The gross effects of increasing gasoline prices are obvious, but what does it look like below the macro level? Local governments and businesses which are already strapped with high costs and lower budgets are now being forced to make more cost cutting decisions. It is excellant to examine current operational systems and try to make them more efficient, but sadly much of the cost cutting involves loss of jobs and externalizing the cost to society in general. These short cut solutions are creating an increasingly poor and dysfunctional society.
Take school buses for example, re-organizing routes for more efficient use is admiralble but usually results in the elimination of buses (drivers) , longer rides for the children and the elimination of late buses for extracurricular activities. Now millions of parents have to travel back and forth to school just to pick their children up from extracurricular activities - using more fuel than buses in the process. Also the minimum range for bus pickup has often been extended, forcing more parents to drive children to school.
The post office has been in the news lately due to a deficit from pension funding expenses. The management has been doing everything possible to reduce costs, often at the expense of workers and their jobs. Increasing fuel costs force further cuts. It will take many years to replace the current aging fleet of postal delivery trucks with more efficient vehicles, and the then price of fuel will probably be higher and negate the cost reductions. In the meantime, pay has been reduced and demands on the postal carrier increased(and everyone else). Currently a motorized postal carrier may be required to deliver to over 700 addresses and get 2.5 hours pay for that activity. If the carrier takes longer, there is no compensation.
Poorer workers can't afford to purchase as much, thus sending the signal on further. Systems and people at their limits will become dysfunctional and even fail.
Here is an article from back in March 2012 that discusses a few of the effects.
http://www.ibtimes.com/5-ways-rising-gas-prices-will-affect-you-428574
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