ChatterBank1 min ago
gas prices
Im an American, and currently in New York State we a paying a minimum of $3.02 per gallon, and as much a $3.22 per gallon. I am interested in hearing what other couhtries are paying. If you'd like to add anything reguarding public transportation in you're area, that would be much appreciated also ;)
Answers
No best answer has yet been selected by dancealot13. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.Public transportation is available, but I dont think it is as highly used as it could be. London and its environs make a great deal of use of the trains, underground and buses etc, but London is probably is more of an exception rather than a rule.
There is still a widely held perception by the public that public transport is inconvenient, dirty, and expensive. I also think there is a cultural issue, that Brits as a whole are quite reserved, and therefore that the thought of having to share space with strangers is not a nice one :)
Interesting stuff really but I don't think the fact that the UK has a 'free' NHS is the reason that prices in the UK are so high. After all dancealot you do have free health care in the US also. One of the obvious reasons your 'gas' is so cheap is that it is not only do you have vast quantities of it but it is relativley easily accessible being in the ground.
orway which produces a lot of oil, some 11% of its GNP, charge more per domestic litre than the UK. It is because they want to keep the number of vehicles on the roads as few as possible. Not only that but for the same reason their tax levy on new cars is fiercesome. So aren't you lucky in the USA. Enjoy it whilst you can cos it ain't gonna last forever.
Parks- We do not have free health care by any means in USA. I am a single healthy 24 year old women, I make $20,000 a year at the moment :( and I pay $60 A WEEK, for health care. If you make under $7,000 a year in America......then you are eligable for government health care. That is what I had when I was in college, and I had to fight to get that. I lost it the following year.
The reason I asked about your health care in regards to your gas prices, is because in Canada they pay very similar to what LazyGun mentioned,...but some of that money goes to Canada's Free health care system. I thought it may be similar.
Not that it is too relevant but it was the basic low wage level care that I was thinking of.
You may be interested to know that on the Dental side of things in the UK free care is now virtually only provided to children and those who are really poor. That is assuming that one is able to find a Dental Surgeon who will provide Health Service care in the first place.
LazyGun's exchange rate isn't particularly accurate. (It's currently 1.8579). With petrol (gasoline) at my local filling station selling for 96.9p per litre, that equates to $6.80 per US gallon.
Public transport services vary greatly throughout the UK. In the West Midlands (that's the area around Birmingham), for example, bus services are frequent and cheap; there are also cheap local rail services.
Where I live in one of the semi-rural parts of the county of Suffolk, we have a reasonable bus service into the nearest big town. (Every half hour during the day, hourly during the evening and Sundays). For a journey of 8 miles, the return fare is �3.20. (About $6).
Some of the really rural parts of this county, however, have only one bus, in each direction, per month! (e.g. there might be a bus into the nearest town, and back again a few hours later, on the 3rd Tuesday of the month!).
About 40 years ago, the government of the day 'rationalised' Britain's railways. This left the country with a series of main lines radiating out from London (with local lines branching off from these) but with very few lines running transversely across the main lines. (i.e. someone who wants to travel, by rail, a distance of 80 miles from east to west, might find it necessary to take a journey covering nearly twice that distance, travelling via London).
Londoners like to moan about their public transport system but there are frequent buses and/or underground trains throughout most of the capital. Most people use a pre-pay system (known as 'Oyster') which means that bus journeys, of any length cost �1 ($1.85) at peak times and �0.80 ($1.50) at other times. There's also a guarantee that, however many bus journeys are taken, the total charge won't exceeed �3 ($5.60) for any one day.
There's a similar system for tube fares in London but it's more complex because there are a number of different zones. As a guide, I'll state that, for Oyster users, any journeys in central London cost �1.50 ($2.80). For travel entirely within central London, there's a maximum daily charge of �4.40 ($8.20) if all travel is off-peak or �5.70 ($10.60) including peak-time travel.
I'm sorry that this has been such a long-winded answer but public transport provision (and pricing) varies so much throughout the UK that a brief answer couldn't provide an accurate picture.
Chris
Not quite as simple as all that due to the greater distances in the US .
For instance New York to Los Angeles is about 2400 miles travelling in a Ford Taurus doing 25mpg you're looking at what 100 gallons say $300.
To travel from Plymouth to Aberdeen is about 650 miles which in a Ford Mondeo doing 32 Mpg is 21 gallons or roughly �95 or about $170
So it costs roughly twice as much to drive from one side of the US to the other than it does to travel from one side of the UK to the other.
Good comparison jake-the-peg, my brother lives in Canada and faces a 490 mile round trip trip just to visit the nearest super market.
Can't remember what his weekly health care contribution was but the last time I was over there I went to pick up a six item prescription for him (Same 490 mile round trip) and it cost $450 Canadian. (Just over �200)
Petrol [gas] is anywhere between $A1.30 & $A1.40+ a litre in Australia at present - perhaps someone can do the conversions for me. It's very erratic & can rise 10c or more overnight, & there are considerable differences between the various states. Also, country areas pay more and prices are beginning to rise because of transport costs.
Diesel is just steadily rising, no fluctuations, & now at $A1.50 per litre - our 4WD runs on diesel so we only use it on long trips for good consumption - Australia imports more diesel powered cars we hope the price may become more reasonable.
Public transport is adequate for commuters here in Adelaide but there's still a lot of people who drive to the city [one per car] which isn't really friendly ecologically and the cost of city parking is prohibitive, but they're unlikely to change.
Getting around the country - most drive or fly - neither are cheap but other forms of transport very long-winded time wise.