For the past two months, I’ve been conducting an informal experiment. Spurred by the high cost of gas — $4 per gallon to fill my Mini!?! — I decided to use alternate transportation: my feet. In May, I walked over 200 miles. In June, I’ve walked less but biked more.
Walking and biking takes more time, it’s true, but not as much as I’d feared. Besides, walking and biking give me additional exercise, so there’s a cost benefit there (both in terms of time and money). Plus, I’ve discovered that I’m pretty good at multitasking while walking. Sometimes I just relax and enjoy the journey, but other times I’m able to read as I walk or even write rough drafts of blog posts.
For longer trips (such as the 8-1/2 mile jaunt into downtown Portland), I’ve been using my bike. Portland has one of the country’s best biking cultures, so this is easy to do. And fun. And it’s cost effective.
How cost effective? That’s the real question, isn’t it? Bike advocates often point out how much people can save by driving less, but their general numbers are tough to translate to a personal level. Well, Michael Bluejay, who runs the outstanding Saving Electricity site that I’ve mentioned many times before, has come up with a biking vs. driving calculator that lets folks plug in the numbers for their personal situation.
Bluejay’s calculator takes into account gas, insurance, maintenance, and depreciation. On the “not driving” side, it includes the cost of a bicycle, as well as costs for buses, taxis, and carsharing. It also allows you to change your assumptions about how much you’ll earn on the money you save by not driving. (This is nice. Instead of just assuming an 8% return, you can opt to assume a 1% return.)
At his site, Bluejay writes:
Riding your bike can make you a millionaire! You’re paying more for your car than you think. A typical American who goes car-free for 35 years can save nearly a million dollars, even adjusted for inflation, and even if they pay for taxi, bus, and car-share trips often. Use the calculator to find how much you can save in your particular situation.
Now, I’m an advocate of walking and biking, but I think Bluejays’s claims are a little unrealistic. Yes, driving is expensive. Yes, biking (or walking) can save you money. But it’s unlikely that the average person has the ability to simply give up their car.
Instead, I think it’s more practical to do what I’ve done: find ways to drive less. I don’t have the ability (or desire) to give up my Mini completely, but I’ve enjoyed looking for ways to drive it less. It’s fun to walk to the gym and the grocery store. I enjoy biking into Portland or over to my friends’ houses. These things are liberating, and they save me money.
But biking isn’t going to make me a millionaire.
[Bicycle Universe: Biking vs. driving calculator]
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My commute is 65 miles each way. It would take at least 6 hours to bike there and back.
Personally, I’m excited about the next generation of electric cars. The Nissan Leaf and the other cars that are coming out right now are *almost* there, I just need a bit more range. When a version that goes 200 miles between charges comes out, I’m sold. That very well may be my next car.
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My commute is 35 miles and an elevation change of 4000 ft (not a typo!). Biking is not an option and neither is public transportation.
I think that there are a lot of people for whom driving is the only option unless we move. Also not practical after the housing crash.
Electric/solar cars get me all excited too…and dear automotive industry: can you make one a high clearance 4×4? I need that too. LOL!
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Sounds like my brother-in-law’s commute into Colorado Springs. He uses some hypermiling tricks on his way down the mountain to (partially) make up for the climb back home.
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Thankfully gas is going down! I am excited about electric/solar cars as well. I think they’ll be the future!
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It’s going to take a generation or more for all the unfortunate choices we’ve made about where to live are worked out of the system. In the meantime, articles like this one are good reminders that many of us can control what we spend on transportation. Let’s walk when we can, bike when we can, use public transit where it exists — and support our friends and the public policies that make those choices practical ones. Eventually, most of us will recognize that the advice to “drive until you qualify” was great for building suburbs but worked against building sustainable communities.
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Maybe the Tesla S? (300 mile range)
I’m also at a 60 mile commute. 1hr 10 minutes in a car or over 3 hours by transit each way.
I’m going to challenge a friend to a race in a year, they will take transit and I’ll pedal.
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The Tesla Model S looks like it could be a great car, but even still, I can’t see myself spending $50k on a car in the near future. It’s just too much car.
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You won’t need to wait for an electric car if you choose a place to live that’s not 65 miles away from where you need to be every weekday morning!
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Here’s a link to a house near my office. Does that seems like a reasonable alternative to a long commute to you? That commute would be only 1.4 miles. I could walk it.
(also, I only do this commute three days per week. Besides, I like my house.)
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I feel a little cruel, but I do love my city. Here’s what that kind of money could buy you here:
http://www.prudentialpreferred.com/property/index.cfm?fuseaction=propertymls&MLS=867570
you know, in case you needed 5 full bathrooms, 7 bedrooms and a massive kitchen.
Here’s what you’d get in the under $250K range:
http://www.prudentialpreferred.com/property/index.cfm?fuseaction=propertymls&MLS=868611
These houses are about 6 miles from Downtown, the first has easily accessible public transit and most things you’d need (groceries, gas, drugstores, restaurants, library, etc.) in a nearby business district. The second has a much smaller business district and is a bit further from transit, but still fairly easily walkable or bus-able or bike-able.
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I guess it’s preferable to wait for that electric car, then. Everyone makes a different set of choices, naturally.
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I checked the stats on my car’s trip computer when I got home from work today:
I did 66 miles at an average of 48mph, for a total time of 1 hour, 23 minutes. I averaged 30.2mpg.
That works out to 8.3 hours/week in the car, and 13.1 gallons of gas per week. At $4.25/gallon (my car takes premium), that’s $56/week on gas money.
For a year (I’m saying 46 weeks, since I get 30 days paid vacation), that’s $2576 on gas to drive to work, and 381 hours in the car.
I wouldn’t mind cutting that gas bill in half, or being cleaner while I travel the same distance. I also wouldn’t mind saving myself 100-200 hours of commute time, but I don’t know what to do about that that would actually end up better overall. All-in-all, I don’t really mind my commute that much, it’s a scenic drive, the traffic’s usually not bad, and I have satellite radio.
I like my job and I like my house and I think the commute is worth it.
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Tyler, I just got this from a green relation. Go to WWW betterplace dot com and see the new electric car made in Europe. If battery gets low, pull in and change battery by robot. That would be great if it catches on all over the world.
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Through a combination of living close to our respective works and schools and him biking and me walking or bussing to/from work some of the time, we spent around $100 a month on gas (before the gas increases it was less than $100 a month). It seems most people we know spend $200 plus on gas so I’m estimating we save around 1K a year doing this, not including the savings of having 1 car versus 2.
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My commute when from 30 miles (round trip) to zero (work from home) in the last year. Due to traffic/road/distance/time issues walking or biking was no option.
I could probably put more walking to use (grocery runs, dining out), but the savings at this point would be small (though the health benefit good).
I do think that with kids, a lot of driving is just unavoidable.
I do wonder about walking and writing!? How is that possible?
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I have considered biking to work in order to save on gas but here in North Louisiana it is too hot for me to get past thinking about it. It is roughly 80 degrees in the mornings and easily 100 degrees on into the day.
Plus my wife and I ride to work together since we work barely a block apart. It’s been efficient enough that we made the decision to sell my car (got rid of it yesterday) and put that income towards our last bit of consumer debt. (Estimating 6 months remaining and then we tackle the car payment and student loan with a vengance.)
We never drove that car, but having the safety net of an extra vehicle was nice. I got real nervous when cranking her Jetta this morning!
Back to point… If I lived in a more hospitable climate I would most likely get into biking for my regular commutes.
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I don’t have any car payments (bought it outright), but I had no idea how to find just depreciation values without interest payments tacked on. Did a little poking around and found this site:
http://www.money-zine.com/Calculators/Auto-Loan-Calculators/Car-Depreciation-Calculator/
I can’t attest to the accuracy or validity of that calculator, but at least it might help folks get a ballpark idea that’s not provided by the Bicycle Universe folks.
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Thank you! It’s kind of stunning that they just assume you have a debt on your car.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I think it only works for cars you know the new price of, and I’m not having any luck finding the original MSRP on our car (which we bought used). Oh well, I can figure straight depreciation by hand instead.
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I agree. It’s kinda funny — and kinda sad — that the unspoken assumption is you don’t own your car outright.
Then again, it could just be a way for the calculator to make biking look more affordable.
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I do think it’s because the assumption is debt. It’s the assumption for almost everything. When we had to replace our furnace, the first thing the guy from the power company talked about was the financing options for furnaces. Ditto other house repairs, and what the banker assumes we’re there about when we go in to make any changes on our accounts.
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I’ve been walking to work the last several months and so far it’s saved me over $150. I find the walk pretty refreshing. It wakes me up in the morning and helps me unwind after work.
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How far is your walk? And how many months have you been doing this?
I have thought about riding my bike to work, but I live close to work, that I can’t justify the savings of riding the bike verses driving. Maybe I’ll give it a try anyway.
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This is a nice calculator. However, when I plugged our numbers into it we would save only $261k over 35 years. Not worth it, especially considering the huge opportunity cost of losing those hours of daylight, the dangerous roads I would have to travel on from my house into town, and not being able to carry passengers. I love the idea of driving less, but there is no way this is worth the non-financial cost.
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My commute is also 45 miles each way, so walking or biking for me is definitely out. I really would love to do this though, and I am constantly considering the costs of my long commute. Namely, that I could quite my job, and work at a home business, and instantly cut out some serious expenses. I also enjoy the “walkability” factor that many home search sites list. Such as Zillow.com. Not always 100% accurate, but at least they have this option for people who are trying to be more walking/biking/non-commuting conscious.
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I must say that articles like these bruise my ego a bit. I WANT to do everything possible to minimize my impact on my financial health and the health of the environment, so it bothers me somewhat to continually hear about biking, when it’s just not realistic to my life. In a city like Oklahoma City (long, wide, vastly spread out), biking is just not an option. Not to mention it’s 107F today!
And I also feel like I’ve done everything I can to minimize my car costs – I have a fully paid off Nissan with 115,000 miles. There is very little depreciation left on my car (maybe $50 a month). My fiance maintains it, so costs are basically for oil and other fluids. I have every intention of driving it for the next 4-5 years and then will probably still sell it for at least $2k. Yes, the cost of gasoline is outrageous. But, in general, I’ve done everything I can to minimize the transportation costs.
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It’s only difficult for most Americans to give up their cars because they’ve decided to live in such an inconvenient geographic distribution. People need to start paying more attention to transportation costs/access in relationship to their housing choice – http://www.cnt.org/tcd/ht
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I like that you made this point. We have subsidized living in very sprawled out communities, and it is not uncommon for people to drive an hour, one way, to work from their home.
Of course I understand that houses in downtown/urban areas are much more expensive. But to me the answer is not to keep expanding our cities ever larger. In fact, in cities like my hometown of Dallas, the real estate vacancy rate is incredibly high, as the center continues to become deserted and empty and people continue to live further and further out in the “suburbs” which, at this point, shouldn’t even be defined as such.
I should note that there are lots of comparably priced homes in the Richardson/Plano area, that are right off the DART line, that would make a commute into downtown Dallas very easy. But they are usually a few hundred square feet smaller, or lack a 3rd bathroom or a 4th bedroom, so people think they’re getting a “better deal” on the houses an hour away from work. The fact that they didn’t figure in losing two hours a day of their life 5 days a week, plus wear and tear on their car always struck me as strange. If I had kids, I think I’d much rather have my kids share a bedroom and have an extra hour a day with them. And I’d probably enjoy taking the DART rail and letting someone else drive for some stress relief, too.
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I’m glad that some people have the opportunity to reduce their gas dependence by walking and/or biking, but I wish that the non-vehicle enthusiasts would remember that not all of us have that same opportunity. I live in the south, in a small town with a population of about 20,000. Sidewalks do not exist here. The town’s infrastructure is simply not set up to support walkers/bikers. Bikers around here are not treated with respect, and I would be afraid to share the road with the vehicles. The nearest place I can buy milk is two miles away and a) I’m not walking down a busy highway with no sidewalk that far and b) the milk would be sour after a forty minute trip in the 100 degree heat. And then there’s traveling to work, the kids’ schools, the library, restaurants, major shopping, etc. . . .For the most part, it’s simply more practical to have an economical car.
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This.
I’d love to get rid of one of our cars, but that’s simply not possible. We have two small children, and in suburbia, it’s against the law to walk (I’m joking, but only slightly). We try to walk/ride our bikes for quick errands, but time is a premium, too.
I just want to add that I’d support better/more bike paths and walking paths in my area, even if I didn’t always use them.
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Equally, not everyone can or should drive. We set up our towns and cities to make it hard not to drive, and then let people impaired by age and people taking drugs that can impair driving stay on the road, because it’s such a hardship for them to not have access to cars.
Not to mention people who can’t drive at all, due to disability or nevessary medications, are stuck with the same infrastructure you choose to live with.
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Amen.
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I live in a decently sized city in the South and feel safe biking.
But I went and visited my friend in her small town, and I can kind of see your point. The roads were not in great condition, and while the population was small, the place was sprawling. It was quite a long drive to go see her best friend and it took about an hour to drive out to see where she used to go to school.
There are probably ways to bike commute there, but I’m glad don’t live there so I don’t have to figure it out.
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A bit off-topic, but I cringed when I read the suggestion about reading or even writing while walking.
Whether you are driving, cycling or walking, your first priority should be on PAYING ATTENTION.
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Agreed. When I’m reading/writing, I’m doing so on either low-traffic streets or on pedestrian pathways. I’m fortunate that Portland has many such foot-friendly areas, which makes it easy to read while walking.
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I used to read on my walk to college every morning. One day my prof caught me – my route to school passed right behind his house. He started walking too and we started talking about the material. I learned so much more from those informal chats then in class! All because he saw me reading and walking
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Agreed it really comes down to location convenience and really planning what is important to you in your life.
Of course people with long commutes can give examples of why this doesn’t work for them. They should examine _why_ their commute is so long. For me personally I abhor a long commute, it seems like a huge huge inefficiency for my life. So I live in a house that is 1 mile from where I work. I chose this consciously, perhaps sacrificing other aspects of my property that others may care more about (land size etc…). When my workday ends, I can be back home working on a project in 10 minutes. Some people like to live in the middle of nowhere, that is cool, but you then must accept that there is an inherent inefficiency there. My wife and I have survived with one car that I bought and paid for fully 10 years ago, it should last us nearly indefinitely, we put maybe 4000 miles per year on it now that we have our house. We have it for trips etc… but day to day need it very little, I walk/bike/run to work. This was an added bonus of choosing to live close to where I work, but wasn’t the original motivation.
Even one lightly used car seems like too much to me sometimes, but it is good to keep it around for visiting family. I can’t imagine the hassle of having two cars!
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“They should examine _why_ their commute is so long.” Agreed.
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Did you buy your house? What if you change jobs? Would the possibility of having to sell your home possibly keep you at your job longer, even if you came to hate it? Or vice versa, if you became discontent with your housing situation would you stay because it’s close to the job?
When I was looking to buy my first house in 2009, I thought a lot about commute. One of the reasons I bought my house was because it’s sort of centralized.
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I did buy my house, after renting in the neighborhood for 5 years. My wife and I were really patient when house shopping and made sure we were in a position financially to move quickly when we did find “the one”.
I’m financially very risk averse, even having a mortgage bothers me, so I’m in the middle of an extremely aggressive payoff mode. I built a very large emergency fund over the previous 5 years before purchasing the house.
I suppose a big sudden job change could cause me to want to sell this house, but I don’t feel that I would be forced to do so on an accelerated time scale, due to my emergency fund. This will be especially true once I pay off the mortgage, increase my cash flow and have no structured costs associated with the house beyond taxes, insurance and utilities.
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We did what Bipp did – rented in the neighborhood first, then bought, and paid off at an accelerated rate (by having roomates the first few years, we paid double our mortgage payments).
We chose to be near some bus lines & a main bike thoroughfare that wasn’t quite complete when we bought, which actually gives us a lot of flexibility for jobs that are easy to get to. Being near the light rail would be even better, since they can’t move that like a bus line, but it goes to the airport so most of the light rail neighborhoods have a lot of airplane noise.
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It’s all about your decisions. If you choose to live in the middle of nowhere or in a very car-dependent city, that choice precludes carfree life. BUT IT IS YOUR CHOICE. Don’t say you can’t–you simply can’t because you choose not to.
If you want to, you can. Move.
Better yet, help campaign for better forms of development that are kinder to those who choose to walk or who have to for age or disability, etc.
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Eva- I’m glad you pointed out the structural inequalities that exist in towns that choose to have terrible public transportation/no bike lanes/poorly maintained sidewalks. When I waited tables, there was a woman who had to take the bus because she couldn’t afford a car. The bus only ran every hour and a half, and then the commute took 2 hours round trip. Depending on her schedule, she would sometimes get to work an hour and a half early, then half to wait an hour and a half to go home, and then of course she had to spend the 2 hours round trip. Or, as you said, elderly people or people with physical and/or mental disabilities are essentially home bound and dependent on others in a situation with poor public transportation.
I wish more people would see that it an investment in the community to lobby for bike trails, bike lanes, sidewalks, buses, and light rail.
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I ride my bike to work a few days in a row. I live about 3 miles from the office, as luckily I live and work in adjacent suburbs. I usually do a much longer ride for exercise purposes. I’m not saving much in gas, because my 3 mile commute doesn’t cost all that much to begin with. I’m also fortunate to have a gym at the office, so I can clean up after my ride. If my office was more than 10 miles away, or didn’t have a shower, it wouldn’t be practical at all.
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I used to wonder why people had such long commutes. But when you live in a major metropolitan area, you can’t always adjust your living location to be near your job. I know one guy who moved from the south part of metropolitan Denver to the north part to be close to work, and two years later the company was bought and he had a long commute again. Or you get laid off and your new job is across town. Are you supposed to move every six months? People settle in to an area, the kids go to school and make friends, and maybe you can’t afford to sell the house.
I commuted by public transit for ten years, and it was a hassle, not because of where I live (two blocks from a bus stop for a downtown express), but because I had a two mile walk once I got downtown. I justified it by saying I should walk anyway, and it only took 10 or 15 minutes longer than waiting for a transfer.
I have changed jobs twice since moving to this house, and none of the jobs were good enough to justify moving my husband and his two-car garage full of tools to another (more expensive) location.
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I hate that any time this discussion comes up, there is an endless supply of people who say “if you live too far away, then move closer to work.” I did not choose for my work to be in the middle of a major urban area. I did choose to not pay $500,000 for a 1 bedroom condo. The result of that choice is that I live 25 miles away from work.
Luckily for me, there is a bus that can get me most of the way to work.
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How is where you work not your choice?
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I only got one job offer after grad school, that was 28 miles away from where I lived (after applying to over 40 positions). Was it my choice to take it? In the most basic sense of the word, yes. But I think we can both agree that we are arguing semantics at that point.
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Walking and biking exposes you to the elements, and when the elements are nasty, you will have a very miserable day. And it’s not like you can just call out of work because of the weather.
If the weather is nice, You should definitely leave the car at home, if it is nasty, you should not feel bad about taking it to work. this way you can cut down a lot of driving expenses. and still save money. It shouldn’t be all or nothing.
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I agree. People shouldn’t feel like it is all or nothing. We don’t do it 100% but the amount we do saves us money.
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If you are walking/biking more and driving less, make sure to call your insurance company. They usually base your rate off of how many miles you drive every year, and you can get a reduction in your rate if you are driving less.
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I agree, the choice is not really driving or biking 8 miles or so to work, but the choice when deciding where to live, whether it is a priority to live where it is possible to walk/bike/commute to work, grocery, and other amenities (see Bipp 18).
What some of the comments are trying to say, is people feel they do not have a choice in where they live, which for the most part is real. With the exception of some major cities there is no decent mass transit and that urban planning in the US is largely predicated on cheap gas and multiple cars per household. Maybe this will change in the future, if enough people express the desire for those choices.
What the article’s calculator ignores is because of the “walkability” of our location if we were buying now we would have to pay significantly more for a house of these specs in this location than one even 5 miles further out. More “walkable” homes are (typically) more expensive. Some people can’t afford a walkable home in the city they live in. In our case it was a priority so we sacrificed in other areas (house size, backyard) to live where we do. And we feel like it was worth it.
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Some people also don’t take into account that when there are TWO income earners it’s that much harder to find walkable/bikable solutions for either person. My husband’s office and mine are 52 miles apart. We live in the middle.
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In our area, there are only perhaps a tiny handful of bike commuters dedicated (crazy?) enough to make it work year-round. I know I don’t generally see bicyclists between November and April–the conditions are pretty bad, and most bike commuters feel the trade off of saving money isn’t worth the added risk of injury and harsher environment.
Anyway, I mention it, because the calculator doesn’t seem to really allow flexibility for figuring out part time solutions. It’s like you either are driving *or* you are bus/carpool/biking.
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It is currently 114F outside and we haven’t peaked for the day. I dare you to bike commute in Phoenix in summer. No take that back, a ER visit is too expensive.
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JD – I don’t think it is a good idea to be writing while walking. Safety first!
I’m glad you are trying to drive less. There are not too many places around our house to walk to so I have to use my car. On the other hand, my workplace offers a ton of places to walk to. I can walk to eat lunch in a restaurant and walk back within one hour. However, I really should be bringing my lunch so most days, I walk for 30 mins. with a co-worker around the neighbordhood.
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I live in Albuquerque, home to some of the most oblivious drivers on the planet. Factor in the risk of bodily injury and suddenly the bike is not so cheap.
I ride around a bit, but I don’t trust it as a method of transportation. Metal vs. metal beats metal vs. bone. Maybe I’m paranoid, but I haven’t seen worse drivers in all my life. I feel safer in New York traffic.
We used to have a Mini but traded it for a large truck. Part of it was the astronomical cost of Mini maintenance, part of it was the fear of ending up like a highway pancake, though the biggest factor was that the truck is more useful for my business– I can’t load 400lbs of gear on a bike.
I don’t drive a lot though, I work at home and live in a walkable neighborhood. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
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You seriously write while walking? That’s incredibly dangerous, and occasionally disrespectful to the other walkers/bikers you inevitably stumble into
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Folks, trust me: The reading and writing while walking is safe and isn’t a nuisance to anyone. Every time I mention this habit, people get pissy. But you’re judging me based on what it’s like to walk in your own area, not mine.
I’ve been doing this for years now without issue. I’ve never had a single close call with a vehicle, and I’ve never come close to running into a walker or biker. I appreciate the concern, but I’ll continue to read while walking.
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I had to laugh at this, because I grew up in the middle of *nowhere* and I was a total bookworm. My parents would constantly tell me to go outside and get Fresh Air and Exercise (TM). So I would go outside and ride my bike – while reading my book
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You almost had it! Until:
“But it’s unlikely that the average person has the ability to simply give up their car.”
Of course the average person has the ability to do this. The average person has the ability to do the most amazing things in their life, from scaling a mountain to bringing clean water to a town in a third world country to running a marathon.
It’s not about ability. What you mean to say is that “the average American is not likely to choose to give up their car if they already have one.” But those are two very different things.
Giving up a car generally means making a series of choices that enables a person to conduct daily activities easily and comfortably. These can include living close to the center of town or in another dense area, joining a carsharing program, and arranging for daycare close to work or to home. Of course it’s not practical if you don’t make those changes.
I’ve noticed this approach in posts in the past. You’re all about what people CAN do, urging people that they CAN make a budget and they CAN find places to cut back and so on. But when it comes to driving, JD, I have noticed that you often mistake wants for needs. Needs include food, water, and shelter. All the rest is negotiable.
Comments like Tyler’s are an excellent example of the way these discussions degrade quickly. Nobody is suggesting Tyler bike 65 miles to work. It drives me crazy when people act as though bicycling advocates are suggesting that everybody just go and switch to bicycling, irrespective of one’s personal situation and in total isolation of the other important changes that need to take place to make it happen. It’s like gun rights advocates who claim that the president is literally coming to their door to pry the shotgun out of their hands. It completely misrepresents what most bicycling advocates are suggesting.
(There are lots of particular situations in which giving up the car to bike instead would be impractical, besides a 65 mile commute. Of course it’s difficult when you’ve got a two-worker household, but amazingly, somehow even some of us in that situation manage to work it out.)
Let’s talk about the real area where people are suggesting a lifestyle change. 65% of trips that Americans make that are *less than one mile* are made by automobile.
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I didn’t mean to imply that my situation was the same as everyone else. I was simply saying why cycling to work would be impractical for me.
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“It’s not about ability. What you mean to say is that “the average American is not likely to choose to give up their car if they already have one.” But those are two very different things.” Exactly.
Of course, there are extenuating circumstances. But the fact of the matter is that there are lots of grocery stores, restaurants, libraries, banks, etc. that are within a perfectly reasonable walking distance- 1 to 2 miles- and people simply don’t prioritize walking. It might take a bit longer, but again, if you wanted to do it, you’d spend a bit less time on other areas, and get a nice walk in, too.
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Financial savings methods can’t always work for everyone but it’s nice to see anything that makes me consider an alternative! For those concerned about weather, there are going to be days when biking or walking aren’t going to work so well but we’ve been known to bike in high heat and humidity (we’ve lived in the South and in the desert!). My husband often bikes to work in the summer-but he starts work in the morning and leaves after it’s cooled down a little (no reason to bike to work at noon!). We bike often as a family, including to the grocery store! It’s an interesting exercise in making sure we don’t overbuy for space in the bike trailer or our backpacks or that it’s not too heavy! Thanks for the bike vs. drive calculator. It’s fun to take a look at!
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Unless someone is an *extemely* efficient biker, it takes more energy from your body to power your bike than it does to drive a car. Why isn’t that # included in the calculations?
My 25 mi round trip commute would take an extra 1250 calories/day (assuming a reasonable 50 calories/mile to bike and negligible calories to drive). If I go to work 230 days/year, that means I need an extra 287500 calories a year. The best estimates I found were 1/10 of a cent per calorie, so it would cost me an extra $287/year to power this well run machine
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Overall, I would save $2630/year to spend an extra 345 hours a year on a bike. This also equates to about 10% of my non-working, non-sleeping time. All that for $7.62 an hour? No thanks.
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I think because it’s considered a benefit that biking takes energy from your body. You’re getting exercise plus you’re getting transportation at the same time. Most people see that as a positive thing.
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It’s a benefit that possibly replaces a gym membership. You still have to fuel your body. Few people can run a 1250 calorie deficit 4-5 days a week long term and still be healthy. For me personally, that would require subsisting on a net 450 calories a day…
I do a 23 mile bike ride, recreationally, once or twice a month. And then I eat an entire pizza afterwards.
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I do agree this is all very personal when it comes to calorie needs. I ride about 60-70 miles a week for transportation, and I have not noticed that I need to eat more. My partner and I often do long bike rides of about 30 miles on the weekends on top of that, and I don’t notice that I eat more on those days either (I eat more frequently during the ride, but not more overall), so that’s why I don’t usually think about the cost of “fuel” aka food when it comes to biking.
However, I would say that for the most part, most Americans are eating far more calories than they need and getting far less exercise than they need. The average American could probably stand to eat a few less calories and work out more.
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I bike 12 miles a day (round trip) and have been doing a 40+ mile ride every weekend with little to no increase in eating. Occasionally I’ll need to snack on something like a little trail mix bag. I would say most Americans over eat so much that burning an extra 1200 calories a day should only require a moderate increase in food intake and the health benefits would FAR FAR out weight the costs of food.
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It is a simple energy balance. Unless you are magically extracting energy from the environment, you are powering your engine (body) with fuel(food).
You may think you aren’t but, if you are maintaining the same weight, you must be replacing spent calories (it may just not feel that way).
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Philosophically I agree and this was me for over a decade, but, you know, it got old after a while. This weather, the planning, the energy required after a long day at work got to be too much. There’s a reason why people like their cars!
The last time I moved, I chose the lower rent in a car dependent location over the higher rent in a walkable/bike commutable area, and I’m satisfied with my choice. The lower rent more than compensates for the added commute costs.
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But you made the choice, and did the math – lots of people just assume car dependency, and make housing choices based on a best-case scenario where their car never breaks down and the price of gas stays stable. Then they’re screwed when things change.
Not to mention all these people who claim they are just powerless over both their location and the state of the local infrastructure, instead of owning the decision and taking the consequences.
I mean, I live in the Midwest, partly to be near family and partly because I couldn’t afford a live I loved in New York (or San Francisco, but it was New York I left to come back here). It’s my choice. Friends who just couldn’t bear to leave New York pay the price, and they mostly don’t whine that the “How to save money on your mortgage” or “How to be a small time landlord” articles don’t apply to them.
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I wish I could bike more than just for exercise. Los Angeles is not a safe biking city that is why I stick to bike paths.
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This might work for people without kids but I have 3. I can’t walk or bike ANYWHERE. The only way I could reduce my car expense is to downsize to a one car family. But that wouldn’t save me any money in gas and I have NEVER spent $1000 a year on car maintenance. And how can anyone buy a weeks worth of groceries on a bicycle? The more often you shop the more you spend, it’s a fact.
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I’m planning on getting a trailer for my bike for transporting groceries (grocery store is ~10min ride for me). New ones are a bit pricey, so I’m waiting a bit to see if I can get a used one off Craigslist that meets my requirements.
As for the kids, dunno, I don’t have any. When I was a kid in the suburbs and wanted to go to the swimming pool we all rode our bikes as a family. Obviously, I was old enough to ride a bike. I don’t know anything about your kids. If the kids are spread out in age, the littlest two can fit in a bike trailer and the oldest could ride their own bike. (Depending on your intended destination)
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I buy a week’s worth of groceries on the bike on a regular basis – previously I hauled one kid in a 2-kid trailer, now I have a longtail cargo bike.
People who want to do it, make it happen. I see people hauling 3 kids all the time – usually it’s a trailabike and a trailer, sometimes a trailabike, a trailer, and a baby seat. I see a dad with a longtail like mine and 3 little kids every once in a while.
You don’t have to want to but it’s not impossible at all.
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Well, you could get a bakfiets – http://bakfiets.nl/eng/ – but your presumably-American neighbors would probably look at you funny.
We also have a few kids, live in a suburban area, and have gone back and forth between one and two cars over the last several years. You might be surprised on the gas savings – we consistently used about 25% less gas with one vehicle than two. I think we consolidated errands more because we had to.
And I know it violates conventional wisdom, but I found my grocery bills to be lower when I shopped more – I think I shopped more efficiently and had less food waste. (I do love my car for grocery-getting, though!)
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Thanks for that observation. (I don’t think many people think cargo bikes are weird any more!)
My brother has two little kids and one car. They have a bike trailer. (They actually downsized to one car after the kids came along.)
We live in a mid-size city (300,000) and they are good at biking places — to the store, to work, and for recreation.
We all go on bike outings together for fun, instead of doing canned entertainment at “SportZ Mountain” or ChuckECheeze.
Everyone benefits from the togetherness, the exercise, and not being exposed to nasty junk food and advertising.
I know, some readers are just going to jump all over this because it sounds preachy. Look, some things are better than other things and I’ll be the first to say so.
Biking is better than sitting on your ass in a car. Outdoor exercise is better than paying $$$ to some franchise kidszone.
We’re not hipster vegan freaks and we’re not bike nazis. We live in a hot climate, and drivers here are no better than most for hostility to cyclists. So it’s not like we live in la-la land.
We’re just ordinary people who chose carefully and made some small sacrifices to limit our impact on the environment and hopefully increase our own happiness.
As Rosa said, It’s not impossible. You just have to want to do it, and do it. Choices!
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In a couple of weeks, I’ll have three as well, the oldest of which is three. We have one car, which my husband drives to work, and I do groceries on weekends; if I need the car on a weekday, I drop DH off at work that morning and pick him up that evening. It’s not a huge deal.
We’ve got a nicely walkable neighborhood. If the kids and I need out of the house during the day, we go for a walk. I’ve got a good jogging stroller and an Ergo for the baby; we all enjoy our family walk, it’s good exercise for me, and we usually end up at a nearby playground.
I’m kind of an introvert though…I like staying home with the littles. =) When they get older, we’ll probably need a second car, just so we can get out during the day. We’ll see.
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We rode our bikes with our friends to a restaurant a couple months ago. We took our friends, simply loaded some in a pulled stroller thingy and one in a bike seat (with helmet). It was more fun than taking 2 cars and the kids had a blast. The same pull stroller can be used to haul groceries.
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I have a psychological block in seeing the savings in driving less, because I pay about $1000 in insurance yearly to keep the car; the less I use it, the more that money seems like a useless waste. While I can see that mathematically, spending the set amount on insurance and spending less on gas adds up to less than spending the same amount on insurance and spending more on gas, it is also true that the cost per kilometer to operate may be more if I drive it a lot less and take into account the insurance costs. In any case, that set amount on insurance is just harder to swallow, the less I use my car. I commute to work by bus and mostly use the car for errands, leisure activities and visiting my mom who lives an hour’s drive away — all “wants” that I want enough to keep the car.
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Do you live in a town with car sharing? That might allow you to ditch they car entirely and save money. Also, do you pay for parking? Since that is another expense that would go if you got rid of your car.
In case you aren’t familiar with car sharing you pay a fee to join (in some cases you pay and annual fee as well). Most systems also have a monthly fee (mine is less then $6.00 per month.) The cars are scatter around the city at various high traffic locations. When you need a car you can go on-line or call a number and make a reservation (these can be made way in advance or right before you need it.) When you are ready to go you go to the car, use your key fob to get in and away you go. With mine I pay an hourly rate plus a per mile charge. I’ve found that I save about 3,000 per year since getting rid of my car. (This is after I add in the cost of buss fare/car sharing and the ocasional taxi ride.)
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Actually, yes, my city has a car sharing program that seems rather good, especially because they run a concurrent program with monthly bus passes. The only drawback is that I live too far from the downtown core to properly take advantage of it (none of the communal parking locations are anywhere near where I live). Perhaps I will eventually reduce car usage and dependency to a point where this makes more sense than to keep paying fixed costs like insurance to not use my car that frequently but for now, the freedom of having the car at my disposal (in a parking spot right in front of my door that I don’t pay extra for) is worth it to me.
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To JD. This is sort of response to a prior post about your wish to downsize your house because, in part, dislike giving up 90 minutes every time your yard needs mowing. Most readers responded that you should hire this work to be done. Your dislike for mowing, because it sucks up your time, seems in contradiction to this post about walking and biking to save on gas, which also takes up time you could “better use” writing. Both activities provide exercise and both (walking and DIY mowing) save money. Push-mowing, in particular, burns almost as many calories as jogging. The logic that writing is a better use of your time than mowing, can also apply to walking versus writing. Driving for an hour costs perhaps $8 to $12, which is less than most people earn per hour.
But as a writer, I was also surprised that you do not value the downtime of “mindless work.” I am a “writer” by nature (not currently doing anything professionally). I am a writer because I almost compulsively write in my head when I do mindless work. I think about the things I want to write in my journal… I make mental notes of some scene I want to later write about. I might also mentally compose an important email or letter I need to send. I find I write more quickly, easily and creatively after I have first written it in my head. I use this downtime also for creative problem solving. I often do house maintenance for whole days at a time and i am never bored because I’m thinking about things.
So I guess I don’t get why mowing is such a strong negative. I lived in the city for about ten years, and I just came to really miss grass… a yard of my own, a garden, the outdoors. I can never regret mowing. What I do think is that you can buy better tools to reduce the time and effort. You can also buy hearing protection with a built-in radio, so can listen to a talk show of interest or music. I also think your wife can learn to do most “guy” tasks. As a retirement-age woman, I mow, trim trees, paint my house, stack firewood and do light carpentry. Also as a woman, regular physical impact exercise and weight lifting is crucial for bone density, and in the long run may save me tens of thousands of dollars in nursing care if it means I don’t break a hip with I am elderly. I can get this type of exercise at a gym, but I find it is just more satisfying and purposeful to stack firewood, climb ladders and push a mower.
Would you hire someone to mow your lawn so you have time to walk to the store? I don’t.
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I gave up my car nearly 3 years ago. I’ve also since found a job within my zip code. It’s a tradeoff: with such a small job-hunting radius I took a job making about a third of what I used to make, but gained 4 hours a day which I used to spend commuting (and on commuting costs). I don’t have the ability to leave the city to do things like camping or snowboarding nearly as much, but I’ve lost 45 pounds and relax at home on my lunch break. Worth it? To me, definitely. The only things I miss are the spontaneous weekend day trips.
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@63: Consider Sub-24 Hour Overnight camping! (S240)
http://www.rivbike.com/article/bike_camping/bike_camping_vs_touring
You may have to do a little looking around, but there are opportunities all over.
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I think its worth mentioning that driving a motorcycle greatly reduces the imbalance. I paid $2500 for my motorcycle which had 3,000 miles on it. I pay ~$10 per week in gas, which is roughly 100 miles. Maintenance is maybe $200 a year? Free parking. Insurance (in Seattle) $150/year. Its amazing for cost savings.
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The community can be a big thing for biking to work. Biking to work in the Chicago suburbs, as I used to, was a dangerous chore. Few bike lanes, lots of traffic, etc. Now I live in Bend, OR where the bike lanes are everywhere and “most” drivers are respectful of bicyclers.
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I live in Calgary (Alberta, Canada).
And I am car-free by choice. I have owned a home with my partner for almost 5 years now, and neither of us has a valid driver’s license. They haven’t been revoked; we’ve simply never bothered to get beyond a learner’s license. He had a license and drove in Bucharest, but hasn’t had one since coming to Calgary over 10 years ago.
Biking can be an extreme sport year-round in Calgary due to the high altitude (3,000 ft) and the mountain weather (it has actually snowed at least once in every month of the year at some point in the 15 years I’ve lived here). We do still have people who will commute to work in -30C blizzards but I’m not that committed myself.
My spouse is from Romania and I’m from a more northern and colder part of Canada than Calgary. So I don’t mind transit in the winter as much as he does. But he doesn’t have to walk further than a block to get to and from the bus on his commute, whereas I walk 10 minutes to my bus and 5 minutes from it (but I enjoy it, even in – 30C) so it works out.
We regularly bring our groceries home on the bus or walking (if the weather’s nice) since we are only about a 10 minute walk away from a large well-priced grocery store (Superstore). I will admit that in the winter we have taken to ordering in our groceries from a local store that isn’t near us in the city, but part of this is because their meat is better quality for a better price than the stores closer to us and sourced from local farms. They have such excellent pork and bison that if they were closer to us we would shop there directly. Also, ordering online has actually helped our budget because we can’t really impulse buy. In the summer we prefer to be able to see the produce sales and pick it out directly ourselves.
Note: I do not force my spouse to not drive. If he wished to get his license he could have had one years ago. He’s simply not particularly motivated since we’ve set our lives up already to minimize the inconveniences in being car-free relative to those with cars.
We bought a house with the understanding that we would not be driving, so many of the things we need regularly for daily living as well as basic home maintenance can be had within a 20 minute walk or less (and often no more than a 5 minute bus ride if need be in inclement weather).
I enjoy being challenged and coming up with creative solutions to problems so a car-free lifestyle isn’t an inconvenience to me, it’s an opportunity. Plus, the money saved has meant we could go back to Bucharest for his brother’s wedding in 2006 and his high school 10 year reunion last year using cash saved for both of these trips.
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I pay roughly a 20% premium to live within a mile of my job and within 5 miles of any jobs I could see myself working in the next decade or two in my city. Between my bike and walking to work, I’m more than paid for the extra cost of living near downtown.
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When the gas prices spiked in 2008, I decided to reduce my vehicle use by 60% and became a pedestrian. As a pedestrian, I have come to despise bicylists. I have had more run ins with cyclists as a pedestrian than I ever had as a motorist; bicyclists who have run me down on sidewalks in commercial areas; bicyclists who have run me down in crosswalks; bicyclists who do not stop at stop signs and ignore traffic laws or even common courtesy. And when you call them on their boorishness, they often respond with the worst obsecenities. The dirty little secret with bicyclist is this: its a pecking order, they feel victimized by motorists but have absolutely no problem victimizing pedestrians. Self righteous, hypocrites.
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What frustrates me most about any sort of online discussion about biking is this sort of post.
I’m not disputing that there are jerks who ride bikes who need to learn to share the road… with all users, including motorists and pedestrians.
Equally there are jerks who drive cars and jerks who are pedestrians too (especially those who wear an ipod or talk on their phone and step out into traffic in front of you when you are riding your bike as part of normal traffic).
Please don’t make totally baseless and inaccurate statements like the ones you have made. The cyclists I know (and yes, I am one too) genuinely care about looking after all road users.
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If all your clothing were that tight, you might be a little cantankerous too…
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It frustrates you because it’s true
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I wish there were some easy way to quantify the “savings” which are associated with the physical and mental benefits of regular bike riding.
Yes, cycling commuters can seem a bit like zealots, but mostly we’re trying to share the benefits we’ve experienced in our lives from cycling.
When I ride to work each day I’m not spending money on gas or a transport ticket. I’m using my time efficiently by combining commuting with exercise. No paying for spin classes for me! I always arrive feeling fresh. My mind feels ‘switched on’ and ready to work. I have also always found the ride home a fabulous way to destress after work. Unlike traffic, which often compounds any frustration, something about the rhythmical pedalling helps process the day. I might start out thinking about work, but somehow my mind thinks things through and by the time I reach my door I’ve moved on to thinking about something else.
What’s the value of all this? I don’t know. But I know when I ride to work regularly I am more fit, more mentally healthy and happy, less stressed, more efficient in time and I am not spending money.
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Good for you! Now turn off the zealot function and stop pushing your choices on me.
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The savings are definitely highest if you can afford not to have a car at all. You save on the insurance, on the cost of the car itself, then on stuff like gas, maintenance fees, and repairs.
If you do have a car and use it less, you only save on cars. And possibly repairs if you need less of them as a result of using the car less.
Oh, and parking fees. I keep forgetting you need to park a car as opposed to yourself or public transit, and in a lot of places you need to pay for that.
But that doesn’t mean that if you have a car it’s not worth it and you should use it all the time since you’re already paying for it
It’s worth figuring it out. And small changes can make a difference over the long run.
I’ve heard people say that carpooling can help, not just in matter of money (you pay for gas only once) but also in matter of time (since you can use the carpooling lane) so it’s also an option to keep in mind.
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I get a little frustrated when so many of these discussions turn to arguments and judgments about our personal choices. We, as a nation, have made choices that trump many of our personal choices.
In the 1950s, Eisenhower put billions into the interstate highway system at the expense of rail. Car companies bought up trolley lines and destroyed them to decrease competition (and got away with it). Taxpayer money goes far more to airports than to bike trails. When even those of us who live on the densely populated east coast can’t take a train anywhere we want to go, it’s not due to a personal choice but to the funding priorities and laws of our nation.
Choosing to walk or bicycle or use a fuel efficient car is great. But if we want to see changes that help everyone make choices that save them money and their health, we need to stop allowing private corporations to get more benefit from our tax money than citizens.
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Cool calculator. My bike is about 1 mile so until the snow falls and sticks i’m biking! (and even after the snow I walk). Forget paying for parking, gas and increased maintenance!
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“But it’s unlikely that the average person has the ability to simply give up their car.”
At least some people can. We did. We moved from the suburbs into the city. We looked for an apartment that would be walking distance from a subway station and that was located in a walkable neighbourhood with grocery stores, drugstores, etc.
We both have monthly transit passes. (I also do a lot of biking from April to October, but I still buy a pass.) At $72.75 per pass, it works out to $1746 per year for the two of us. Massive cost savings as compared to owning a car or two! But honestly it’s not just about the money or the environment (though both are important to me) — I truly feel my life is better without a car. There is less hassle, nothing to take to the garage, nothing to fill up with gas, and I feel more in tune with my surroundings. I am happier without a car. Even if I had a free electric car, I would not keep it.
We’ve been car-free for 10 years and have no plans to change that anytime soon.
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I felt the same way the year I lived in Japan. I rode a bike, or took public transportation or walked, but mostly it was the bike. Even during 5 months of snow (during the worst winter in 100 years) I would be out walking or biking. Yes, it took more planning. Sure, it took longer. But I think, in the general, people overlook the inefficiencies and hassles of cars and over estimate the inefficiencies and hassles of not having cars. I was way more stressed and frustrated sitting in rush hour traffic in Dallas than I ever was biking in snow and rain
Plus, the freedom of just not having to worry about so many things to do with cars was also a good tradeoff.
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Even though I have subscribed for a long time this is my first post. This is. An interesting article and the follow on article directed at those who got their ire up at the bike- relplacing-car scenario spoke to me. I am a San Diegan and I don’t ride a bike. An oxymoron for sure. The people I work with who ride bikes to work get under my skin not because I am defensive about my choice but because they are worse than new religious converts and they are always trying to convince everyone else to ride their bikes to work. It is just tiresome. 99% are men who’s wives are schlepping their kids around. And they don’t forsake their cars they just added a multi thousand dollar bike to their collection of stuff (plus the little tight suite collection). They still have cars (most have fancy sport cars) and motorcycles. So my biking coworkers fit more the self-indulgent brag about their stuff types than the save the environment frugal types. I totally get your companion article that we shouldn’t take stories presented here personally. But in defense of those that had a reaction to the bike story I think there is more to what pushed their buttons than what you perceived. There is a paradoxical aspect to a large subset of the bicycling crowd that is just annoying. Present company excepted.
Thanks for writing a great blog.
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I know the type. There’s a whole cycling culture thing that I don’t get and don’t participate in. I enjoy riding my bike to work when the weather permits (midwest), but I don’t preach to other’s about it. Everyone makes their own choice. Just as I don’t want to be preached at for where I live (I want to work/live in the suburbs), what I eat (I won’t be a vegetarian), what I drive (I have an SUV), what size home I have, etc. I can’t stand what our current culture seems to be, where people feel compelled to shove their life choices down each other’s throats because they don’t agree with their choices.
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I read today’s post (06/28/2011), and decided to come back and post here. I’m a stay-at-home mom with 2 kiddos, ages 5 and 8. I would like to bike for our groceries and quick errands, but I’m not able to do that quite yet. However, I think I’m moving in the right direction. Just in the last month, a grocery store opened within biking distance. Part of the bike route is on the street, though. I am not biking for groceries yet because I’m not comfortable with the kid’s abilitites. But, I’m not giving up! At least a few days a week, the kids and I bike on our city’s trails (sadly, we have to drive to get there, but the city is rapidly expanding the trial system). I’m teaching the children bike safety and letting them develop confidence in their abilities. My goal is that by next spring, we’ll be biking for our groceries. Will this make much difference in our finances? Maybe, maybe not, but the kids and I are getting exercise, and they are learning all about bicycle safety. My point is that I could just throw up my hands and say: “I have 2 kids, and live in the ‘burbs, there’s no way I can bike places.” But, I like to bike and I want my kids to learn, so I’m taking babysteps to get there.
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I cracks me up how defensive people get over suggestions like this. Hey, if it’s just not a good idea for you then obviously the author doesn’t mean you. If you can do it, great! If not, oh well. Next suggestion. You don’t have to do everything.
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It looks likethe calculator isn’t calculating the auto insurance correctly. Maybe someone should tell the author.
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Apologies if this has been mentioned already — I didn’t read all 103 comments — but walking time could also be spent listening to Spanish radio or learning materials. (Hopefully you’re not listening to anything while biking!)
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Doesn’t let you put $0 for depreciation. $1 works, though
I drive a 28 year old car, so it’s not really depreciating much now. The commute’s only about 6 miles, so I bike usually. My costs are a bit weird as I have low insurance, no loan, but high gas costs (12 mpg!). But, with the low miles of the commute and the fact I bike it usually, it totally makes no sense to buy a newer vehicle just to see it driven about 2000 miles a year, slowly dripping money as it depreciates in the driveway.
So my car costs are always going to show up as low, but those gas costs do add up. I thought with the low mileage I drive and the low insurance/registration the car would be competitive, but nope, it’s something like 700/yr to 1500/yr in favor of the bike.
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