Quote:
Originally Posted by kevman
How much higher are we talking? Gas is still pretty cheap when you compare it to vehicle costs. Way less than half of my yearly vehicle ownership costs or less than 2% of my total annual spending is used on gas. In reality if the price of gas doubled I would drive just as much. I would still drive to the mountains every weekend and I would still drive to the mall when I need to shop.
Lets look at some numbers... If the average city driver in Calgary is only driving 8km/day he's only spending about $2/day in an SUV or $1/day in a Civic on gas. (based on 400km/tank city @ $100 tank in the SUV and $50 tank in the Civic) Now staying in Calgary lets consider that parking is $25 a day. So as it stands the SUV driver pays $27 a day and the Civic driver pays $26 a day. If the price of gas were to double that SUV driver would pay $29 a day and the Civic driver $27 a day. Do you honestly think this is enough to move people away form driving?
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I'm not sure what the magic number is that would cause many people to abandon their cars, but no doubt someone has done a study on that.
As I'm sure you're aware, when gas was around the $1.50/L mark earlier this summer, there was a measurable decline in North American fuel consumption. To my knowledge, this is the first time when the price of gas has actually had an impact on driving habits in NA.