Divvy My Ride Blog

“So what are intelligent responses to our predicament? First, we’ll have to dramatically reorganize the everyday activities of American life. We’ll have to grow our food closer to home, in a manner that will require more human attention. In fact, agriculture needs to return to the center of economic life. We’ll have to restore local economic networks — the very networks that the big-box stores systematically destroyed — made of fine-grained layers of wholesalers, middlemen and retailers.

We’ll also have to occupy the landscape differently, in traditional towns, villages and small cities. Our giant metroplexes are not going to make it, and the successful places will be ones that encourage local farming.

Fixing the U.S. passenger railroad system is probably the one project we could undertake right away that would have the greatest impact on the country’s oil consumption. The fact that we’re not talking about it — especially in the presidential campaign — shows how confused we are. The airline industry is disintegrating under the enormous pressure of fuel costs. Airlines cannot fire any more employees and have already offloaded their pension obligations and outsourced their repairs. At least five small airlines have filed for bankruptcy protection in the past two months. If we don’t get the passenger trains running again, Americans will be going nowhere five years from now.

We don’t have time to be crybabies about this. The talk on the presidential campaign trail about “hope” has its purpose. We cannot afford to remain befuddled and demoralized. But we must understand that hope is not something applied externally. Real hope resides within us. We generate it — by proving that we are competent, earnest individuals who can discern between wishing and doing, who don’t figure on getting something for nothing and who can be honest about the way the universe really works.

James Howard Kunstler is the author, most recently, of “World Made by Hand,” a novel about America’s post-oil future.”

Read More at the Washington Post

Great Article from http://hotelscheap.org/articles/best-travel-sites.html

I have copied some info here.

1) SideStep – Once upon a time, Sidestep was a PC-only downloadable app that trawled the web for the best airfares. It was worth the custom application annoyance because it really did find the best deals. Today, Sidestep.com is a sleek, ultra-customizable travel search engine that can index results by dozens of variables. Want to search a few nearby airports, but not all? Or leave in the late afternoon and return in the morning? You can even specify whether you want to sort times by takeoff time or by arrival time. Sidestep auto-sorts and live updates results with the click of a checkbox. In our tests today versus Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity, Sidestep still finds the best fares out there. Incidentally, writers at CNN.com, VroomVroomVroom’s Geek Travel Guide and Travel + Leisure all agree with us.

2) Google Maps – Aside from its tie-ins to the entire Google application suite and its ever-increasing map, satellite and street view coverage, the Google Maps/Google Earth network is so thorough that it’s led to domestic lawsuits and censorship by foreign militaries. Recently the site has added click-and-drag route adjustments and terrain views of maps—avoid winding mountain roads—and Google is adding features rapidly. You can download Google Maps for your web-enabled phone for free; carrier usage fees still apply.

3) Farecast – Farecast.com predicts the best dates to buy airfares based on past price trends, but has limited national coverage, and all of its data is U.S. only. In our test of a Labor Day weekend trip from Los Angeles to Des Moines, no predictions were offered, but it recommended to go ahead and buy tickets now (April) for LAX to Boston’s Logan airport for the same dates. Also, the site found some super cheap fares for both trips.

4) SeatGuru – Seatguru.com offers seating charts for more than 300 different aircraft on 45 airlines. If you’re bigger than the average person, hate crying babies, need to have the aisle seat or hate sitting near the wings since you’re always convinced they’re going to fall off, this is your go-to site.

5) Kayak – Travel + Leisure magazine calls Kayak.com the top site overall for booking hotels. Book at more hotels around the world (159,000) than even Hotels.com (70,000) with Kayak’s simple, sleek interface. Some like Kayak for airfares too, but we got the best rates with Sidestep—see #1.

6) Traffic.com – Traffic.com covers 51 metropolitan (i.e. traffic-prone) areas across the U.S. with 0 to 10 jam ratings on local trouble spots. Get warnings about traffic-creating events like concerts, sporting events and natural disasters and sign up for custom SMS, email or cell phone call alerts for traffic flare-ups. There’s also a mobile version.

7) GasBuddy.com – GasBuddy.com finds the best local gas prices in all 50 U.S. states and Canada. Select your state or province, then major metropolitan area, then city, and view a chart of user-reported prices from high to low. Since the prices are user-reported, there’s less data for sparsely populated areas, but with gas prices on the rise, the site has been gaining popularity. The site’s cluttered interface could be cleaned up a bit, but it’s serviceable.

8) Airport Discount Parking – AirportDiscountParking.com’s name says it all. No more circling the lot and hedging your bets. Make reservations—often at a discount over on-site prices—and print coupons to wield at the parking booth.

9-11) Parking Lot Maps – One of the greatest variables in traveling to a new spot is the parking. Will it be more like San Francisco, with $40 a day structures, or like the Midwest, with wide, bare boulevards? Three sites aim at easing the parking pain by mapping parking lots and structures—SpotScout (U.S.), Findacarpark (Australia), and Parkatmyhouse (the U.K.).

12) Trip Advisor – Scout out the best lodgings with user reviews at TripAdvisor.com. Popular properties can attract dozens of review, and it takes some time to learn to distinguish the cranky reviewers who can’t be pleased by anything from the genuinely helpful. Nonetheless, it’s a huge and active user community with plenty to share. (Check out some of the funniest, most negative hotel stays ever here.)

13) Vroom Vroom Vroom – Vroomvroomvroom.com compares car rental prices from major agencies in the U.S., Europe, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Incidentally, Kiplinger.com recommends that Americans rent from major American companies when overseas—it seems to run more smoothly for everyone, they say.

14) Avoid Airport Delays – The recent grounding of planes for wiring inspections only highlights the growing problem of flight delays. Fight the power with Avoiddelays.com, a site from the National Air Traffic Controllers Association aimed at reporting delayed flights and shaming the most frequently offending airports and airlines. Avoiddelays is powered by FlightStats.com, which offers alerts for delayed flights at selected American airports.

15) Last Minute Hotel Reservations - For a spur of the moment getaway, laterooms.com lists last minute deals at hotels and resorts around the world. Availability varies wildly, but hey, you should have thought of that before you put your planning off to the last minute. For a posh whirlwind getaway, also check LuxuryLink.com—some LuxuryLink users have reported savings of up to 70 percent, according to Kiplinger.

16) Track Mileage Expenses – Despite its rather plain-wrap website, BizMileTracker is a major-league, IRS-approved way to quickly compute miles traveled for business. They say they’ve worked with Canon and Ask.com, among others. Currently, they’re offering free memberships but they usually charge $29. If you drive a lot, you’ll save far more than the $29 membership fee in tax deductions.

17) Save on Currency Exchange – Skip the chintzy, touristy currency exchange kiosks that rip you off—Thomas Cook, are you listening? XE.com is an industrial-strength foreign currency conversion rate site. If you travel with a web-enabled device and are scrupulous about getting the best rates, check XE.com frequently. Also check out the New York Times’s advice on saving when exchanging.

18) Travel Light – Written and illustrated like a folksy textbook with tips for the “compleat traveler,” Onebag.com advertises itself as “the art and science of traveling light.” Although Australia-based, the site aims at an international audience with its universal advice.

19) Create Holiday Checklists – Create customized packing lists at British “holiday checklist service” Dontforgetyourtoothbrush.com. Sign up for custom reminder texts—“Did you water the azealas?”—and print and save packing lists customized by your destination and type of trip. Apparently, it works—the site earned the #7 spot on CNN International’s Top Websites of 2007.

20-22) Make Your Phone a GPS Device – Turn your PDA phone into a GPS device with Telenav.com or 3dTracking.net. No longer restricted to the Nextel network, Telenav charges a $9.99 monthly fee (last we checked) for turn-by-turn navigation on a smartphone screen. 3dtracking offers software that monitors the movements of a GPS-enabled phone—perfect for parents keeping an eye on wandering kids. The first device software install is free; adding additional phones requires a fee. Nextel or Boost Mobile users can also check out Accutracking.com.

23) Make the Most of Your Miles – Got frequent flyer miles with multiple airlines or programs, but not enough to actually take a trip? WebFlyer.com aims to translate, transfer or rearrange those useless points into something usable. The site also boasts “the world’s most popular message board for frequent flyers.”

24) Find a Cheap Cruise – Looking to sail away? At CruiseCompete, travel agents vie for cruise package sales in a LendingTree-style setup that has earned plenty of accolades. Both experienced and newbie cruisers can commune on Cruisemates.com, the cruise lifestyle central, or at Cruisecritic.com, which offers a friendly interface. Neither Cruisecritic or Cruisemates is a booking site, but both sites do link to bargain berths around the web.

25) Find a Hostel – If you’re finally ready to bum across Europe—or across the world—reserve cheapie lodgings at Hostelbook.com. Search and book over 9,000 hostels at the site, or use the Facebook Hostels application powered by Hostelbook. Whether you’re bound for sketchy cots or cushy twin bunks, you’re on your way to cheap digs.

If oil hits $200 a barrel, which is the upper end of Goldman Sach’s prediction for prices over the next six months to two years, the gasoline picture changes quite dramatically. At $200 a barrel, crude alone would cost $4.76 a gallon. Add on the costs of refining and distributing as well as taxes, and pump prices could rise to a range of $6 to $7 a gallon.

U.S. drivers haven’t radically changed their behavior, and it is unclear at what price it becomes unprofitable for Americans to go about their usual day-to-day activities, said Eric DeGesero, executive vice president of the Fuel Merchants Association of New Jersey.

“Maybe at $6 or $7 a gallon, it becomes less attractive to go to work,” Mr. DeGesero said. “We haven’t hit that point yet, but we might soon.”

Read more at the WSJ  

An analyst at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Murti has become the talk of the oil market by issuing one sensational forecast after another. A few years ago, rivals scoffed when he predicted oil would breach $100 a barrel. Few are laughing now. Oil shattered yet another record on Tuesday, touching $129.60 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gas at $4 a gallon is arriving just in time for those long summer drives.

Read More at Nytimes.

It baffles me that President Bush would rather go to Saudi Arabia twice in four months and beg the Saudi king for an oil price break than ask the American people to drive 55 miles an hour, buy more fuel-efficient cars or accept a carbon tax or gasoline tax that might actually help free us from what he called our “addiction to oil.”

Read more in the NYtimes op ed by Thomas L Friedman

“DENVER — With the price of gas approaching $4 a gallon, more commuters are abandoning their cars and taking the train or bus instead.

Mass transit ridership was up 8 percent in Denver in the first three months of the year compared with last year, despite a fare increase in January and a slowing economy.

Mass transit systems around the country are seeing standing-room-only crowds on bus lines where seats were once easy to come by. Parking lots at many bus and light rail stations are suddenly overflowing, with commuters in some towns risking a ticket or tow by parking on nearby grassy areas and in vacant lots.”

““We are at a tipping point,” said Clarence W. Marsella, chief executive of the Denver Regional Transportation District, referring to gasoline prices.”

Read More at the Nytimes

Longer Commute times may affect the price of your home. Bye bye suburbia..

Great article on National Public Radio 

Great video on how we will have to redesign the USA cities in the future.