Your Commuting Costs By Car Vs. Train?

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?

Comments

depends

[tsalmark]

If I continue to own my car then it costs more to take public transit, but not by much. If I sell my car and take public transit I save a few grand a year, assuming I rent a car one weekend a month.

Re:depends

[g-to-the-o-to-the-g]

I've gone car free in the last year or so, and it's saved me a pile of money. Around $7k/year for fuel, plus insurance and car payments add up to more than $20k/year. I use my bicycle most of the time, but when I need to go longer distances I can combine biking and public transit (though I almost never actually do this). I love the freedom of being on a bicycle, as you have all the rights and privileges of both motorists and pedestrians. Travelling through heavy traffic is much faster by bicycle. And then there are the positive health effects.

Re:depends

[Moryath]

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

[MyDixieWrecked]

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:depends

[characterZer0]

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

[nutrock69]

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

[electrons_are_brave]

Meh. In Australia, well-off people own cars AND live in the areas which have good, efficient public transport. Poor people live in the back of nowhere miles from that single bus stop where a bus has never been seen. There's a good paper on "Car ownership and Social Exclusion in Australia". http://civil.eng.monash.edu.au/its/caitrhome/prevcaitrproceedings/caitr2007/johnson_caitr2007.pdf As you'd expect, those who can afford cars mostly buy them. Poor people can't afford, but are often forced buy, cars or they can't get to work. "In Australia, lack of access to private or public transport was found (following having a criminal record) to be the second highest barrier to social and economic participation in a study of job seekers facing multiple barriers to employment". I noticed in the report that it might be different in the US because in Australia the richer you are the nearer you tend to live to the the centre of the city, which is also where the lush jobs and the good public transport are. Poverty, bad jobs and bad public transport go with outlying suburbs. I get the picture in the US that the well-off prefer to live in the suburbs and that good jobs are more decentralised? Speaking in broad generalisations of course.

Re:depends

[adolf]

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?

"Everyone's situation is different"

[taustin]

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"

[bennomatic]

Yeah, there really is no "one size fits all" solution. In the SF Bay Area, there are plenty of lost productivity hours in driving one's self. Hit the wrong traffic patch and it can take you 2 hours to get 15 miles. My wife and I used to work in neighboring office buildings, and we got our wires crossed one day that she had driven in to work, and so she left without me. I called her on the cell phone, found out where she was, and without her pulling over, I was able to jog up to meet her before she got on the bridge, even though she was four blocks ahead of me.

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.

Some More Numbers

[eldavojohn]

Well, from their calculator, they do include parking costs and they have a table for Maintenance (4.67 cents per mile on a medium car) and Tires (0.85 cents per mile on a medium car).

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:100 miles to the nearest commuter train,

[ArsonSmith]

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.