Your Commuting Costs By Car Vs. Train? 1137
grepdisc writes "Newspapers in Boston are fawning over a report by the American Public Transportation Association that taking public transportation saves money over driving. How can one possibly save $12,600 per year, when the inflated estimates of 15,000 miles per year at only 23.4 miles and $2.039 per gallon costs only $1,310, and a high parking rate of $460 per month results in under $5600. Is the discrepancy made up of tolls, repairs, the cost of buying a car and ignoring train station parking fees?" Everyone's situation is different — and it's easy to have a chip on one's shoulder while estimating prices. But for those of you with the option, what kind of savings do you find (or would you expect) from taking one form of transport to work over another?
Re:depends (Score:5, Insightful)
My car's old enough that I wouldn't get enough for it to cover public transit costs.
Plus I live near Sacramento, which has the useless Light Rail system. The stops are nowhere near where they need to be to be useful, unless you work right downtown.
It's Time, not Money (Score:5, Insightful)
For me it is simply a question of time - time spent behind the wheel of a car is wasted time as far as I'm concerned. On transit I can sleep, read, email/browse on the blackberry, even get out a laptop. I've made it a point the last couple times I've moved to make sure I have good access to transit options.
Insurance? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is the discrepancy made up of tolls, repairs, the cost of buying a car and ignoring train station parking fees?
I think you're making one rather unjustified assumption: that anyone who takes the train will still own a car.
If you live sufficiently close to the train station or can bike/take public transit to it, you can validly ignore parking fees, car maintenance, and importantly insurance.
People often ignore depreciation (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"Everyone's situation is different" (Score:5, Insightful)
For sure - plus, even if you're saving on distance, taking a bus trip from Pasadena to Glendale (neighboring LA cities, about 10 minutes apart) is a 3-hour trek involving taking one bus downtown from Pasadena, another bus across downtown (leaving after a 40-minute wait), and a third bus back up to Glendale. San Diego is similar - occasionally you find a bus that goes from where you live to where you work, but in most cases you're talking about substantial personal cost to get TO the transit, and travel time that takes an average of four times as long.
So, for one thing, the surveys should include "lost productivity" hours or something, since those four hours I lose every day by choosing to use mass transit could be worth more to me than what I spend on the difference.
Doesn't pan out (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with these sorts of studies is they lump in the fixed and variable costs for car ownership. The only way you get rid of the fixed costs (like insurance and registration) is to get rid of the car altogether, and there aren't too many areas in the US where that's a feasible option. Where I live public transportation to most of the places I go simply doesn't exist. I can take the train to work (though I'd have to ride my bike to the train station), but if I get called up for jury duty, say, without my car I'm taking a taxi for as long as the trial lasts.
So when I take public transportation I'm reducing variable costs - depreciation, gas, maintenance. But there's no way I can come out ahead this way, since I'm still paying insurance and registration on the car that's sitting at home.
It's in the article (Score:1, Insightful)
If you simply look at the bottom of the page you will find that it assumes that a family had 2 cars and will give up one of them. Given that, the savings seem quite reasonable. It costs a lot to own a car once you take into account depreciation, interest, repairs, scheduled maintenance, registration, insurance, etc.
APTA calculates the average cost of taking public transit by determining the average monthly transit pass of local public transit agencies across the country. This information is based on the annual APTA fare collection survey and is weighted based on ridership (unlinked passenger trips). The assumption is that a person making a switch to public transportation would likely purchase an unlimited pass on the local transit agency, typically available on a monthly basis.
APTA then compares the average monthly transit fare to the average cost of driving. The cost of driving is calculated using the 2009 AAA average cost of driving formula. AAA cost of driving formula is based on variable costs and fixed costs. The variable costs include the cost of gas, maintenance and tires. The fixed costs include insurance, license registration, depreciation and finance charges. The comparison also uses the average mileage of a mid-size auto at 23.4 miles per gallon and the price for self-serve regular unleaded as recorded by AAA on May 5 at $2.079 per gallon. The analysis also assumes that a person will drive an average of 15,000 miles per year. The savings assume a household gives up one car.
Re:What about time? (Score:3, Insightful)
Big savings are when you need fewer cars (Score:5, Insightful)
In my neighborhood families own three, four, even more cars. The big savings come when you can reduce the number of cars you own.
WTF do you need three or more cars for in a 2-person household?
I suppose they assumed, in a two-earner household, that you could reduce the number of cars by one if one person was a transit rider.
Re:depends (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the problem with rail in most places. Most urban/suburban areas are so poorly laid out that rail is only able to service a very few number of people from "near door" to "near work". This is made several times worse if they are only able to put the rail 'where people will let them', which usually means the rail doesn't service many people along the route - because it's in the boonies.
Re:The article doesn't seem to include depreciatio (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a false assumption. Some people buy used cars, which pretty much stop depreciating after a while. You may pay a bit more in maintenance, but you'll make up that just in the cheaper insurance rates.
I'll occasionally take the train, but it just doesn't go where I need to go most of the time. Ergo I need a car, and I need insurance, so the only savings are gas + wear and tear. It would be great if we lived in Europe where mass transit was functional, but in many parts of the USA it just isn't.
Re:What about TIME? (Score:4, Insightful)
You get paid for your car commute?
Granted, time not spent at work is valuable too, and I make choices that allow me to spend more time with my kids and stuff.... but your $41/hour equivalent may be exaggeration.
Finally, I can read, talk on the phone, etc. while I'm on the bus or walking. Can't do that in the car. The time I spend driving may be shorter, but that time is spent accumulating stress, not relaxing and regenerating.
Incomplete calculations (Score:2, Insightful)
This study is comparing apples and oranges.
The study assumes you are getting rid of your car to use public transit. There are so many things that are not public transit accessible that still require a car that they are not putting any replacement cost in for.
In Boston, a rental car for a weekend with insurance is ~$300. I use my car 3 weekends a month to travel outside of public transit range. Adding in the cost of getting a rental each weekend and suddenly 12.6k I'm saving is reduced by 7.8k (plus fuel costs and a lot of overhead dealing with rentals). The study is assuming depreciation of the car -- which likely means its assuming a purchase of new car. The cost conscious folks are either purchasing used cars or driving cars for far longer than a normal depreciation period.
And this doesn't even count the opportunity cost of travel time. I live in a near suburb (Arlington) and work in Cambridge. I can walk/bus to the T, and take the T to work. It takes about 1.25 hours each way. It takes me 20 minutes each way driving. I value the ~2 hours per day I save by driving pretty highly. Admittedly, if I have to drive during rush hours, my commute goes to 45-50 minutes each way and public transit becomes much more attractive.
Re:"Everyone's situation is different" (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, but in fairness that's because you don't have much of a public transportation system to speak of. It's not quite a fair argument to say, "investing in public transportation isn't worthwhile because the public transportation in my area is so underfunded and underdeveloped as to be virtually useless."
Re:The article doesn't seem to include depreciatio (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't go on forever though. If you buy a $15,000 car, it can't depreciate $3000/year for more than 5 years (and it doesn't do that anyway). My first new car was a $20,000 Honda CR-V. After 10 years, I sold it for $6000; that's an average of only $1400 per year. If you buy a new car every year, you may see a hit of $3000/year, but you don't have to buy a new car every year either.
Re:Some More Numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I think when I was in DC, it was that the bars shut down at 2am but the public transportation shut down at 11pm. (something like that)
I always thought, "Are they trying to get people to drive drunk?"
it isn't just the numbers (Score:3, Insightful)
I live in San Francisco and walk/train/bus everyplace. (I do not have a bike) When needed I have access to car via a car sharing program. For 50$ a month I get a pass that gets me anyplace (within the city) with in a relatively timely manner. I have access to a car sharing program that regularly costs me 50$ a month or so on average. Throw in a rental car every two months for a weekend at 100$.
So it averages out to 150$ a month (gas included) to get me every place I want to go.
But really what gets me is the lifestyle benefits, I never have to worry about parking/oil changes/gas prices/insurance nor drinking and driving. I walk a lot and it keeps me looking good and in great shape. Not to mention walking is very relaxing vs driving, I read and listen to pod casts. So not only do I save a lot of money (vs a 500$ monthly car payment), I've greatly reduced my carbon impact, I have less stress in my life, and I'm in better physical shape. How can you put a price on that?
Yes, everyone's situation is very different, I consider myself very fortunate, but then again I brought about my current situation by actively choosing to create this lifestyle.
Re:Big savings are when you need fewer cars (Score:2, Insightful)
WTF do you need three or more cars for in a 2-person household?
For a few reasons, one would be in case a car got totaled, broke down with something too expensive to repair, or you needed to lend a car to friends/family for a while. I can see owning an older SUV for when you need to transport many people, but keeping two cars to go to work in and for general driving.
Re:Err, forgetting some things much? (Score:5, Insightful)
How bad is your driving record (or everybody else's where you live)? I have a 2 year old car that costs me under $700/year, and that is good coverage with State Farm (not some no-name insurance company that doesn't actually back up the claim).
Re:"Everyone's situation is different" (Score:2, Insightful)
You are correct. The reason to not invest in public transportaion in southern California isn't because it already sucks, it's because it doesn't work, and can't be made to work in less than a generation (and likely more than that). Nearly all of southern California has been built up around the idea of everyone having their own personal vehicles. LA grew out instead of up. That means much lower population densities. And that makes that there aren't concentrations of people living in a relatively small area, who go to places where there are concentrations of jobs in a small area. And that means that public transportation doesn't work very well, because it's damned inconvenient. The other guy who mentioned three hours to make (what would be in a car) a ten minute trip wasn't exaggerating at all. It really is that bad, and will remain so, because public mass transportation is only worthwhile when populations and jobs are fairly concentrated.
Guys, we're geeks! (Score:3, Insightful)
Last time I looked, what it cost me to ride the Internet to work was £12 per month. That's way cheaper than taking the car... All right, I confess I actually go into work one week in every two. But that still costs a heck of a lot less than commuting every day, and gives me a heck of a lot more time, too.
Oh - and when you do have to go into work, push-bikes come cheaper than cars (and in urban areas are usually faster).
Re:Big savings are when you need fewer cars (Score:3, Insightful)
Which would be a disingenuous thing to add to such a cost estimate because the extra cars are, obviously, a luxury that the owner has decided to pay for above-and-beyond their commuting costs. An apples-to-apples comparison should assume only the cost of maintaining/operating one car vs. the cost of one person commuting by mass transit.
Re:depends (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't image how that $20k figure is anywhere close to normal
Perhaps not normal, but here's the math:
Add everything up, and it comes to $20200/year.
Perhaps most people just don't realize how much they're wasting on automobiles?
PS: A transit pass (where I live) is $84/month, costing about $1008/year.
Why go at all? (Score:4, Insightful)
With the technology we have today, there is zero reason to move your biomass to another place unless you have to actually touch something. The whole concept of "going to work" is silly, and a hold over from a bygone era. People seriously need to get behind teleworking with enthusiasm. Can't get much greener/cheaper than that!
Bicycling is my magic bullet... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:depends (Score:5, Insightful)
Almost forgot to add:
- it takes me 25 minutes to reach work in the car.
- it would take 1:30 to get there via public transportation.
Re:What about TIME? (Score:3, Insightful)
Finally, I can read, talk on the phone, etc. while I'm on the bus or walking. Can't do that in the car. The time I spend driving may be shorter, but that time is spent accumulating stress, not relaxing and regenerating.
Don't know what bus you have been on, but on all the ones I have been on, its been anything but relaxing or regenerating. You sit down next to some person who smells, listen to half a dozen phone conversations, see someone who you just know has every type of communal sickness imaginable, etc.
On the other hand, in my car I can mostly control the noise level, can choose my route to route around traffic or construction areas, and I don't have to be near annoying people.
Then again, I've only rode the bus when I was on business trips, so your results might vary. (I live in the suburbs and work in a larger suburb so riding the bus isn't exactly an option unless I feel like walking 25 miles to the nearest bus stop when work is only a 30 mile drive)
Re:Doesn't pan out (Score:1, Insightful)
but if I get called up for jury duty, say, without my car I'm taking a taxi for as long as the trial lasts.
Jury duty? OH MY GOD. Look, there are good examples, but that is a horrid one. Jury happens a max of every 3 years, and many times, you just have to show up a couple times.
Plus, if you have to show up more than once, they compensate you for travel costs (at least they did for me).
I recently moved to Boston, and ditched the car. I gave public transportation a go, and it was o...k.... I actually found that for where I live, just hoping on a bike is much faster. Plus, I get (much needed) exercise.
I know several other people who live in Boston without cars. They tell me that when they really need a car, they just rent.
You are right, that different situations will change your outlook. The real point is that _everyone_ should check out their situation. Everyone should look at their options. Car has become the defacto standard, when its not the best option for all situations.
Re:People often ignore depreciation (Score:3, Insightful)
Depreciation is only an issue if you've gotta always have a new car, so you're planning on swapping out every 2-5 years.
Of course, if it's a vehicle for your own business, that's a whole different issue. But in that case, you should probably be leasing anyway.
Re:What about time? (Score:2, Insightful)
*This is assuming that the government isn't like America in 2008/2009 and bailing out any halfway failing company left and right at taxpayer expense
walking (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm 35 and have never driven, instead choosing to walk, even during cold Canadian winters. The trick is to pick a place to live that is nicely located somewhere close to work, groceries, and whatever else you deem necessary to make yourself happy.
Many people think I'm nuts or something, but then continually marvel about how healthy I am, and how I'm easily able to afford to take off six weeks every year to go travelling. Oh well, to each his own...
They may laugh at me, but in terms of physical and financial health, I'm laughing at them.
Re:depends (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem is population density.
Places (NYC is the poster child) that have a high population density get effective mass transit, meaning subways or good light rail service. Other places get ineffective light rail and/or buses.
In a highly populated area, a single stop can serve thousands of people, where as most places in America measure thousands of people per square mile. It just doesn't work out for mass transit in places like that. What service is available is universally slow and underfunded, usually with heavy subsidization by the local government.
You can thank the suburbs and the 1940/50s dream of everyone owning their own home. The "American Dream", a 60 year old invention that caused the massive economic build up of Detroit and the eventual collapse. It also helped out the environment a lot. Nevermind, I'm digressing.
It's the population density.
Re:depends (Score:2, Insightful)
Plus I live near Sacramento, which has the useless Light Rail system. The stops are nowhere near where they need to be to be useful, unless you work right downtown.
True Dat! Even worse if you want to get into the bay area, or god forbid get down to southern california. Only amtrak would make you get on a bus, then a train, and then a buss to get from sac to san deigo
Depreciation costs are total nonsense (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:depends (Score:1, Insightful)
Fill up $40 at 2.75/gal = 1480 / year
Loan payments $230/month = $2760/year
Insurance $600/year
$4840 per year. I have 3 kids, a wife, 2 dogs and 4 chickens. I can do it, so can you. If I took public transit I would lose time and freedom. It would take me 1+ hour each way and at least 4$ per trip or $8 per day. Roughly $2160 per year. At my current rate of pay, the extra 2 hours a day would equal $30K. I am glad to pay almost $3k extra to save that time and money.
Don't get me wrong though. My situation applies to me and not everyone.....
Driving costs != Fuel costs (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of the costs to drive are hidden. Gas is cheap, even at three bux/gallon. You have to consider:
1) Purchase of the car! Or did you ever stop to think about the 400
or more/month you pay? And even when you aren't paying this, you are probably paying more on:
2) Cost of repairs. Tires, brakes, transmissions...
3) Insurance and accidents. Neither are cheap, one partially covers the cost of the other.
4) Police action. I'm a good driver, with zero serios accidents in 20 years of driving, and two fender benders. I still get a ticket every other year or so, and always have.
Etc. The IRS gives a standard deduction of about 0.50 / mile, and that's about right. It's what my company reimburses for travel on trips. It only costs about 1.5 times as much to fly a private plane!
Cars are much more expensive than we give them credit for!
Re:Doesn't pan out (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I know that this is not something a good chunk of the slashdot crowd would have experience with, but a lot of people are living together or married.
One car per family starts to become practical.
Re:depends (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps not normal, but here's the math:
Add everything up, and it comes to $20200/year.
Bloody hell, where do you live that insurance is $450 per MONTH?
Or perhaps you owned some crazy car, considering $650/mo payments...
I used to pay about $100/mo for two cars...
Re:Big savings are when you need fewer cars (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Some More Numbers (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, that's about right. I have 60,000 mile tires on my car, and I paid about $48,000 for them. They actually gave me the car for free with the tires!
That bullshit figure alone probably explains the complete bullshit number pointed out by the submitter...
Re:depends (Score:5, Insightful)
2) In the US, if you are on a bike, you do not have the rights of a pedestrian. You are bound by motor vehicle laws.
It takes approx. 2 seconds to go from being a cyclist to a pedestrian. It's really easy, I swear.
Re:"Everyone's situation is different" (Score:4, Insightful)
I live in NYC and ignoring travel outside of the city, I probably spend something like $240 a year on transportation (ignoring the portion of my taxes that go to the MTA).
I ride a bike to work. I live in a neighborhood where there's stuff to do, and I can walk to the grocery store.
I think people don't understand the real concept behind public transportation. They live in the suburbs, 5 miles from the nearest grocery store because they're in the middle of an enormous development, and "public transportation" for them means walking a mile to get onto a bus that will take them 4.5 miles to get within a mile of their grocery store. That's the public transportation in their area, at best.
The problem is that we've designed our towns and cities and catered our lifestyles specifically to a culture of each person owning their own car. So looking through that prism, public transportation seems terribly inconvenient. But if we had designed our lifestyle and our towns around public transportation instead of cars, then I'm sure cars would seem terribly inconvenient. People would be saying, "Oh, well there's no road that goes right there, so I'd have to part a mile away and then walk. It's much easier to ride my bike on the bike path." Or whatever.
Re:depends (Score:3, Insightful)
That's all assuming you don't need a car to get to the train station in the first place. Then you have the cost of taxis to get to anywhere that isn't in your local public transport network.
Re:depends (Score:5, Insightful)
Location, location, location.
I've not owned a commuter car for the last 10 years. In that time I've biked, walked, and taken public transit to work, depending on the city, job, and distance. Currently, my commute is by bus, which runs at 15 minute intervals at peak and at 30 minute intervals off peak.
Throughout this time I've selected my residence based on public transit and other service availability. It just becomes another attribute to house/apartment selection. "Must have garage" becomes "Must have grocery store within 5 blocks".
Yes, if you choose to live away from public transit, there'll still be a cost of car ownership to get to the station. But if you choose to live close to the transit (just like a car owner generally chooses to live near roads), this is not so much an issue.
I think that the mindset of "transportation services must come to me" needs to be updated on a societal level. However, until the rest of you catch up, I'll be taking advantage of my lower monetary cost, lower stress lifestyle.
Re:depends (Score:3, Insightful)
Municipalities run it "as a business" rather than admitting it's a service, a public utility, and admitting that hey, we need to put in enough tax money to make it cover enough areas.
Of course, the problem there is that there's a horrible political stigma attached to public transportation. Anything "public" has for decades been considered "communist" and therefore "evil". We can't, as a people, pool our resources or share anything because "sharing" is for hippies. However, once you say, "we're pooling our resources in order to run a cut-throat business that will profit through amoral methods," well... that's ok then. Just make sure no morals creep in there.
I mean, I hate commies and hippies as much as the next guy, but can't we try to come up with efficient solutions for our society without getting too caught up in an ideology? Can we consider that people of a community pooling their money and talent for the common good might occasionally be worthwhile?
Re:What about time? (Score:4, Insightful)
Being privatised or not has no bearing on whether you have to pay for it. There are self-sustaining public transport systems, and heavily-subsidised private systems. The problem with fully privatised systems is that they have a de-facto monopoly due to the barriers to entry.
And it's funny how you say private companies are always better when they're all failing.
Re:depends (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because public transit takes longer doesn't mean it's automatically a waste of time. I used to work a job where my choice was a 40 minute drive (in bad traffic, it could double, but that was fairly uncommon) or a 120 minute bus/subway commute (never varied by more than 10 minutes). While public transit took longer, I never considered those 120 minutes to be wasted. I read a novel a day for months.
I view it as wasting 80 minutes a day doing nothing but driving, vs. using every second "productively".
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Some More Numbers (Score:3, Insightful)
You appear to have forgotten to convert between dollars and cents.
0.85 cents x 60000 miles = 51000 cents = $510
Which isn't overly high for a set of tires.
COST OF TIME (Score:3, Insightful)
Or you could be reading a book, or napping, or using a laptop on the train/bus, while "missing" time spent on the sofa watching TV and drinking beer.
If you have important family stuff to do, the best way to resolve a commuting time problem is to find a job closer to home. Of the various things about raising children, finding a job closer to home (or moving home closer to work) is not one of the harder ones.
And there in lies the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
And there in lies the problem. Somehow, we are entitled to 6 lane freeways and highways but urban, suburburban and interstate rail is, wooo, scary socialist stuff that "loses money". Do that for six decades and you get a serious problem. Like Dallas
Re:What about time? (Score:4, Insightful)
Really for situations where there's a certain type of infrastructure from point A to point B there only needs to be 1 provider. That's where government makes sense. The ineffiency of the government is still better than having multiple providers running parralel lines.
I don't live in America but i've heard this is exactly what is happening with your telecom services. Each provider has a monopoly over a different area. No one wants to move into an area that's already serviced by someone else, having 2 services in 1 area makes it not worthwhile for both private companies. Compare to the Swedish Post and Telecom Agency who were on Slashdot a couple of days ago for offering 200Mbps services on the cheap. Swedens population density is lower than the US btw.
Re:depends (Score:4, Insightful)
New York is tiny. I drive two miles to get groceries in my little piece of suburbia. That's like going from Union Square to Central Park in New York...which is the cosmic equivalent of Earth to Mars. On my two mile drive, if I cut through all the little side streets, I'll probably pass 1000 people. Between Union Square and Central park in a straight shot up 5th avenue...more like 200,000 people.
The car gave us freedom. If you want efficiency move to the city.
Re:depends (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with that idea is that people change jobs. What was once a short commute suddenly isn't a short commute anymore. Do you A. sell your house at a huge loss, or B. take it on the chin and commute? Most reasonable people would not pick A. And even with lots of public transit, if you travel very far at all, the best public transit in the world doesn't do much good.
Public transit makes sense in these situations:
In anything approaching normal urban density (NOT Manhattan), as soon as you have to do two transfers, ride a non-express train/bus more than 20 minutes, etc., public transit starts to break down pretty badly in efficiency. A couple of extra hours per day adds up to huge numbers of wasted days over the course of a year.
Re:depends (Score:3, Insightful)
When you can keep up with the speed limit, you can have the rights of drivers. When you ride on the sidewalk, you can have the rights of pedestrians. To me, you are a slow, unpredictable nuisance- especially on two-lane roads where I can't swerve to avoid you because there is oncoming traffic. Passing motorists might be mad... But you should see the ones stacked up behind you waiting to pass.
No offense, it's just that when I see a bicycle up ahead I know I can look forward to driving 25 mph max until he or she decides to turn off; that, or I have to swerve into the other lane which at 5 in the afternoon is just not going to happen.
-b
Re:depends (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not everyone has access to transit (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:depends (Score:3, Insightful)
Since those extra minutes would come out of the time I spend with my family, I would consider them stolen, not wasted. My job does enough of that.
Re:Google Maps to calculate costs (Score:3, Insightful)
The cost estimate for public transit is the actual cost that you pay as an individual to ride the bus or train. It doesn't factor in the cost to the public, i.e. taxes.
Meanwhile, the cost estimate for driving is the theoretical cost that includes the cost of owning and maintaining the car itself in addition to gas etc. Depending on the actual worth and reliability of your car, this estimate can be quite generous.
So one of them integrates hidden costs, and the other one ignores them... apples to oranges.
Re:depends (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps because the GP didn't want to show up to work in the morning drenched with sweat and exhausted?
Re:Um, sure: Depreciation costs are total nonsense (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:depends (Score:3, Insightful)
You only have to bike a 25 minutes walk and you complain? Are there no back roads where you live? Hell, I'd take a mountain bike and go cross country and would still make it in no time.
Re:depends (Score:3, Insightful)
Smug all you want, but the rest of us live in the real world.
Sorry, that's not the real world, that's America :-)
Re:depends (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:depends (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought exactly the same thing, until i started commuting by train....
My drive used to vary between 50 and 80 minutes depending on traffic, one way. The train commute (including 6 minutes to drive to the train) was 90 minutes consistantly. One could easily argue i was loosing between 20 and 80 minutes a day with my family.
However, it occurred to me after I started commuting several things:
1) the time in the morning didn't count. I actually had MORE time with my family in the mornings. How? well, I basically had to leave at the same time each morning one way or the other, since traffic could easily put me being late. This meant more often than not I got to work 20-30 minutes early. Also, since I could quite easily (and comfortably) eat breakfast on the train, I was no longer in a mad rush to get my shit together in the morning, and could spend the tome actually talking to my kids instead of barking orders and running from room to room, and cursing when i burned breakfast trying to do too much in too short a time. My whole morning was calmer and more controlled, and I not only had that time with the family, but I ENJOYED that time for once.
2) The end of the day. This was easier in many ways. First, i knew I allways had about 40 minutes on the train doing a whole lot of nothing after breakfast. Most mornings I simply read news, a book, watched a podcast, something like that. Other mornings I was actually working, preparing for my day, prepping for a meeting with a client, reading a tech manual on a new software package, something productive. This extra time meant I was also more focused at the office, and got my shit done. I found I rarely ever worked overtime anymore, and if I had some unfinished work, I did it on the train on the way home.
3) The worst part of the commute was ALLWAYS coming home, not going to work in the morning. As anyone who commutes often knows, people vary on when they go in to the office, from 7ish to closer to 9AM, but nearly every fucking one of them are on the roads at 5:15PM... and on a mission. 50-60 minutes in the morning was the norm, with the occasional bad commute. Coming home was ALLWAYS on the 80 minutes side. So I really only lost about 10 minutes on average coming home. I used to leave the house at 6:40 and get home about 6:30. While using the train I still left at 6:40AM, and usually was home at 6:45 (if I didn't hit the grocery store or something on the way back).
Then, there's overtime. As i already mentioned, i worked a LOT less of it. When i did, it was on the train, or just a few quick e-mails from home (unless some server blew up). Coming in the door I didn't have a head full of crap to do. i used to walk in the door, scream hello, go right to the office, and sit there for an hour smelling food I was expecting to eat cold later. Using the train i came home, sat down, and spent family time with the family far more often than the prior situation. Yes I got home 20-30 minutes later on average, but I EARNED 30 minutes with my family I never used to get anyway!
Also, driving is streessful. Many nights the fise and I got in fights over stupid stuff just because I was in a mood to fight. With the train ride to calm me down, even the side effects of a horrible day at the office never made it back to the house. ALL my family time was FAR more valuable too me, not to mention having more of it.
Would I have prefered to work a lot closer to home and avoid the commute completely? Well, yea, sure. That is, if I could have had a comperable salry and work for a comperable company and earn comperable experience. unfortunately, that simply wasn't possible. My commute, saccrificing what an hour a day, earned my family a nice big house in a great neighborhood. We sold that house, moved south, and I now make a VERY comfortable living at another comperable company in a job my experiences earned me, and we have an even more massive house in a nicer neighborhood, and the money to have truly quality time together. I
Re:depends (Score:2, Insightful)
A cyclist riding on a road with shoulders won't help you out any more than one riding on a road without. It's illegal, dangerous, and stupid to swerve on and off the shoulder around parked cars -- the correct way to ride is at a basically constant distance inside the right lane, far enough from parked cars that they really have to try to nail you with a door. On a shoulder-less road or generally one without parking on streets a cyclist can at least ride all the way to the edge.
And I can tell you, for sure, cyclists don't like riding on busy roads where it's hard to get around them. In a lot of places they don't have other serious options. Even for leisure riding most bike paths are inferior, primarily because their road crossings have poor visibility from the road and they tend to be laid out such that crossing any busy road is much more difficult than when crossing it on an actual street -- these issues, in practice, cause car-bike collisions. They also often have visibility problems affecting their own users: poor lighting, tight curves, and rapid grade changes. In Chicago, in various stretches, the lakefront bike trail has the advantage of running along the lake and thus having few street crossings. Even so, it exhibits all of these problems at various points -- the issues with car traffic while crossing Grand and Illinois downtown, and also on the roads going into the far-north side lakefront parks; the internal issues on the entire north side; on the south side it's really nice, but harder to access -- and it couldn't possibly be so nice without running along a lake and thus avoiding most street crossings.
If I was on a bike stuck behind a kid on a Big Wheels I could probably get around him in any number of ways depending on the type of path. Bikes are narrow and nimble vehicles. It's not any cyclist's fault that you drive solo to work in a car wide enough to hold three people, and if you want to be annoyed at someone, try the people that design vehicles and cities such that you have few options but to do so. Better yet, turn that annoyance into ideas.
Re:Google Maps to calculate costs (Score:3, Insightful)
The amount you pay in state and federal taxes isn't going to change based on which commuting option you take. So, they're treating it as a sunk cost in that comparison, which seems reasonable.
Your point about the cost of owning and maintaining the car would be a better one, but if I recall correctly, Google's cost values are based on allowable tax deductions (and as such are probably already on the low side).