Originally Posted by L0stMind

well, having spent some time in Germany, I can tell you that Vancouver is laid out in such a sprawling way it's disgusting compared to frankfurt, cologne (dunno how to make the proper koln uumlaat stuff), berlin etc. Even the smaller cities like eppelheim and heidelberg where I stayed are not as sprawling as here.

For me to get groceries, I can't just walk half a block to the butcher, 2 blocks to the drink shop, hit the bakery on the way back on the other side of the road like we did in germany. Here, it's at least a 5 mins drive to the grocery store. There isn't a shop I can walk to in 5 mins.

My office is 25 mins away from my house. When I go to richmond to grab hardware it takes me 35 mins to get there... in Canada, you *need* to have a car to have a life of any sort. In Germany, we only jumped in the daewoo when it was raining or we were driving to another city.

Thing is, here, we have these giant inefficient cars. Or at least, most of us do. So, 60liters at $1.05/L just blows when you only get 400km per tank.

2 years ago, I was spending $100-150 per month in gas. Now, it's over $200 every month (I write it off for biz, so I have a good idea what I spend). To some people that $50ish extra per month is a lot of money.