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Residents used to 70-mile commutes turn to carpooling, public transport as gas hovers at $4 a gallon. Survey ranks Oklahoma City & Tulsa as vulnerable. (http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/12/news/economy/cities_oil/index.htm?cnn=yes)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/8_Lane_Traffic_Jam.jpgLara Moscrip - CNN/Money - June 12, 2008

Our own Jeff (psyshack) knows this only too well. -- Ed.

For many people in Oklahoma, life is built around the car.

With several refineries in the region, years of cheap fuel have made it possible for many people to live far from their jobs.

Now the situation is unraveling.

Cindy LaBeff, 46, drives 70 miles a day from the small town of McLoud to her job at a data processing center in Oklahoma City… http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/12/news/economy/cities_oil/index.htm?cnn=yes

Man! That is one spread out city! Those folks are really getting a raw deal.
We have pubic transportation in greater Boston, but I'm not so sure it could actually
handle the load, if millions of commuters suddenly ditched their gas hogs.

It sure looks bad for Oklahoma..

I'm not surprised Louisville made the list, although I am surprised Cincinnati didn't.

Louusville is one god-awful mess, with two ring highways (one which is about 70% complete IIRC) and traffic up the wazoo for as far as the eye can see. And to add insult to injury I-71 just inside 265 had a "rough road ahead" sign up. Couldn't they just fix the potholes? :confused:

As to the Cincinnati area, I'll just explain my own situation--the nearest bus stop is one mile away. That bus takes me downtown (an hour) and then I transfer to another bus line where I could go out to class (another hour.)

Four hours round trip, plus walking time.

Or I can drive 15 minutes each way, assuming gas doesn't become prohibitively expensive (be it through rising oil prices, OPEC cutting production or simply the government taxing the hell out of gas like they do in Europe...)

I'm sure bestmapman and lyekka could also comment on the sprawl around these areas... :rolleyes:

People are going to start having to make some hard choices.

People forget that that up until circa 1965, suburban housing was priced according to its proximity to transport (ie bus, trolley, and train lines). The closer to public transport the more valuable the housing was priced.

Up until circa, 1970, the vast majority of households in the US only had one car.

OOO its not that bad. The press once again blowing stuff out. Land mass wise OKC is big. And its surrounding metro is a sprawl. But its not dense and one has a lot of elbow room.

Tulsa is not near as big as OKC. And its more compact.

The wife and I have started carpooling more. Not because we have to. It just seems like the right thing to do. We could drive our selves each in our own car. As we have done for years. But why? We could continue our lifes as if nothing happened well into the $10 gal area without issue. It just seems like the right thing to do. Plus I can keep miles off my Mazda for trade in on a CR-Z. :)

The folks getting hurt here are the ones that have lived beyond there means for years and the very poor. Everybody else is doing ok. We do have some of the cheapist gas in the country because we haven't let the state tax the crap out of it. The down side to this is our roads and bridges are falling apart. And folks are not going to vote up a increase now with soring fuel cost. Many folks in NE/E Oklahoma hate OKC and what it stands for. Myself included. There hasn't been a good idea come out of the capital since statehood. So the battle will rage on.

Many folks are wondering were this recession is. People here are busy as hell. The company I work for is about to expand and grow a great deal. Things over all are really looking good here.

The Okholes are just going to have to learn new ways of getting to where they are going.

"Four hours round trip, plus walking time. Or I can drive 15 minutes each way"??

That sure doesn't sound like much of a choice to me..

If possible, look into alternative ways to make the trip. An old junker bike with
$20 bike lock might save you some time walking to the bus stop.
(That wouldn't work here, because the vandalism is so unrelenting).

Or, you could check out the share-a-ride groups in your area. I've got a buddy at work
who drives in with 3 other guys for a week and then rides free for 3 weeks.
Those guys sure like being able to sleep or read, instead of driving every day.

Their trip is only about 40 miles, but with all the idiots on I-95, it can take well over an hour.
(Sometimes if it snows, 3 or 4 hours)!

If you look at the article's list of cheapest commuting cities - they are generally expensive to live in (NYC, San Francisco). The expensive commute cites tend to be inexpensive to live in.

Delta,

indeed - and the relative gap is likely to increase. This is especially true in places such as Los Angeles where lots of housing exists close to employment & public transport corrdors and lots of housing exists far, far away from 'nodes of economic activity'

expect to a slow but steady change in the relative value of housing - throughout the country as transportation costs get factored into the price of housing

OKC really is ridiculous in terms of how spread out things are. I used to drive 30 miles one-way to work every day-granted it was from a northern suburb to a southern suburb. but even where major highways and big roads cross, there's minimal development. It's a weird feeling going through cities like Austin after you've lived in OKC, where major thoroughfares are developed to the max, commercially.

Around Pittsburgh the biggest jump in sprawl happened when they pulled up the street car tracks. You could in most city neighborhoods live with in three blocks or so of a street car route. As soon as the street cars were taken off the road and replaced with buses the population increase it's rate of leaving the city.
They then finished I-579 north out of the city about 20 years ago and flood gates opened on the northern perimeter of the city and many moved out of not just the city but the county to save on RE taxes.
The main reason around me is the God awful school taxes that many are leaving the county for. Basically you can buy the same house outside the county for $50K less and have half the taxes. Allegheny County RE taxes run 3.2-3.3% of market value. $250K home will cost you at least $8,000 in property taxes per year.
2% are leaving the city and 1% are leaving the county over these taxes each year.
130 Teachers got pink slips last year in the city. 500 to 600 more are getting their walking papers over the next three to four years because of the mass exudes of families out of the city. Average price of a house in the city is now $65,500 and dropping. Nice city but typical northern industrial city killed off by the politicians and the union mentality. They demonized the major employers and those corporations got up and moved out taking thousands of jobs with them.

It's not slow or steady according to what's been in the news lately.
As the cost of gas has shot up, the value of homes that are 50+ miles
from the nearest job hub are falling off pretty fast.

New home buyers have always factored in travel cost. But now it's become a deal-breaker.
I'll bet that a lot of retired Baby Boomers will soon be able to afford to buy some really nice
(one owner) homes, way out in the boondocks..

For us its far cheaper to live outside of Tulsa. Our old house isn't worth a dime and only cost a nickle. The price of car insurance alone would almost double. Our property tax would go through the roof. The chances of having to deal with violent crime and theft go way up in Tulsa. There is just no reason for us to move out of poverty, democrat ridden Okmulgee. I would love it if I could make a living there. But it wont happen. I like the small town feel. You know your neighbors. You know who you trade with. And Tulsa is just 40 miles up the road. In the small town the rich, middle class and poor all drink and eat together. The cowboys and girls get along with the thugs. Its diverse. With blacks, whites, asian, mid. east, hispanic. All types of people in the little town. Some racist,, some not.

I don't think its going to be near as bad as that artical would suggest. OKC will survive and keep doing well. :)