close to one. With the size of Greater LA it's of course very limited. Still, if you can rent where you want and you work close to a station you can use public transport for daily commute. Still you need at least one car per family.

Local buses are completely useless for those who can walk. I walk almost as fast as they ride with all their stops and street lights. Riding bikes is much faster then taking local bus. City loose a lot of money on them, of course, but they serve all kind of sick, elderly, etc. people who can't drive. We have a very old and quite sick couple living next door. They still take a bus to go to doctor office and to some stores. Without this someone would have to give them a ride practically every day. Plus, it's an exercise for them. So, you can see it as a social service.

About fast train SD-LA-SF I'm not so sure. It all depends on gas prices. Well, many people won't use it but there are a lot of those who will. Even today LA-SD trains are almost packed. When gasoline was above $4 you needed to buy tickets in advance to get a sit on a SD train. Trains were completely packed and many people were standing from LA to some stations in Orange county. A train that can make it from LA to SF in 2.5 hours will compete with air traffic. For those going to SF it will make a lot of sense, since for most travelers in LA area access to Union station in LA is much easier than to LAX or Burbank airport.

Again, it mostly depends on gasoline prices. Today oil and gas are priced for recession. Just to maintain current level of proved oil reserves it's price need to be around $110/bbl. Car sales in China rise 20%-50% every year, so don't count on gas price below $7-8 by the time SD-LA-SF train starts running.

@Seaside

I'm in just about the same situation as your wife, so I'm sure you know how I feel when I read books like this one and think about the oppression that is car culture. Do RE agents look at you funny (or patronizingly) when you tell them what your needs are?

But I think you're putting the cart before the horse when you say that I'm "lucky to live in Tokyo" -- it's the opposite! I *have* to live in a place like Tokyo because most of the homes and jobs everywhere else are closed off to me. Believe me, I'd prefer to live in the US, but personae non gratae like myself can't find jobs or homes in most cities. It would have been possible before WWII, and will be again (hopefully) someday, but not now.

@MarkinSF

It makes little sense to form a transportation system around private automobiles. They just sit around taking up precious space 95% of the time, and the traffic is hellish with everybody in a car.

This is one of the main theses of the book! A huge amount of space is taken up by automobiles even when (especially when) they aren't moving.

Calculate the area (in ft^2, m^2, etc.) taken up by an automobile and multiply it by the number of cars in a given city. Now imagine that all that area, multiplied by the average number of stories in a building, could be just given to the residents as extra living space, for free.

Not a big deal if you're in the countryside, but in the cities, things will become a lot less cramped!

@PKennedy

The fact that the cost of driving is practically fixed regardless of how many miles you drive is another big problem, indeed, and it works just like free parking. There's no disincentive to drive less once you have a car, so people drive excessively. Do any auto insurers make their rates proportional to miles driven in a year? How about local/state car ownership taxes? They should be -- it would do a lot to keep people from driving too much and would unclog the roads.

I wouldn't ever want to live under a government that has that much power to observe people's movements, but if it were somehow possible to tax cars per trip rather than per mile or per year of ownership, it would be even better. People would stop their short 1-mile drives immediately, and save the car for the long trips that require it. Everybody would benefit from that, particularly homeowners who don't like hearing automobiles driving past their house all day long!

pkennedy says

I believe first mass production line of cars though was in the US.
Big difference of course! But the gist is we became very dependent on cars very fast.

Sure it was, and it took just several years to completely change US. It only proves how fast it can be changed back.

My transit pass is $70 per month. My daily commute is about 15 miles, 30 miles round trip. If it was only for commuting, it'd be about 10-11 cents per mile but sometimes I use it to go downtown especially if a cocktail or a parking hassle (or both) is involved, so it works out to about 8 cents per mile.

Michigan,

I own four vehicles. Since I live in suburban sprawl I use the car for shopping, etc. However for commuting, the traffic and cost compared to a transit pass are huge disincentives to drive in those situations.

Regarding the insurance, you can get a lower rate if you drive less. I am all in favor of paying mile-by-mile, that has been proposed as putting the liability insurance into the gasoline tax as a way to achieve that. For the meanwhile though, I get a reduction from my insurance company for putting less than 7500 miles per year on the car. It is a little bit more than $20 per reduction for liability and uninsured motorist. I don't have collision on those cars because they are already depreciated.

That's "a little more than $20 per month reduction", ie, savings of about $250 per year per car....

@Michinaga
How to keep the government from keeping an eye on you, yet charge for these trips? Gas tax. Like in Europe. Per mile tax right there.

@michaelsch
As far as the train, I agree with you, I think SF ace is missing how many commuters there are between SF and LA. There are flights leaving every 30-60 minutes from oakland and san jose, just on southwest! If you could have a train that dropped you off in the heart of LA vs the outskirts, this would more than make up for the slightly longer trip.

Here is how it will be ruined, and how airlines will destroy it: They will ensure that people demand stops in their cities. Every stop will add 15 minutes or so. Get 3-5 extra stops, and you're set, you've destroyed it's viability. If they can manage Sacramento, SF, San Jose, LA, SD, they might be okay. Add in 3-5 more stops and you're going to screw everyone.

pkennedy says

Add in 3-5 more stops and you’re going to screw everyone.

May be, but if you have a train every 30 minutes and only half of them make local stops it will still work. After all there are not too many places to stop between LA and Bay area.

@PKennedy - Indeed, gas taxes would do it. Hadn't thought about how much of an impact they'd have, but with European prices, it would be a big help.

As for high-speed trains, wouldn't one solution be to have express trains at multiple speeds, the fastest of which makes only the biggest stops, down to a near-local one that stops at all the big cities? One line on the famous Japanese bullet train has a main line that runs through the Osaka-Tokyo corridor, and the fastest train on that line only makes a few stops (Kyoto, Nagoya, and maybe five or six more; the conventional local train must make well over 100 stops). I think it costs about $130 to take that route at top speed; it's about 500 miles and takes 2 1/2 hours. The regular train would be about $75, but take eight hours.

All kinds of bribery and backroom dealing went on when this thing was first built in the 1960s, and there are several lines of questionable necessity that just happen to stop in the hometowns of certain politicians, but it works pretty well. And there was a lot more private property that required the railways to convince individuals to sell; nearly the whole route, as opposed to the US where there'd be more open land. Investing in the real estate that's scheduled, or even rumored, to be in the way of a future train line is a black art in itself.

Man, a train from SJ to SF in like 15 minutes!

Even every 30 minutes, if the ride goes from 2:45 min to 4 hours due to a few extra stops, that is starting to cut into it's feasibility. Even if it's still "faster" than a plane, people will be less likely to adopt it.

pkennedy says

Man, a train from SJ to SF in like 15 minutes!
Even every 30 minutes, if the ride goes from 2:45 min to 4 hours due to a few extra stops, that is starting to cut into it’s feasibility. Even if it’s still “faster” than a plane, people will be less likely to adopt it.

I mean only half of trains will make local stops. The rest will do it in 2:45. Also local stops should not be long. Extra 10 minutes per stop is more than enough. Not all of them need to make all local stops. If a train makes 2 it's still about 3 hours. Other local stations may be served by other trains.

Also, you have much more space on a train than on a plain. Easy to add a table, internet connection, power outlet and you can be at work while riding the train. Add a cafeteria.

Don't forget, you need to clear the railroad ahead of you, before you can launch a train past it. That isn't necessarily easy or fast. If you're traveling at 150 miles per hour, you need distance between you and the next train. It's a logistics thing, but I think having that many high speed trains on the tracks, doing strange things like making extra stops could cause issues. Issues which will likely require "safety" measures, which will require slowing down, and/or other tactics.

Also there is a big difference between getting up at 5am (quick shower, drive to station, get on) to get into the city for a 9am meeting,and getting up at 3am. Sure it's more comfortable and less stressful, but time is time.

@PKennedy - You're worrying too much about the logistics. Just import a team from Japan Railways lock, stock, and barrel; everything will be fine! Extremely tight, to-the-second schedules on the Shinkansen, and there's never been a fatality. THere might never have been a crash; I'm not sure.

yeah, I was going to say that the Japanese have their sh-t together.

Shinkansens stop in the station for exactly two minutes. If you can't make it fully in/out the door when it closes, too bad, you'll have a chance to finish your egress/ingress at the next station.

Not really, but they don't mess around.

Also, expresses are planned to blow through stations where the local is waiting (with doors open for local passengers to board) on sidetracks. Pretty intelligent system. Used to live in Kichijoki which has a direct express to Shibuya via the Inokashira line. As long as I made the 8:50 express, I was guaranteed of getting to my 9:30AM shift (which was important cuz if I was late 1 minute there would be hell to pay).

Takes 26 minutes (with four stops along the way) and costs ~$2. 9 miles by surface streets. In Bay Area terms this is Cupertino to Great America in distance.

(edit: ah, Sunday morning teaching english conversation to college kids in Shibuya. Man I loved that shift. Got paid $125 for something I'd do for free )

Another aspect of how "car culture" intrudes into every part of your life. Look at most houses built over the last decade, how many of them around you have a 3-car garage dominating the front face of the house? I see tons of them, all with the entry door (with small porch) shoved off to the side like an afterthought. I like the term "snout" for the 3-car garage, and no house I ever own will have one.

Real Men park in the Yard!

Vicente, that reminds me, don't some municipalities calculate garage space differently from living space when figuring property taxes, with the garage space being cheaper? It would be pretty ridiculous for someone who can't drive a car to have to pay more tax because he converted a useless garage into a regular room!

Yes, and I've seen some laughable attempts to "game" that garage thing. One rental we were looking at even said in the ad that one room was a garage despite having the door replaced by a wall. I believe they were using the space for non-garage purposes but claiming it as garage space on taxes.

Houses where a very short driveway ends in a snouty part of the house still look pretty sad to me. I like old-style houses where the front of the house was good-looking, maybe even had a largish porch to hang out on. The "carriage house" if present should be around the side/back where decent people don't have to look at it. Cars up on blocks OK by me, but should be in the back yard not front.

pkennedy says

I believe first mass production line of cars though was in the US.
Big difference of course! But the gist is we became very dependent on cars very fast.

America was very much a developing society when the automobile was first being mass produced about a hundred years ago. So American society developed around the advantages offered by the car as transportation. America also had a lot of real estate to cover from a transportation stand point. This is especially true from the mid-west to the pacific coast. Europe was already a well-established society and it was more difficult for their society to accommodate personal transportation. The long established cities in Europe often had more narrow streets that were designed to carry foot traffic and horses whereas cities in America were built with cars in mind. It may be true to say as Americans we are more car dependent than in many other countries but that is more a reflection of how our society developed than of a conscious or purposeful choice. It's simply in our social and economic DNA.

Lydia, why did you move to a car-oriented town instead of a big city when you came to the US?

I bike to work just as your husband does; weather is another example of car-centrism. If the roads are too dangerous for cars, work itself will be cancelled, but in a rainstorm -- no problem for a weather-proof car, but a special kind of hell for anyone on a bike -- you're expected to come to work even if you get soaked to the bone on the way. Give us lockers where we can storea spare set of dry clothes, at least! (A locker is many fewer cubic feet than a parking space, so, employers, don't claim that you don't have the money.)

I visited your site, and must give you credit for letting potential clients display search results by Walk Score (few real estate agents offer that!), but if you'll forgive the impertinence, I don't think I would want to buy a house through someone who "can't imagine" what life is like for me every day and what life was once like for your 20-year-younger self. If you're hoping to pull in customers with this first post of yours, perhaps you could try being less insensitive.

Michinaga, we moved to our area because the city life isn't really for us, and we actually had a family friend who invited us to stay at her house for a bit until we saved enough to find a place of our own. We've been here ever since, and it's basically become our home.

I also did not mean to offend, as I was just looking back at our first years here.

Fireballsocal says

I for one couldn’t imagine life without my transportation. I own both a truck and motorcycle as well as several offroad only ATV’s. I had also not thought about this situation from the OP’s perspective. Electric vehicles will be good and cheap enough in the next 10 years that transportation will be available when oil gets to be cost prohibitive. Gasoline at $4.50 a gallon jump started that several years ago. I don’t think that neighborhoods will be ghost towns because gasoline got too expensive. Transportation will just evolve from the combustion engine to electric/fuel cell/Mr. Fusion. Taxes pay for most public parking and even if parking wasn’t paid for via the goods sold, those goods would still have to pay for a bust stop or train depot right?