am sorry, but $4/gallon in 2026 is a fucking joke.

[lf_araujo@mastodon.social]

@blogdiva @fsinn Paid 4.9 today

[dnkboston@apobangpo.space]

@krutonium hey, dingus, people like farmers would actually love public transit busses because they know better than anyone else how expensive gasoline is as they're getting squeezed every which way. They use cars because they don't have a choice, not because it "makes sense" @blogdiva @Uair

[mxchara@seattle.pink]

@krutonium @blogdiva @Uair shit, may as well rip up the road too, wasting money on maintaining a road into "the middle of nowhere" must surely be far more costly than keeping a bus running

[accordionbruce@mastodon.social]

@blogdiva
With you, but damn, search engines have become useless for looking up phrases like “Islands of totalism”

AI has ruined the web. Flooded it with slop, while muddying search with algorithmic junk

[azuaron@cyberpunk.lol]

@MannyDexter @blogdiva Yeah, I believe that's the video where he brings up that we could replace all corn farms for ethanol--not corn for food, just the corn we grow to throw ethanol in our gas--with solar panels and supply ALL of the electricity for the ENTIRE United States.

[anachronistjohn@zia.io]

@lf_araujo @blogdiva @fsinn paid $6.7 the other day. I’m glad I get 45 MPG - in a 45 year old car!

Sometimes I wonder about the kind of fuel efficiency we could have if car makers cared about that instead of stupid features and designs that mean that a steep driveway will cause scraping.

[marisa@mastodon.scot]

@blogdiva this....

[andymoose@fedi.aiga.rocks]

@blogdiva @kkarhan It’s $5.62 a gallon here in Vancouver if I’ve done the conversion right ($2.07 CAD per litre). This is going to make food so expensive, but also I’m laughing at all the giant pickup truck drivers who make it their entire personality.

[atraidez@infosec.exchange]

@blogdiva cook

[flipper@mastodonapp.uk]

@blogdiva
How are we supposed to flee from the scary brown people without a car? Ummm... I mean have freedom to choose our schools for our children, or something like that.

@krutonium @Uair

[mwyman@mastodon.social]

@Uair @blogdiva America also needs to use the funds to build public parks and green space in cities. Many of cities are atrocious at having safe outdoor green spaces for kids (and adults).

[mausmalone@mastodon.social]

@GrumpusNation @blogdiva and oil is a non-renewable resource, whereas apple juice literally grows on trees.

[psoul@sfba.social]

@blogdiva amen. When are you running for office because killing the suburbs is on my agenda, too!

The only draw back with $20/gal gas prices is that if oil is expensive then coal isn’t and that is a problem.

[mausmalone@mastodon.social]

@blogdiva it's a but of a tangent but I hate the word "suburb." It's so vague as to be completely useless. It's everything that isn't a major city center but also not wilderness or farmland.

It's how towns like mine justify not providing the public transit and bike infrastructure they should despite having a population density higher than most of Chicago.

[katrinakatrinka@infosec.exchange]

@blogdiva
Auto dealership owners have been the local donors for GOP politicians for decades. They keep us from as much public transportation as they can.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/05/wheeling-and-dealing-how-auto-dealers-put-the-brakes-on-direct-sales.html

[antdude@mastodon.social]

@blogdiva We need (t(ele/rans)porter/portal)s!

[cwicseolfor@zeroes.ca]

@blogdiva We need a transition out and fast. This government won’t give it to us, though, preferring the havoc they’re creating. But streetcars? Small mass transit combined with as much telework as practicable (including public coworking spaces for those who prefer them)? More local delivery (à la ice, milk, meat trucks of yore, but with the benefit of preorder online)? More gardening collectives by neighborhood to make use of the often-arable soils cities are sited over? These things could be done with the existing structures while we begin pivoting the architecture. The houses aren’t built to last more than a century, we can turn things over in place and mitigate the shock that always ends up crushing the poor first.

[letscallhimsteve@mastodon.social]

@blogdiva " gas was $7/g̶a̶l̶l̶o̶n̶ litre"... Gas it's barely $2.50 per liter in 2026. In the ‘90s, it was under $1 per liter in Europe FYI

[kzodasnowman@spore.social]

@blogdiva $20? Let's go for $40!!!

[abramkedge@beige.party]

@blogdiva In the US it was a 1.5 mile walk to our nearest coffee shop, which was the closest shop of any kind - I walked to the cafe only about three times in more than ten years. I was sick of having to get in the car for every single errand.

When I moved back to the UK, I spent three weeks traveling by bus and train to different towns and cities. I found a perfect walkable place with good transport links and a lively high street, but there are an awful lot of towns with abandoned centres and out of town retail parks with limited if any bus services. Away from the major population centres, it would be difficult to cope without a car.

I'm coming up to three years happily car-free, but the UK could still use more effort revitalising towns and improving public transport links.

I spoke to shop owners in my travels, the main problem that they shared was extortionate shop rents. For tax reasons, it seems the property owners literally do not care if the shop is empty or occupied. I suspect also that the "value" of the building is related to the rent cost - whether or not there are tenants.

Another town (Harlow, where I lived as a kid) used to have a thriving shopping centre and a large busy market. The town council decided to use the market stall space rents as a revenue stream. Within a few years the market was gone. Now, the market square with its almost entirely gutted surrounding shops looks like a set from The Walking Dead.