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?
depends (Score:5, Interesting)
"Everyone's situation is different" (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll say. Here in southern California, I'd have to drive my car to any form of mass transit, and I'd have to drive farther than it is to work.
Some More Numbers (Score:5, Interesting)
And I think they're banking on things like if you are married and one of you drives and one rides the train or bus, you can cut down to one vehicle maybe:
If you can live with one less vehicle in your household, you would save an additional $5,576 in car ownership cost (full-coverage insurance, license, registration, taxes, depreciation and finance charge).
I like public transportation but in DC, the metro rail sucks. It sucks something fierce. The stops in DC are so so limited. I still end up taking taxis for most of the places I want to go ... or plan for an hour walk. I go to NYC and it's like heaven--I do not care of the condition of the train. DC rails shut down at midnight on a weeknight ... and sometimes you wait 15+ minutes for the next train. Transferring is almost out of the question. Wish it worked for me for my job but it doesn't. It barely works for me on my drinking expeditions.
What about time? (Score:3, Interesting)
Think about it, if you're paid $20 an hour and your car needs to be taken in for repairs, which let's say loses you a whole day of work, that's $160 right there. Money wasted just through time, then there's also the time needed for the repairs themselves and
Also don't forget to take into account the money lost through the car's devaluement over time. With trains the operator takes all of that cost, with cars the owner - you, does.
The article doesn't seem to include depreciation (Score:3, Interesting)
100 miles to the nearest commuter train, (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's see; I've got a 4 mile round trip, on a motorcycle that gets 35MPG, with free parking, plus $75/year insurance and $12/year registration, say $200/year for maintenance... I'm looking at $350 per year in in commuting costs.
What about TIME? (Score:3, Interesting)
If I were to commute using public transportation, I would add 45 to 60 min to each direction of the commute.
At my salary, ($41 per hour) this equates to a loss of over $20K per year.
I'll drive my car thank you very much!
I think it's worth it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Taking the train instead of driving would allow me to save thousands of dollars in gas, car payments, tolls, parking frees, tickets, maintenance, and etc. Maybe not five figures, but still a lot of money. There are non-financial indirect benifits to taking the train too.
On the train, I feel safer knowing an accident probably won't happen and that if it does, it probably won't kill me. I also don't have the headache of police stops and tickets. Additionally, I get to spend the commuting time reading, coding, sleeping, etc. It's much less stressful and allows me to be more productive. I know that my carbon footprint is lower and I'm doing less to support despotic oil regimes. I get exercise walking between public transport stops. Unfortunately, I live too far out in the suburbs to make commuting by train to work in the city practical. It just takes too long (frankly driving takes too long as well). I can only take public transport on the weekends and for personal travel. I'm currently looking for work in the Chicago area, and will strongly considering moving to take advantage of the city's train system.
Re:depends (Score:5, Interesting)
Motorcycles... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not for everyone, but my honda gets 35 + mpg.
I put in 20 bucks a month of gas into it, and about 20 into the car, for taking the kids to school, and stormy days.
Rideable 65-80% of the year in midwest. (Depending on your tolerance for cold.)
My "commute" is only about 7 miles each way.
Re:Big savings are when you need fewer cars (Score:3, Interesting)
My parents currently have 5 people in their household, and own 8 vehicles. That's not so bad, considering they also run a small farm.
I don't understand why people make poor financial choices though, by owning more than they can afford. I also don't understand how people think they have the right to enforce their own judgement over people's finances.
Re:What about time? (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly: time is money. My commute is 25-30 minutes each way, every day (about 25 miles). But by bus, I'm probably looking at 2-4 hours each way. No matter how much I make, a bus ride is really out of the question.
As for maintenance, I don't take my car in to some monkey for repairs, I do them myself. That alone saves lots of time, as I can change my oil in 20 minutes in my garage at any time that's convenient for me, even if it's 11PM or on a weekend.
Car's devaluement (I think you mean depreciation)? Not a problem. Buy a used Japanese car and keep it 10+ years. My car is 15 years old and still works just fine. The interior is even in excellent shape (except for spills on the carpet, which are my fault), unlike my cow-orkers who complain about the interiors in their American cars falling apart in 5 years.
And trains are totally out of the question, unless you happen to live in a city that was laid out in a straight line. Modern cities are laid out in two dimensions, not one, with lots of sprawl, making rail transport pretty much infeasible.
Re:"Everyone's situation is different" (Score:5, Interesting)
One other solution that's really great--which I used in Oakland/SF commute--was the casual carpool. Cut through most of the traffic, ride in comfort (usually), no extra stops, and one direction is free. I wonder how many cities have that these days.
Sorry, public transportation.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now here's the problem in the calculation. Car round trip in heavy traffic is about an hour, and depending on the day the bus can take anywhere from 2:30 to 3:15 to cover the same 40 miles.
That's 390-585 hours per year to save $320.
Until the prevailing wage falls to 50 cents an hour, no thanks.
Ran the calculation for my wife as well. If she were able to take a bus instead of driving, she'd waste only 195 hours per year, but public transportation would save her -$18.
Re:What about time? (Score:3, Interesting)
what about the time the trains/busses waste?
- Time waiting for the damned thing to arrive
- Time waiting for the really-really important cargo train to have the right-of-way on the track you're on
- Time traveling to or from train/bus stations
- Time spent traveling really slowly on inclement weather days
I find it amusing an ironic that this report comes from 'Boston; where the notorious MBTA (Most Broken Trains Anywhere) is so horribly ineffective, it's not even funny. I guess if they compare it to rush hour on the Mass Pike, they may have a case.
Re:100 miles to the nearest commuter train, (Score:5, Interesting)
I tried this while going to school. What you are missing is that $150,000 medical bill when someone plows into you and you break L1 and L2 in your back.
Re:depends (Score:5, Interesting)
No shit.
I could "use public transportation." I'd still drive 5 miles roundtrip to the station every day. And of course, the station is only available 6:30am-8am and return trip 4pm-7pm. So if I need to stay late at work I need my car. If I need to go help a friend after work, or pick up kids, I need my car. If I want to go somewhere after work, or during lunch hour, I need my car.
In other words, if all I did was ever go to work exactly on time, and come back to home exactly on time, I could do it. But my life isn't predictable like that. Imagine you're a normal family now, mom, dad, 2.5 kids, possibly older parents to take care of. On any given day something could happen and you need a car to go help someone out.
If public transportation were ubiquitous, hey, no problem. But it's not. 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. It may mean some nights, an empty bus is going up and down the street, but the alternative is people NOT riding in the morning because they're afraid of not being able to get a bus in the evening.
Re:depends (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:"Everyone's situation is different" (Score:1, Interesting)
i live in Pomona, CA, two blocks from the train station. i'm a grad student at USC, so i take the train to LA and switch to a bus at the train station. takes about an hour. the worst part is the trains don't run often, but there is a bus from LA to Pomona that runs 24 hours, it just takes a little longer. i wouldnt drive into LA every day even if i had a car.
Re:"Everyone's situation is different" (Score:2, Interesting)
Though, unfortunately, this is one of the few areas of the country where the mass transit actually works well.
I did the commuter rail thing (Score:3, Interesting)
And it didn't work for me. Here's the comparison:
Driving:
35 minutes door to door
$200/mo for parking + $100/mo for gas @ $2.50/gallon = $300/mo
Have car at my disposal for errands or to go to hockey after work
Can leave whenever I'm done, and have freedom to stay after work with friends
Commuter rail:
1:05 door to door
$80/mo for parking at the commuter rail station (2 miles away) + $150/mo for the commuter rail pass = $230/mo
No car after work, which means I have to go home first to do things, wasting even more time
Have to leave at particular times: if I miss the 7:30 train, for instance, it's 90 minutes until the next one
I need a car in either case because there's no zipcar anywhere near where I live and I need a car to perform errands and to cart myself to/from hockey. So I'm not factoring the cost of the car itself into either, though there is an additional penalty on driving for added wear and tear on the car.
So commuter rail is slightly less expensive in dollars per commute, but that doesn't come anywhere close to compensating me for the wasted time and lack of convenience.
I'll drive, thank you.
Re:depends (Score:5, Interesting)
When I first moved to NYC from New Jersey about 5 years ago, my friends were freaking out about the fact that I was paying about 20% more in rent. Once I did the math, I was able to show that I was saving significantly more money by not having a car between gas, maintenance, tolls, parking, insurance, etc. I get an unlimited metrocard for the same cost that I was spending on gas every month (this is in 2004, so I was spending about $60-70/month).
When I moved back to jerz, I opted to not get a car. I still worked in the city and would walk about a mile to the train station every day and take the train in... the monthly train pass was around $250, and I could avoid getting a metrocard since I could walk to work from the train station. Although the monthly cost of a car would probably be under $250, the up-front cost of the car just didn't make me want to get one.
Now that I'm living in NY again, I just take the subway everywhere. I really wish there was better public transportation outside of major metropolitan areas.
Re:"Everyone's situation is different" (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:depends (Score:4, Interesting)
True Cost (Score:3, Interesting)
Cost of fuel
Cost of parking
Cost of maintenance
Cost of getting to station (and back)
Cost of fare (round trip)
Cost of rental/transport to destination (and back)
Cost of wasted time
Cost of being a damned loser without a car
Trains are for freight and densely packed urban areas where traffic and parking is a huge issue.
This is why you'll see such huge support by the neo-urbanites.
If you want to add in:
Cost of car
Cost of registration
Cost of insurance
You need to also add in:
Cost of not being able to get out in case of emergency
Cost of having to hire movers anytime you buy a piece of furniture
Etc.
Re:depends (Score:5, Interesting)
I was an overweight wimpy nerd. 10 months ago I started taking the bus to work and biking the 9 miles home. I could hardly walk up the stairs by the time I got home. After a few months I could run up the stairs. One day I missed the bus and biked to work, and have been biking both ways since.
I lost a lot of weight, my blood pressure and heart rate are better, and I can bike 10 miles in under half an hour.
I enjoy my commute now more than I ever did driving.
trains save a bit (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:depends (Score:2, Interesting)
I could "use public transportation." I'd still drive 5 miles roundtrip to the station every day.
The idea is that you investigate where you live before you move there and then make sure your living situation is public transportation friendly. In LA, it saves me a truckload of money, mostly on parking.
Most people dont' think like this. That's why you get traffic *both ways* during rush hour. The poor bastards ought to swap houses.
I live one mile... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Doesn't pan out (Score:3, Interesting)
This was my strategy for a while when we had only one car and my wife needed it every day, but I could take the bus to work.
Re:depends (Score:3, Interesting)
Similar situation here. A morning (bus) ride and the occasional afternoon ride is 45 minutes. A normal afternoon ride is 90 minutes (necessary transfer leaves station 5-10 minutes before I get there, so I have to wait for it to come back.).
Biking is 30-45 minutes and not bound to a schedule.
I'd pay for decent public transport. (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if public transport was "only" 25% cheaper than a car, I'd still prefer it. Why? Because of the value of my time. Until we have fully automated self-driving cars, I can't read, nap, work, or simply daydream in a car. I have to actively drive it, and I'm pretty damn sure at least 50% of the other drivers are trying to read, nap, work, or daydream behind the wheel.
Public transit. (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree totally.
For me, at say 15k miles/yr, I burn 937 gallons of fuel because of the stop and go traffic. There is public transportation a few miles from home, but there's no parking there. There is also no public transportation to my work. If I walked, I would walk a few miles to the bus, ride it for an hour, and then walk a few more miles to work. In the time I'd spend walking, I'd already be at work and have quite a bit of productive time done.
Parking depends on where you work. Parking at home is free. Parking at work is free. So my parking expenses are $0.
The savings equation is flawed by localization.
For a while, I carpooled, so we cut the total fuel consumption for two people in half (only one of two possible cars on the road). Now, there are no coworkers that live close to me, or even travel near my house. Carpooling could tend to be a pain. If one had to work late, that left both of us at work. But, it was tolerable.
Re:depends (Score:5, Interesting)
It all depends on where you are and what your commute is like.
I live near Philadelphia - near being described as "between Philly and Lancaster/Harrisburg". Went job hunting this winter (not by choice) and landed a good job in downtown Philly. I drove to work my first three days. I've taken the train ever since.
Why? Because I did my math. 50-some miles each way is a typical "local" commute for people in my area. Nobody thinks twice about it. 100+ miles a day, plus traffic, had me filling my tank after 2.5 days, or twice a week, to the tune of about $50/week - or $10/day - just for the gas. 21.5 working days average a month makes the gas to $215/month. Best price I could find for reliable parking is also $10/day, so my total per month given that my car is paid for is roughly $430/month.
That doesn't count wear and tear on my car, wear and tear on my sanity or blood pressure. Nor does it count the fact that the average drive time was 2 hours each way, and (as someone else also mentioned) those 2 hours were spent doing nothing BUT driving and screaming obscenities at the other cars.
SEPTA's costs? $181 for the monthly anytime pass, a buck a day to park, and a single tank of gas = ~$227.50/month. The trip is less than an hour each way, and I've been catching up on old tv shows, reading books, and playing games on an ipod. Certainly less wasted than driving, and my sanity has never been better - if it could've been called that in the first place, that is... :)
Other people might not be so clear cut, so maybe it's not for them, but for me this was a no-brainer. Aside from the occasional delay once in a while, there's no reason for me to think otherwise.
Re:depends (Score:4, Interesting)
My commute: $0 (Score:3, Interesting)
Working from home has its advantages.
The only major downside is there is no "decompression" on the way home. I leave the "office" and ten seconds later I'm getting kids and bills thrown at me.
On other hand, I built this [fxtech.com] so I could "stop off" at the bar on the "way home".
Re:depends (Score:5, Interesting)
Dating adds more complexity (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:depends (Score:3, Interesting)
Your stats could be misleading, as density is not uniform. I live in a city with a much lower population density than either of those places, yet we have commuter trains and buses.
Re:depends (Score:5, Interesting)
Aw, hell. This is 2009. You can use the extra time on a train for a lot of things, including Slashdot, and thus have even more free time for your family.
How much of your attention is with your family right now as you read this at home?
Re:depends (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:depends (Score:3, Interesting)
I probably spend... ~$5.5k a year on my car. (Car payments, Gas and Insurance).
My daily drive is about 30 minutes.
My daily bike ride is about 45 minutes.
My daily bus trip is about 1.5 hours.
The downside to my bike is there is no shower at work. So I can't ride any day that clients are coming and I need to look all presentable (stupid helmet). Also rain kind of dampens my enthusiasm to show up to work sopping wet and not be able to take a nice warm shower and dry pair of shoes. I also can't ride during the winter because I don't want to ride in traffic after dark.
Now. Here is what would be great: covered bike paths. I can't imagine that a basic bike path covered option would be more expensive than a road. Certainly cheaper than a bridge. Add lights and the freedom from cars and you've covered everything except for hat hair. That could be solved with a change in culture where every office has a shower.
Re:depends (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm going to admit that my experience with public transport is limited to a few specific occasions where I was away on a business trip, but I want to second your notion.
In my experiences, I take a flights to another city, stay at a hotel and took public transit to where I needed to go (well, used to, I don't anymore). It generally took roughly an hour to an hour and a half longer to get to each destination I needed to go to and I had the itinerary and routing worked out in advance by the secretary at the places I was visiting. One trip, I had to take a $15 or $20 cab ride to the lite rail station and wait 20 minutes for the train. Then after a 35-40 minute ride, I had to hop a bus with two transfers so that meant not only waiting the extra time while each bus hits the other stops on the line, I had to get off twice, walk two blocks away, and wait 15 to 20 minutes for the connector to come by. Then I still walked roughly 3 city blocks to get where I needed to be. My meetings took roughly an hour longer then planned so I took a taxi all the way back to the hotel for $80. I spent roughly $25-$30 on the public transportation and it took a total of four and a half hours or so one way. On the way back I decided to just take a cab, it took me one and a half hours, cost $80 for the cab, and I was still able to hit a show that night. The next trip, I rented a car for $50 a day, squeezed in two extra meetings (over two days), and saved not only time but money as well. I also was able to park in the lots of the places I visited so walking which isn't an issue outside of time involved (moving at 3mph verses 20-30mph or faster) was rather limited to the back edge of large parking lots.
While public transportation works for some, it isn't a magic bullet for anything. Well, at least not like the story is attempting to claim. Also, if you take the parking away from the study, it loses most of it's bite. This is especially true if you look at all the driving you have to do in a normal day. We seem to be focusing on the one task of going to work but if you get rid of your car, you will need to go to the market more often because you can only carry a few bags of groceries at a time, you will lose the hour there, lose an hour when going to the doctors, the movies, the jazz festival downtown or county fair or whatever else it is that normal people do with their spare time. It's just not worth it.
I have rarely went to some place where my parking wasn't validated by one of the places I visited or the place had it's own parking lot and the parking was free. Even my attorneys office in downtown Columbus Ohio will pick up the parking tab by issuing you a promissory voucher that you present to the parking attendant when leaving. And we know how greedy those sharks can be. I have never had to pay to park on the street in front of my friend's houses, a relative's house, the grocery store, or the local pub/bar. They put too much stock into the paying to park thing to be grounded in reality for most people. And that's not even considering the extra time that can be used more productively doing something else that is important to you.
I bike to work (Score:1, Interesting)
I have been using my bicycle to commute to work for >15 years, in different cities and even different countries (of Europe) with a two year period in between were I was forced to use a car. It is doable if you make this the most important criteria when selecting your job and home. Maybe I don't get the best places to live because of that limitation (the jobs were always there first because I moved after switching jobs), but so far I have never lived in a hovel either. ;-)
Of course I am lucky in that I have never had a problem finding a job, my wife can just move with me and we don't have any children to take into account here.
The money I saved with not having to buy and maintain a car:
10000 Euros for buying a cheap (new) car every 5-8 years on average
I don't know the exact numbers for the following since I never paid it:
100 Euros per month for insurance
300 Euros per year for maintenance
100 Euros per year in taxes
50 Euros per week for fuel
20 Euros per month for parking fees
(I guess I missed something here)
On the downside I must rent a car whenever I want to go somewhere that is not or difficult to reach by public transport, which is about once a month and costs around 40 Euros per day + fuel. There are also some inconveniences such as having to carry (or push on my bike *1) home crates with beverages (beer, water) from a shop nearby instead of buying it further away where it might be cheaper and then carrying it from the car to my home.
But overall I like it that way.
(*1 This earns me quite a few astonished looks every time I do it with two crates of water (24 1 litre bottles) on my bike's carrier)
Sometimes it's just a habit.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:depends (Score:4, Interesting)
>>>While public transit took longer, I never considered those 120 minutes to be wasted. I read a novel a day for months.
You can "read" novels while driving too, or college lectures, or just the radio. I've done this for years, first on cassette and now on my cheap MP3 player, and therefore the 40 minute car drive is still the better choice (IMHO) than the 2 hour metro.
ALSO:
If I got rid of my gas-guzzling car, and traded it in for a 70mpg Honda Insight, or the new 240mpg 2-seater from Volkswagen, those options would be a lot cheaper than public transport. And more flexible (leave home when you want; come home when you want; do errands on the side like grocery shopping).
Re:depends (Score:2, Interesting)
The real problem is population density.
No, it isn't. It's a myth that the only places dense enough for public transit are the big cities. Places like Atlanta, Dallas, Charlotte, etc. are investing heavily in rail transit. These are places not exactly known for their urban density.
The real problem is lack of political will. We could build some fantastic public transit systems today if we'd stop listening to the nutjobs who think the answer is to give everyone a car and let 'em fight it out on the (hugely expanded) freeways.