Thursday, September 30, 2004

To Sell Or Not To Sell...

With the rising trend of oil prices, it's finally getting closer to the point where it'd be more economical for me to go to uni by public transport. My beast of a holden commodore station wagon gets roughly 10/11km a litre, and uni's a 60k return trip, so it's been $6 or so per trip with prices around $1/L. Public transport on the other hand, would cost $8.50 a trip, and extended waiting periods would ensue. With some analysts predicting barrel prices to hit $70US by the end of the year, the cost of petrol would rise to about $1.61/L, or $9.65 a trip. I'd save roughly $50 a semester using public transport.

yet the main problem with this is the waiting times - I can lose up to two hours waiting for connections each day, or 6 hours every week that i could be earning $100 at my current job. If more of a focus was put on public transport, especially bringing a govt bus service to my region, then things would be different - it'd knock $4/trip off the cost of public transport. instead, the federal members of parliment servicing the region keep throwing money into widening the freeway, despite the unavoidable bottleneck at the end in the city.

Rising costs of Oil won't change much in consumption, as demand will remain while public transport is so inefficient. instead, it reduces consumer spending on goods other than energy, leading to recession. Greater government investment in public transport could see a longer lasting preventative measure than tax cuts - reducing the effect that fluctuacting oil prices has on the economy as use is reduced. that, and the various taxing methods suggested to curb SUVs...
posted by Keegan at 1:14 pm

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