April 11, 2011 Gas Prices Forcing Change, Are You... Yet?

If you drive a car you know about the price of gas. If you read between the lines in the world headlines you realize that the days of $0.99/gal. are long gone. Eventually everyone will start to have to make big changes to their lifestyles to accommodate the required fill ups. You cannot sustain driving everywhere, buying what you want, going out to eat, with an increasing gas price. Something will have to give. I have decided to start changing now.

I drive a 2007 Dodge Durango. I love my car, it fits my personality, my house life and recreational lifestyle. But the last time I filled up, I crossed the $75 mark. Ouch. You drag that out to an average weekly event and the cost adds up. So what can I do? Well the first thing I can do is do more telecommuting. I have posted about this before the benefits of telecommuting, but that's not realistic to work at home all the time... at least in the eyes of my bosses.

The alternative is to look for ways to get 20+ miles to downtown Minneapolis that's easy, frequent, and comfortable. So, I am going to test out services my hard earned tax dollars paid for and take the world famous Twin Cities light rail system. I have only ridden the light rail once before. It was two years ago to a Twins game at the Metrodome. G.D. sardine can. Standing room only, pain in the butt. The next ride I will be taking the morning commute load. Business people who stick to themselves, don't converse, is not all whopped up for a game. I will hop on near the Mall of America which is at the beginning of the line. I'll get a seat, throw on my headphones and read The Daily and the iPad news stories on the way up. People I have talked to love it and live by it. The rail station is a little out of the way, but it's far closer than downtown. I pay for a light rail ride, few bucks, I am not paying for down town parking, $8 a day, and I have to walk a ways to get to my office but I will be saving my own gas.

If the gas prices continue to spike out of control, public transportation will evolve. Local and state governments, outside of the east coast, have treated public transportation as a method for those without the means of getting themselves to the metro areas. Trains and bus routes always seem to go to the more highly dense populated areas and into business areas. This may change by the demand of the people if gas prices exceed a tax hike to pay for a new train line to a suburb. Instead of servicing the urban area, public transportation lines and expansion will be forced to serve the higher taxpaying citizens that live farther out of the business centers. Either that or those suburbs will become hubs of office centers and the metro areas will see their daily influx dwindle away as the smaller cities accommodate and keep their residents nearer to home.

Either way gas prices is just the start of the shift. How will you deal with it? How do you think metro areas and cities should start to look at it? If you are a large enterprise, should you start looking at building satellite offices rather than the model of one large central office... or lose employees?

Something is going to give if gas hits $5/gal, which they say it will be by the fall of this year. What will shatter if regular unleaded gas in the continental U.S. hits $7 gal? Start thinking about it now. If gas is expensive for you, it's expensive for everyone and the prices on everything will begin to reflect that sooner or later as well.

Every little bit will help.

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Posted in: News,People,Technology