Artwork copyright Mark Markovich
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— Illustration by Mark Markovich, concept by Jonathan “JR” Reed and Mark Markovich
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Friday Cartoon: Gas price crisis?
Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)
Founder of BikePortland (in 2005). Father of three. North Portlander. Basketball lover. Car owner and driver. If you have questions or feedback about this site or my work, feel free to contact me at @jonathan_maus on Twitter, via email at maus.jonathan@gmail.com, or phone/text at 503-706-8804. Also, if you read and appreciate this site, please become a supporter.
Wheres the flying unicorns and leprechauns?
Bike utopia looks fabulous. Let’s hope that right before the End of All Energy that Might be Able to Propel an Automobile, someone has the foresight to repave all of the roads, install of those nice windmills, and maybe bring a few years worth of food and amenities to every city that might want them. I’d love to see all the bicycle powered farm equipment that would come into play as well.
I can put you in touch with plenty of couriers that would love to transport your food to you. Besides, you should probably be growing your own food. You don’t need big heavy farm equipment to grow your own food.
From history with the Ho Chi Minh Trail one person and a bicycle can transport 250 pounds of cargo 20 miles a day over double track and dirt roads fueled by a cup of rice (uncooked) and a few ounces of meat and vegetables. On paved roads with trailers a single person can carry much more, about a thousand pounds for that 20 miles, or that 250 pounds more than 50 miles a day, at a slight increase in fuel. On flat paved roads either the cargo or the distance carried can double. So 20 miles of flat roads can see a ton of cargo moved in a day for not much more than a cup of uncooked rice and a Big Mac. That pretty well covers most markets with a couple hundred cyclist “motors”. Getting that Big Mac will require moving the processing closer to the farm (like next to it) than we have currently as I can’t see moving livestock an distances with bicycles, or we may have to go back to the cattle drive to move livestock to processing plants near railroads. And those railroads will be electrified by wind and solar.
We can go fossil fuel free, but it will take at least 30 years to re-sort our infrastructure to get there.
Perfect. We just need enough farms within 20 miles to sustain all of PDX and the burbs. 750,000 people give or take?
In the spirit of Hart Noecker’s apocalyptic movie quote:
Willard: “His idea of great R&R was cold rice and a little rat meat.”
Lets make it work like this. Starting with 2012, gas taxes will go up $1/year until they reach say $12-15/gallon. That gives people a strong incentive, yet enough time to plan accordingly.
I didn’t know y’all had kudzu in OR. Interesting that it only seems to affect gas station signs.
And that price sign seems to show $11.10 a gallon when cars went “away”.
“Just walk away from the gasoline, and I’ll spare your lives.”
You said it, Lord Humungus.
Gas signs already kind of look like this to me today.
the economy runs on petroleum. People who do not drive still bear higher fuel costs.
Petroleum powers only a fraction of our electricity generating capability. The europeans are showing that chemicals and plastics also do not need to be made from petroleum byproducts.
Thats a really nicely paved road. There are no cars paying gas tax, so I guess the cyclists are paying a really high road tax? I read there is a proposed tax for electric cars, $1.43 per mile. Should this same tax be applied to bicycles?
Well since a bike does the same amount of damage in 22 years as a big luxury SUV does in one trip I think the taxes cyclists pay will cover the costs of keeping the roads up.
“I read there is a proposed tax for electric cars, $1.43 per mile.”
I’m sure you did but do you consider a Portland Community College theater arts teacher as authoritative on proposed legislation in Salem? Not that Joseph Rose would ever sensationalize that sort of mistaken comment, but he goes on to say “Oregon lawmakers are actually considering a road-usage charge of 1.43 cents — not dollars — per mile for drivers of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.” Various taxes I already pay to road budgets way more than cover that sort of rate for my bike use. When the time comes that motor vehicle (including electric cars) users aren’t consuming nearly the totality of public highway funds (and still not coming anywhere close to covering their incurred costs), then we’ll certainly need to reevaluate how much funding our road systems require for that level and those modes of use, and how we’ll collect it.
…That I should live so long.
BTW, Opus, that’s ivy, not kudzu, so I have to guess that those windmills have replaced the Douglas firs in forest park.
Oh, and some gas price history for downthread:
http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx?city1=USA%20Average&city2=Portland&city3=&crude=y&tme=72&units=us
I guess without nuclear plants or coal, or dams, there will be no electric cars in our future
Fortunately we have all those and more.
wow you really all think you can survive without vehicles to ship your food and other essentials? You’ll eat each other alive. It would be fun to watch actually. Watching you hit each other over the head with your bike wheels to get the last tofu burger.
1. there is a long history of moving freight via electricity.
2. electricity can be generated without the use of fossil fuels.
In response to Red Five: So…200 years ago, people were eating each other alive because they didn’t have vehicles?
Also, I don’t know what gas costs these days. I and like it.
When Obama took office it was $1.87 a gallon, now 2 years later it is approaching $4.00 a gallon
Umm’ when Obama was elected gas was $4/gallon, then went down after election day. Quit revising history.
200 years ago a lot of things were different. A very simplistic argument that holds absolutely no weight.
Great cartoon!
do not go against wind direction , great cartoon
Aaaaaaah! We’re all going to die because i can’t drive my cadillac escalade to the pearl district to eat sushi flown in daily from japan!