The World Without Oil site is reporting gas prices of US$4.45/gal, that is CAD$1.30/liter for all of us using the metric system north of the border. In Canada, the impact hasn’t been felt as quickly as in the U.S., but the various newspapers are reporting alarming price hikes all over the country with residents of the Vancouver area dealing with CAD$1.28 already, according to The Globe & Mail. The snapshot to the right from the Toronto Star reports:
Gasoline prices in the province are at a nine-month high [...] In February, prices spiked above $1 per litre after a fire at Imperial Oil Ltd’s Nanticoke refinery restricted supply in Ontario. A temporary blip, we were told. Once that mess was cleaned up, the expectation was that prices would inch lower. Or not. Industry experts say the Nanticoke fire merely masked a larger problem south of the border [...] The U.S. Energy Department said last week that U.S. gasoline stockpiles fell by another 2.8 million barrels to an 18-month low.
I wonder what the threshold of tolerance for the common citizen is. How high must prices go up before triggering the panic button and effecting some change. Lack of supply certainly modified behaviour for just a few days. People left cars at home and struggled with public transit or other means of transportation. But nobody seems to react to these prices yet. People just take the hit.
This is a perfect scenario that justifies the efforts of building a community of global citizens, that by leveraging their knowledge about tactics to deal with this situation abroad can enlighten us a little bit. Anybody out there?
Disclaimer: while this post is intended to participate in the Alternate Reality Game of World Without Oil, all the information provided is real and current to the best of my knowledge. This is a perfect example of reality meets fiction.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Matt // May 2, 2007 at 3:10 pm
To your point, hasn’t europe already struggled through and dealt with rising oil prices already? They have smaller cars and larger transportation networks (in general) as a result. While I don’t agree with price gouging, I don’t mind increasing fuel prices - it’s about the only thing that forces people to think about conservation…. (apart from the terrible idea of repealing gas taxes).
2 Manuel // May 3, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Matt, in Toronto, using the transit system outside of downtown is a living hell. While my first intention was not having a car, after I endured 135 minutes from home to work, with 65 of those waiting for the bus with a mile of ice over me, I decided to buy a car, which reduced the time to 45 minutes.
It is a coincidence that I started biking today to work, now in other location, but what compelled me was the price of parking, not gas! I of course hope that prices will go down, but I understand that we need a real transportation system before changing attitudes…
3 juan // May 3, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Matt: good point. I found a reference to an article citing US$7/gallon in Amsterdam! Certainly they have adapted in a number of ways.
Manuel: I believe there were some discussions about renewing the bike paths across the city. There are some passionate people about this in the city council, which I guess is good news. It would be so good to count with a bike network as sophisticated as the one Amsterdam has (of course we’ll have to endure the hills).
4 Jeff Williams // May 4, 2007 at 1:54 am
In NSW Australia our price works out to be around $5.25 plus per gallon and has been for more then 12 months. At 1 stage it was just under $6.00 a gallon. The thing that shits me off is we only import less than 70% however we have to pay the same per barrel as you do in the states. GREEDY governments both state and federal.. Cheers from Jeff DownUnder..
5 Matt // May 4, 2007 at 9:40 am
Manuel, I agree that our transit system outside of the core is not ideal. Making it better is sort of a catch 22 - without riders, they won’t push for improvements. Without improvements, no one will ride. Having lived outside of the core most of my life, and experiencing a 60 minute driving commute in the past, I now live and work within walking distance of a subway station.
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