Tube City Almanac

September 01, 2005

Can You Say ‘Gouge,’ Boys and Girls?

Category: default || By jt3y

Someone called me yesterday to report that gas prices in his neighborhood had gone up twice during the day ... once in the morning, once in the afternoon. I didn't believe it until I saw it with my own eyes. (Details at the Gas Gauge.)

It is not true, by the way, that "Pay at Pump" signs are being replaced by "Rape at Pump," but you might want to keep your car keys poking through your fingers, and your pepper spray within easy reach, just in case.

By the way, does anyone but me think that it was a bad idea for the government to allow all of the big oil companies --- Chevron and Texaco, Exxon and Mobil, Conoco and Phillips, BP and Amoco --- to merge? If competition lowers prices, then it seems to me that a lack of competition causes prices to go up.

Anyway, I don't like it, but I'll deal with it, probably by cutting out some non-essential activities, like bathing. (Rimshot.)

It's going to be harder to face the inflationary pressure this is going to put on everything else, especially food, most of which moves by truck. It's not sufficient to just tell people to "carpool" or "use public transportation." Should they stop eating, too? When milk (which is hauled in tractor-trailers and comes from cows raised by dairy farmers who use trucks and tractors) hits $4.50 a gallon, should we tell the kids to put water on their cereal?

Luckily, salaries are rising to keep pace with costs.

What's that, you say? They're not? Oh, never mind.

One could say that we're too dependent on automobiles and fossil fuels, and one would be correct, but pointing out that obvious fact doesn't help in the short term. (That doesn't stop some people, of course.)

On the other hand, bloody little is being done in the long term, either, and maybe another gas crisis will finally motivate people to demand that the government develop alternative fuels.

And maybe they'll demand better public transportation and zoning codes that encourage dense development with sidewalks that people can actually use.

And maybe monkeys will fly out of my earholes.

In a related story, Pat Cloonan reports in last night's Daily News that the Port Authority is cutting nearly half of the daily runs that the 61C bus makes from Our Fair City through Duquesne and Homestead to Picksberg via Oakland.

The Port Authority says that people can still use the 56C or the flyers to downtown Picksberg, but that's not who uses the 61C most heavily, in my experience. The usual riders from the Mon-Yough area are students commuting to school in Oakland and people commuting to jobs at the hospitals and the Waterfront in Homestead. The 56C helps them not at all.

So, let's review: The same week that gas prices jumped 50 cents a gallon, the Port Authority is cutting one of the few alternative means of transportation for people from the Mon-Yough area to get into Allegheny County's second-most important business district.

The Port Authority is making these cuts to reduce costs at a time when the state Legislature refuses to find funding for public transportation.

Is this a good time to remind everyone that many of your local state legislators, including Rep. Ken Ruffing of West Mifflin, Rep. Paul Costa of Wilkins Township, Sen. Joe Markosek of Monroeville, and Sen. Jay Costa Jr. of Forest Hills just voted themselves giant pay raises?

Why, I think it's an excellent time!

(That's "Ruffing", two "Costas" and a "Markosek." You may want to keep those first two names handy next year when you go to the polls.)

It is nice to see, of course, that the public sector is finally taking lessons from the private sector. In this case, the state Legislature has apparently taken a lesson in gouging people from the oil companies.






Your Comments are Welcome!

I stopped to get gas yesterday around 2PM with my Mum in the car. I got $15 worth (because I didn’t feel much like spending the full $33 or so it takes to fill my very small economical vehicle) when Mum sez, “you really should fill it up because it’s going up again by tomorrow.” So I heeded her warning & filled the tank all the way up… & wouldn’t you know it, Mum was right. By 5:30PM that same station had gone up 10 cents to $2.69 per gallon. That was their 2nd increase in a 24 hour period too.
jet (URL) - September 01, 2005




Well Wednesday morning the gas at the BP was 2.49 when I passed it and jumped to 2.69 on the way home. Thursday morning it was 2.99, and was at 3.18 when I passed it that night. Still holding at 3.18 this morning…I just can’t wait to see it after this afternoon.
Arden - September 02, 2005




Last night at midnight our local AM/PM was out of gas. That didn’t quell a drug deal that was taking place on its grounds, but that’s a subject for a different day. I wonder if we will be permanently thrust into a ’70’s-esque gas crisis, or only temporarily. Gas shortages fortell economic doom; these are some crazy times…....
heather - September 02, 2005




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