As gas prices continue to soar ever upward I was wondering to myself as I filled my gas guzzling SUV with $50 worth of gas this morning (it used to cost $30 in my not too distant memory) what I could do about changing my work commute set up. Back in my native England my family quite rightly complain about high gas prices, just like we do here, except at over $8 a Gallon they have good reason to do so! Now you know why we drive such small cars over there.

So here are my options to get from Montara to the City

1. Buy a hybrid
2. Buy a motorcycle
3. Take public transport
4. Car share
5. Stick with my SUV

And here are the issues I face with these options:

1. Hybrid - I would have to sell my SUV (which I have just finished paying for and would take a huge $ hit) another car payment is not viable at the moment plus it’s just consuming more materials to buy another new vehicle, I figure it’s better to use my SUV until it dies on me.

2. Buy a motorcycle - This was my chosen commute method in the UK, trouble is over here I would fear for my life on the Bayarea roads (bad drivers galore). Big plus points are no traffic jams, no parking costs and high MPG returns. They also have negligible impact on road wear and tear and consume little materials to make.

3. Public transport - This would be another preferred choice but it’s extremely difficult and complicated to get to my destination in the city from Montara, so no go.

4. Car share - I work odd hours, no one would take me.

5. Keep the SUV - Even with higher gas prices and 14 MPG, is it better to keep using the thing until it dies? Or is it better to dump the thing on the used car market and consume another more efficient product? Aggghhh! I don’t know!

So as the $5 a gallon gas price fast approaches, and it will be here very soon, I continue to ponder my options. I would love to take public transport, if any were available for my needs.

I think I’ll probably end up with a motorcycle. Has anyone ever seen any environmental impact comparison studies between a new Hybrid and a new motorcycle? Taking into consideration the materials needed to build, emissions, unit life-span, maintenance etc?

Anyone else been thinking about City commute alternatives?

Kevin

Perhaps another option?

If you can afford the “huge hit” of selling your SUV why not consider buying a used commuter car? Something small in the $5k-10k range? Keep the SUV for trips or for whatever reason you bought it for. Commute with the small car.

—Darin

I might do that Darin, but get a motorcycle instead. Keeping the Jeep just for those off road trips in Utah!

Kevin

No easy answer to this one. Forget SamTrans as far as realistic work commuting goes—they have had decades of suggestions and whatnot for the midcoast. They just don’t get it and are politically structured so they never will.

Had a similar problem and finally gave up my derelict pickup for a little putt-putt Toyota Tercel, used, at the beginning of the year. This more than doubled my mileage and, because the pickup was a Ford Ranger, improved the reliability of my ride immeasureably. Really miss the small pickup for hauling things but not for the cost of gas to fill the twin tanks, even though I only commute to Pacifica. In line with Darin’s suggestion for a small commuter car, one can find some Toyota Tercels, Honda Civic DX’s, and even Honda CRX’s (stay away from one’s that have been modified) in pretty good condition with some effort. Craig’s List is a good place to start a search. Motorcycle? You’ll be back in your piggy SUV on bad-weather days or dead because a bad driver crunched you while lane-splitting.

Carl May

Carl,

I drove my motorcycle for 20 years through everything the British Winter could throw at me, a little warm Bay Area rain won’t bother me. I take your point about the death bit though! Maybe I will go for the cheap, cheap tiny car. Sadly, it’s a real pity that we don’t have any public transport that’s a viable city commute option.

Kevin

“I would say 2nd hand economy car.” except I attended MakeFair this weekend.

First; on the “car choice” I saw electric bicycles with 8 to 10 mile range for $1200.

“That is not quite your solution but wait… there is more!” as the ads say.

I was listening and trying to pick up ideas about how to implement autonomous vehicle technology. The MakeFair had experimental Jules Verne recreational vehicles, robots, cocktail serving robots, and some turn-me-green successful updated counter-culture escapees.

So here is the second thought:

If you could find five people you like to pay you $2 each for a ride to San Francisco you could afford to drive your existing truck or SUV.. Here is a scenario that lets you drive your existing vehicle and the main thing required is a laptop with a GPS

The conventional conclusion is ride-sharing systems built on Craigslist postings or static ride sharing websites are a little too clumsy. The killer weakness in ridesharing solutions is arranging rides back home. Static sharing fails as drivers and passengers often need to do errands and side trips..

So what we need is a ride sharing system that works in near real time. Suppose you gas up your SUV in El Granada (say a stinging $90 for a tank of ethanol). Then you turn on your “Semi autonomous vehicle trip computer” and you punch in your destination. Say 21245 Golden Gate Bridge Avenue. Your trip computer wirelessly connects to a trip server service (a service that figures out routes between points
and when two travelers share a route segment.

Meanwhile up the road in Moss Beach, a person who wants to ride share turns on her Cell telephone with a global positioning system location detector and starts her ride-sharing-program. Her ridesharing program also uses the autonomous vehicle trip description language. She punches in her destination (and the phone itself transmits her current location), and the number of dollars she offers for a ride.. Her ridesharing program calls the trip server service.

So the tripserver sends your vehicle computer the ridesharing offer, as you drive up the road. The tripserver also identifies three more Moss beach people who will also pay you for a partial trip. One of these riders is going to Safeway in Pacifica. Another rider (whose destination is Skyline College) rides with you to Sharp Park Road offramp. A third rider pays you for a ride to San Francisco State. The actual transfer of money from riders to you is handled by the tripserver service.

By raising the passenger load of your vehicle from 1 passenger to roughly 4 pasengers, the energy expenditure per passenger mile is dramatically reduced. The ridesharing scheme might pick up 1/2 to 3/4 of the associated vehicle costs.

All the technology I have described is plausible and realistic.
The key components required are computers , preferably running open source software. The interesting thing is what is the data structure required to pass around trip.

Yikes….....I think walking would be faster.

Back in the 1979 energy crisis I studied the Los Angeles public bus system. A specific problem I looked at was “Why do people overwhelmingly choose to use their private automobile rather than take the public bus?”

It turns out that in bus travel 28 to 31% of the total trip time was walking time. That large fraction of time spent walking appeared early in an entire month of time studies.

The LA Bus system had been designed with service standards that evened out access all over Los Angeles county.. A typical bus trip usually had 3 to 5 blocks of walking.

So one of the problems with a “ride share” scheme is how do you design the beginning of the trip for a short walk and how do you design the end of the shared trip for a short walk.

The 4 cylinder economy car was the main visible component of the resolution of the 1973 and 1979 energy crises.

One new component available for the 2007 CO1/energy crisis is global positioning systems, laptop computers and wireless network connections. These tools are available to assist us with the new version of the “energy crisis”.