As I mentioned in the past, our employer is kind of out in the country and many employees live in West Knoxville. Well this week they announced that they are going to provide a bus service to work. It won't be as flexible or as nice as our service (i.e. we've got nice cloth seats and an internet connection while-u-wait, AND its closer to home) but its got us concerned...not that we're petty, but we took a lot of risk and are making some financial sacrifices to provide our coop commuter service (we REALLY need an acronym...any advice?) We have a meeting scheduled to see if we can get some kind of "sponorship", I hope they're willing to help us.
But this is really the least of our worries now. The shortages have me MAJORLY concerned. Since I've followed Peak Oil, its made me aware of our massive dependence on cheap energy and the benefits it provides us. Shortages are not part of that ideal world. I tried to sleep last night and couldn't, the most familiar analogy I have is Sept.11, when I wondered if that day would be an anomaly or the shape of things to come.
Needless to say, we've canceled our beach trip...
Showing posts with label commute. Show all posts
Showing posts with label commute. Show all posts
Monday, May 7, 2007
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Life's a Beach, seriously
(week 7 notes)
Well with the spiking gas prices we thought we'd change our usual Fall trip to Myrtle Beach to NOW. The trip is about 400 miles...in our van, that's 16 gallons, still not a steep price to pay although EVERYTHING is getting more expensive. We called the place we usually stay, which is a hodge-podge collection of cabins and beach houses, and prices there are a bit cheaper than normal because they're having a lot of cancellations. So we made a deposit and are planning on leaving in a month.
But, with the recent news of SHORTAGES, we may well EAT our deposit. While I can think of worse places to get stuck than there, not being able to get gas would be MAJOR. We may well just wait until the last minute, see how things are going, and decide THEN. We can get there on a single tank, so if we can get a full tank we'll do it and then fill up again the first chance we get. We'll have to see.
Meanwhile, the commuter co-op is going fine. Some of our members are getting concerned about their projects. Mine is pretty set for at least the rest of the fiscal year, but about 1/4 of us are worried their current funding will get cut and redirected to other efforts. Typically our company keeps people on for a while without funding but this may be an exception. If our numbers are true of the whole place, 25% unfunded would mean SERIOUS layoffs FAST. We failed to put a provision in our contracts about layoffs, so presumably people would have to keep paying their monthly membership fee. But I doubt anyone who got laid-off would pay. We may be able to replace them with non-members, but everyone is concerned about our fellow workers and our OWN positions. If I got laid off, we have some savings but we won't last long before we have to start skipping car payments and house payments.
Finally, we are taking steps to secure the van. We have some fears that diesels will be more popular in the coming weeks, even a big-honking thing like ours.
Well with the spiking gas prices we thought we'd change our usual Fall trip to Myrtle Beach to NOW. The trip is about 400 miles...in our van, that's 16 gallons, still not a steep price to pay although EVERYTHING is getting more expensive. We called the place we usually stay, which is a hodge-podge collection of cabins and beach houses, and prices there are a bit cheaper than normal because they're having a lot of cancellations. So we made a deposit and are planning on leaving in a month.
But, with the recent news of SHORTAGES, we may well EAT our deposit. While I can think of worse places to get stuck than there, not being able to get gas would be MAJOR. We may well just wait until the last minute, see how things are going, and decide THEN. We can get there on a single tank, so if we can get a full tank we'll do it and then fill up again the first chance we get. We'll have to see.
Meanwhile, the commuter co-op is going fine. Some of our members are getting concerned about their projects. Mine is pretty set for at least the rest of the fiscal year, but about 1/4 of us are worried their current funding will get cut and redirected to other efforts. Typically our company keeps people on for a while without funding but this may be an exception. If our numbers are true of the whole place, 25% unfunded would mean SERIOUS layoffs FAST. We failed to put a provision in our contracts about layoffs, so presumably people would have to keep paying their monthly membership fee. But I doubt anyone who got laid-off would pay. We may be able to replace them with non-members, but everyone is concerned about our fellow workers and our OWN positions. If I got laid off, we have some savings but we won't last long before we have to start skipping car payments and house payments.
Finally, we are taking steps to secure the van. We have some fears that diesels will be more popular in the coming weeks, even a big-honking thing like ours.
Friday, May 4, 2007
Die-off donuts and Coop Carpool Non-Profit
One thing I told the carpool buddies is the "die-off" theory, that without cheap oil we'll have a massive die-off of the human population. I don't know if that's true or not, its rather scary for sure. However, some websites that discuss peak-oil almost seem gleeful about it...like overweight people are gonna have a hard time putting up with less food (see, for example, http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=1 which admittedly refers more to water supply issues in light of infrastructure breakdown following peak oil).
Frankly, I suspect we'll all benefit from less food, here in the USA anyway, at least for a while. But for us who aren't overweight, less food may eventually mean we get weaker FASTER. I remember an episode of "survivor" when the original guys went back to the island for an all-star episode. That Richard Hatch guy had bulked up for it by eating a lot. He even said at one point that the skinnier people were going to have a hard time of it.
So, in recognition of this, we have designated Fridays as "Die Off Donut" day. We get a dozen and each of us bulks up with 4 of them on the way in.
The only bad thing is they cost more. It DOES seem like everything is costing more lately. This should not be a surprise since transport costs are rising and they have to pass the buck on somehow.
Meanwhile, on the Cooperative Carpool front (I need a good acronym!)...a bulk email looking for folks at work who live near our part of West Knoxville yielded great results. We won't have any problem rounding up 10 - 12 or even more people who want to participate. I'm looking into forming a non-profit, getting a van, and getting this thing in gear. Our employer, who does a lot of work for Dept of Energy, is pushing for 4-10 schedules (4 days a week, 10 hours a day) and we are considering this as well. This would push our gas charges down 20% and perhaps we could charge less each month.
Frankly, I suspect we'll all benefit from less food, here in the USA anyway, at least for a while. But for us who aren't overweight, less food may eventually mean we get weaker FASTER. I remember an episode of "survivor" when the original guys went back to the island for an all-star episode. That Richard Hatch guy had bulked up for it by eating a lot. He even said at one point that the skinnier people were going to have a hard time of it.
So, in recognition of this, we have designated Fridays as "Die Off Donut" day. We get a dozen and each of us bulks up with 4 of them on the way in.
The only bad thing is they cost more. It DOES seem like everything is costing more lately. This should not be a surprise since transport costs are rising and they have to pass the buck on somehow.
Meanwhile, on the Cooperative Carpool front (I need a good acronym!)...a bulk email looking for folks at work who live near our part of West Knoxville yielded great results. We won't have any problem rounding up 10 - 12 or even more people who want to participate. I'm looking into forming a non-profit, getting a van, and getting this thing in gear. Our employer, who does a lot of work for Dept of Energy, is pushing for 4-10 schedules (4 days a week, 10 hours a day) and we are considering this as well. This would push our gas charges down 20% and perhaps we could charge less each month.
0 to 60 in...60 seconds
Since our work facility is out in the country we talked about forming a cooperative and maybe getting a 15 passenger van. If we can get enough folks in our area to pay into it, maybe we could form a collective, get a big van like a Chevy Experess, and have a massive carpool. We could park it in West Knoxville and maybe take it in from 7 to 5. While In-Motion 2-Way satellite transmission wouldn't be an option, we could provide a Datastorm satellite connection with Direcway and provide internet access while we wait from 6 to 7, then drive it in, be at work at 7.30, then head home again at 4.30, which is a shorter day than most of us work but probably still doable. I bet we could get a local church to let us use their parking lot.
Figuring out the monthly fee would be an issue, I guess, it depends on insurance costs, number of participants, etc. If we get a regular car loan, 10 people would probably have to pay about $50 a month for the vehicle & insurance. Gas charges would be high: think about it: 60 miles per day, at 15 mpg requires 4 gallons a day. At $5 per gallon that's $20 a day or 2 per person. At $10 per gallon we're looking at $4 per person. Per week, $10 to $20...per YEAR, $500 to $1000, or $40 to $80 per month. I bet we could charge everyone $125 per month and we'd be fine for the first year.
They have a natural gas conversion-ready engine option available so we could power it with natural gas if we wanted to, although that will probably get more expensive too. I wonder if they have a diesel option? I didn't see it in the options.
This is worth looking into!
Express Van from Edmunds website
Image from
http://www.edmunds.com/new/2007/chevrolet/express/index.html#
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