I went to wedding this weekend in upstate New York about 350 miles away from home or so. Since I hardly drive, I had quite a bit of sticker shock as payed to fill my tank. I have 14 gallon tank or there abouts. At $3.10 a gallon that works out to be about $43.40 a tank! Pretty much it was 1 tank of gas each way as I drive a relatively efficient if old 4 cylinder. Most of the time since I take public transportation to work, and play, I hardly think about the price of gas. Most Americans are not lucky enough to be in a position to only think about gas sparingly. Gas is a basic item of consumption without which most Americans could not function. We are wedded to our cars. If going forward we expect gas prices to be as high as they are now if not higher what can we do about it? FinancialZen has some suggestions for things we do lower our overall oil footprint.

Personally my gripe is with urban design, I think we need to go back to the drawing table when it comes how we think about laying out cities and town. Most American cities that have flourished in the last century are the epitome of urban sprawl. Urban sprawl contributes not only to gas consumption, but longer commutes in traffic, and nobody likes traffic. However there are still a few cities in the country that you can live by public transportation: New York, Washington D.C., Boston, Chicago, Portland, San Francisco are on my personal list. EnergyBulletin.com publishes a list of the top 10 cities best prepared for an oil crisis. While in the long term cities and town will adapt, absent that we can always move to a transportation friendly city.

When we accept a a job, we ponder the salary, and weigh the benefits, but we almost never think about what the job costs us personally. Commuting costs is the most direct cost of being employed. According to an ABC poll, the average commute in the US is 16 miles. That’s 32 miles round trip 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year or 7680 miles a year. At $3 a gallon that’s $921.60 year for gas alone. My monthly T-Pass for the subway and buses in Boston costs $59/month for unlimited rides. That works out to a $708 a year. In New York where a ride on the subway is $2 a pop that’s $960 a year. The more significant saving is not gas consumption, but the cost of auto ownership which can be easily over 2-3k a year. However most Americans outside of NYC even if they commute to work via public transportation or by foot or pedal still often choose to own a car (myself included). Though families and couples are often able to own only one car when otherwise they might need two.

The true benefit of living in a city or in manner that decouples your job from a car commute is flexibility. While I’m in general a fan of higher gas prices as it sends the right signal to consumers, I’m also disheartened by the regressive nature of higher gas prices. Consumer gas consumption is relatively inelastic meaning consumption does not substantively go down with higher prices. Consumers cannot choose in general to go to work or not, or to buy groceries. As a result higher prices hurt those who can least afford it the most. As consumer, I want the flexibility to choose which products I consume. If gas prices are high, I want to be able to consume less of it. If gas consumption is tied to getting to work, I can’t do that. One of my principles of budgeting is minimizing recurring mandatory costs such as commuting costs.