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)
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.
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: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: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: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".
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:5, Interesting)
Re:depends (Score:5, Informative)
I lived in Germany for 3 years when I was in the Air Force and the bus and rail systems were wonderful. But thats what? 85 million people in a country not much bigger than Oregon?
That's not really looking at the big picture though... Public Transportation over most of Europe is equally as excellent as here in Germany (not QUITE in some places, but still far better than other parts of the world I've lived in). Taking in Europe as a whole, the size of the place isn't nearly as much of an argument anymore - if the US states ran public transportation like European countries do, it'd work much better.
People seemed to come in clumps making public transportation easier.
I'll definitely grant you that. Something I can never quite fathom when I visit the US is how hard it is to really be "in the middle of nowhere" (which, by my definition, means no people around). Here in Germany, there's people pretty much everywhere, but if you do go somewhere where there isn't anyone, you really are alone. In the US, it always sort of felt like there might be a house somewhere if you just walk over a hill or two. I've also lived in Australia, which has the mind boggling expanses of absolute nothing and some pretty serious "clumping" going on around the coasts.
Then there is the crime. I never, ever, felt unsafe on a bus or train in Germany.
Yep - that's something I definitely love here. "Random" violent crime is very low (muggings, street violence, etc - domestic violence is similar to other parts of the world though, so that's nothing special unfortunately).
On the actual topic though, even here in Germany, I'd pay more to take public transport to work than drive. Only because of my exact circumstances though - for most people it'd be the other way around. I live in the middle of a city, with an U-Bahn stop pretty much right outside my door, but to get to work I can either drive 8km, or take the U-Bahn, followed a bus. U-Bahn alone would be cheap, bus alone would be cheap, but U-Bahn plus bus would be slightly more than I pay for keeping my car running (especially since it's such a short drive). I do make heavy use of the U-Bahn for other journeys though like heading to friend's houses, coming home drunk late at night when I can't be bothered walking home, etc. For mid-distance journeys (within Germany) I generally take the train, and for long distance, I mostly fly, so other than the 8km trip between home and work, I don't use my car much at all in normal day-to-day life (I do like doing "road trips" though, so maybe a couple of times a year, I might do a several thousand km drive somewhere, so I definitely wouldn't give up the car even if my work circumstances were different... that's a matter of doing something I enjoy though, not convenience or cost (it'd be easier and cheaper to fly to most of the places that I go on these sorts of road trips))
Re:depends (Score:5, Informative)
I lived in Oregon for a long time and definitely, even in rural places you can't make it 20 miles without seeing at least 1 farm house, even when you're in the desert of eastern oregon.
As for public transportation, Portland Oregon had it right. Light rails + very good bus system. This allows the speed of the train to be combined with the flexibility of useful bus routes.
Lightrail alone isn't useful, I wish more people would realise that.
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:4, Informative)
Since those extra minutes would come out of the time I spend with my family, I would consider them stolen, not wasted.
Wait until your kids get a bit older, then you will consider that hour long commute to be welcome peace and quiet :)
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: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.
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: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: (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 an
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.
Re:depends (Score:4, Interesting)
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: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: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: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:5, Informative)
Are you serious?
Population density
Gee I wonder why paris has public transportation and Sacramento doesnt?
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: (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: (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: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:depends (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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:depends (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:depends (Score:5, Funny)
Well, since everyone here thinks I'm full of crap, I decided to take a picture of my old insurance policy. Here's the first [omploader.org], and second [omploader.org] picture. Note that the highlighted value is the annual cost (so the monthly payment was $489.67).
And for the record, I have a nearly perfect driving record (other than a couple speeding tickets when I was 16).
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.
Google Maps to calculate costs (Score:5, Informative)
Google Maps will help you calculate the cost of public transit vs. driving. After you map out your commute. Just click on the public transit button. About half way down it will show you a public transit vs. driving comparison.
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: (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.
"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.
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.
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.
Re: (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:"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: (Score:3, Interesting)
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Let me check your math:
"about 21,000 miles"
"carpooled 90% of the time"
so 21k miles is 10% of 210k miles
210k miles divided by ~260 work days a year
My god you commute 400 miles to work one way or 800 miles round trip? Daily?
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.
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?"
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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.
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Re: (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.
Re:Some More Numbers (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re: (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)?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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.
That's very interesting, my daily commute is 10 minutes by foot, whereas by car it's 10 minutes+10 minutes for finding a place to park. Guess the difference is I live in the city and you're suburbia?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The biggest problem I've seen with these sorts of studies is that they really don't consider realistic decisions from the perspective of the consumer. Even if I bicycle to work 75% of the time, I NEED a car for the occasional long trip, and foul weather. Maybe I need a SECOND car for my wife, for the exact same reason. Now I have a sunk cost of the car, maintenance, an
Re: (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
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about time? (Score:4, Informative)
We tried it in the UK. Privately owned railway systems have proved much more expensive and not neccesarily any better than the fully nationalised British Rail that went before it.
They do have some prettier looking trains now though...
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: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: (Score:3, Informative)
First...I live in the Atlanta outer suburbs and you are a fool if you leave any property unlocked. I live on 15 acres where I can still use firearms, and stuff disappears overnight.
Public transit does not work for those of us out here though. Drive 6 miles to a regional bus station that only drops me downtown. Take the train back uptown, catch a bus to the area where I work. My schedule is shifted to late morning - early evening, so the bus does not run past a certain street. Get off and walk a mile. Takes
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
The article doesn't seem to include depreciation (Score:3, Interesting)
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: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.
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.
Err, forgetting some things much? (Score:4, Informative)
Owning a car costs far more than just your monthly loan payment. I had an old piece of junk which cost me just $1000 a year in insurance since I did not need comprehensive. My guess is that you're looking at least at $2000-3000 a year in insurance alone for a standard newish car (banks require comprehensive for anything they have a loan out for). Add to that a monthly payment for the car of say $300-400, which gives a total of $4000-5000 a year, and you're easily at the $12,600 estimate.
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).
People often ignore depreciation (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Depreciation is only an issue if you've gotta always have a
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.
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.
Driving is much better... (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Re: (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.
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
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!
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.
Re: (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
Gothenburg, Sweden (Score:5, Informative)
I pay about 500 USD per year for free public transport 24/7 in my city. According to this Swedish checklist [familjeekonomi.se], the yearly cost for purchasing and owning a 10 year old tiny car would be about 3750 USD, thus, I save 3250 USD. If I would get a new car, the savings would be around 7100 USD.
(since I don't have or need a car, I will of course have to take the purchasing price into account.)
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.
I live just outside Boston (Score:4, Informative)
and I have to commute in every day. Here's a breakdown, as I did each for two years apiece:
- Drive to local T stop: $5/day parking plus ~$60 for T pass, plus gas.
- Drive and park at work: $240/mo plus gas. I would drive about 15k/yr (work plus other driving)
- Drive 1 mi to bus stop: donation to local church to park in their lot (few hundred/yr), $64 for T/bus pass. In the 2.5 years I've been taking the bus, I've driven about 15,000 mi.
Now taking the bus takes a bit longer, but my employer is nice enough to allow me to work from home one day a week, and I often fall asleep or do work while on the bus, as opposed to getting peeved at the traffic around me.
YMMV. As for me, I'll keep taking the bus.
NJ to Manhattan data point (Score:3, Informative)
I don't pay for parking at the bus stop.
Motorcycles... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not for everyone, but my honda gets 35 + mpg.
I put in 20 bucks a month of gas into it, and about 20 into the car, for taking the kids to school, and stormy days.
Rideable 65-80% of the year in midwest. (Depending on your tolerance for cold.)
My "commute" is only about 7 miles each way.
Not everyone has access to transit (Score:4, Informative)
Don't forget about those of us in rural areas. I carpool with a friend as often as I can, but I live 30 miles from my workplace. No one is going to be running a train from a city of 250 to a city of 10,000, so personal transportation is the only option.
Re:Not everyone has access to transit (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly! I'm a bush pilot in Alaska, and I think this article is just silly! Sure, ON PAPER public transit in NYC may seem to be cheaper than my float-equipped Cessna, but they're making all sorts of false assumptions! For example, I do my own maintenance--where's THAT in their spreadsheet?
OH WAIT--THIS ARTICLE IS NOT ABOUT RURAL TRANSPORTATION, WHICH EVERYBODY KNOWS IS DIFFERENT THAN COMMUTING IN MAJOR URBAN AREAS.
it isn't just the numbers (Score:3, Insightful)
I live in San Francisco and walk/train/bus everyplace. (I do not have a bike) When needed I have access to car via a car sharing program. For 50$ 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.
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.
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).
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)
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.
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.
Here's one Boston area person's computation.... (Score:3, Informative)
I live about 22 miles outside of Cambridge, where I have often worked. So that is 44 miles/day@ $.5 per mile (U.S. government reimbursement). Your actual costs will vary; but the government rate isn't far from reality. Parking is about $20/day in Cambridge; sometimes more, sometimes less depending on the lot.
$5500 - Mileage
$5000 - Parking
Round numbers for automobile commute: $10,500
Note that there are hidden costs of road maintenance, etc.
Additionally, it is my time; on the commuter rail, at least I get (at least) an hour of my time back.
$2400/year - Commuter rail ticket (also covers unlimited subway use)
$1500/year - Mileage to train station.
Commuter rail commute is therefore about $3900, before any tax breaks (or lower auto insurance rate, due to less mileage and lower theft rates).
Savings for me (excluding tax break and insurance break) was about $6-7K/year.
Comparison (Score:3, Informative)
White River Junction, VT to Stamford, CT:
Amtrak: $59
gas for car: $19
QED
I live one mile... (Score:3, Interesting)
my Math, in Toronto (Score:4, Informative)
Public: TTC, $2.75 each way. I can get a monthly pass for $105. Assume worst: $2.75 each way, 7 days a week.
Car: 2002 Honda Civic, bought used, $10,000, to be paid over 5 years ($2120 yr) or $5.80 day.
Car insurance: We're old, so we only pay about $500 year, about $1.36 a day.
Car Maintenance averages $800 year (tires, brakes, etc. etc.) about $2.19 a day
distance: 6 miles each way.
Gas mileage on car: in city, 24 mpg.
Gas price: $0.85 per liter, roughly = $3.25 gallon, so Cost in gas to drive downtown each day: ~$1.66
Parking downtown = $8 day. (She has a good lot)
So, per day: Car loan: $5.80
Insurance: $1.36
Maintain: $2.19
Cost Gas: $1.66
Parking: $8.00
---------------------
total per day: 19.01 per day.
x 365 = $6938.65 total cost per year for commuting.
total cost per year for TTC: 365 x (2 x 2.75)= $2007.50
Difference? Almost $5000.
RS
Lost in translation... (Score:4, Informative)
The problem here isn't that these newspapers are fawning over this report. The problem is that the point of the report has been mangled by incompetent journalists. The original report is about replacing your car with public transportation, not just your work commute. That's why they end up using 15000 miles (which is absurdly high for an average commute but much more reasonable for a total year of family driving).
I do find the parking rate high but, then again, my commute is the reverse (from the city into the suburbs) and my company has free parking. Even if it would be more reasonable to assume for a lower parking cost, $2.039 is absurdly low for gas (here in the Chicago area, things are up to around $2.50 from a previous low of about $2.19 at the cheapest gas stations).
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.