Heard an interesting discussion on my local radio station this morning. They were talking about how expensive it is to live in London. Pretty interesting. Basically they were trying to make us Americans feel better by pointing out that Europe has been suffering from really high gasoline prices for years.
The guy in London said that recently gasoline was $17/gal (due to some strike that's going on - crazy!) I guess normally it is around $9/gallon. That's American dollars I believe. He also said that it costs $16 in toll fees to enter London and that parking meters are something like $1 for 20 minutes. (Does that sound right to you Brits? I'm not sure if I got these figures correct.
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He also said that public transportation is not much cheaper than driving your own car. Over here we assume that people in Europe use public transportation because it is cheap. I was surprised to learn that the savings aren't that great.
One other thing he said is that people were encouraged to buy diesel cars because the cost of diesel would be cheaper. But this guy said there isn't a significant difference between diesel and gasoline. It's something like a $300/year savings. DB, does that sound right?
So now those of us who heard the conversation are feeling less sorry for ourselves this morning and are feeling bad for people who live in London. He said he can't wait to come to America for his vacation because it's cheap in comparison.