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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?
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.
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.
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.
My work here is dung.
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.
Your average new car costs very roughly $3000 a year in depreciation. It may be less if you have a cheap japanese model, and much more if you have a American SUV. A car is very expensive compared to taking trains when you factor in depreciation and insurance.
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.
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.
It's mainly the cost of buying a car. The value of a car goes down the more you drive it. Drive it 200,000 miles and the car you might have bought new for $22K is now worth $2K. That's ten cents per mile. If you don't drive your car into the ground, and buy a new one after five years or so, then you probably lost value equivalent to 20 cents per mile. And then there's the cost of insurance. To get the big savings, you'd have to be able to do without a car, or if you're in a couple, share one car instead of having two.
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.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Muni cost $40 dollars per month pre-tax money. Car $9 per day parking + aggravation + gas + maintenance. Let me see. If I could only do math... Of course driving is better because I get to cut other drivers off, flip them the bird and bang on my steering wheel. What more could you want from life?
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.
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!
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.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
I pay about 500 USD per year for free public transport 24/7 in my city. According to this Swedish checklist, 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.)
c++;
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.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
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 $3000/year, but you don't have to buy a new car every year either.
I live in San Francisco and walk/train/bus everyplace. (I do not have a bike) When needed I have access to car via a car sharing program. For 50$ 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.
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.
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!
Pessimists.net - as if life wasn't depressing enough.
As a college student in Tampa, I've found that bicycling is the best way to go. It's faster (I zoom by stopped cars on the roads during rush hour), it's cheaper (no gas, insurance, very low up-front cost), it's cleaner (the only greenhouse gases are my own breathing), and it's healthier (instead of gaining the "freshman 15," I gained the "freshman -50"). It wouldn't be ideal if you have to commute more than 20 miles, but for anything less than that, especially in town, it's perfect.
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...
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
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.
Public transport can be fast if it's done well.
If you're living somewhere with high enough population density to make decent public transport practical (London or New York spring to mind) then you're also living somewhere with a population density that is too high to have everyone driving in to the city every morning without causing gridlock (again, see London/New York).
Now that I think of it, the other extreme can be true too: on a long, empty motorway you're still constrained by the speed limit (and general safety/sanity, if you do choose to exceed it) whereas high-speed rail links can average 170+ mph. Even the (not nearly as fast) rail service we have up and down the UK can take more than an hour off what would be a 3.5 hour drive.
On the other hand, poor reliability, infrequent services and unpleasant conditions can easily ruin these advantages. It just depends on what you've got to work with and how it's run, really.
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
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
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
-- Butlerian Jihad NOW!
With some things like water mains, telephone lines, rail network and roads you simply can't have multiple private companies running multiple lines in parrallel. It's not efficient and you will tend to get monopolies forming in each area as no company would want to move into an area where someone else already provides lines. With their advantage of already having the infrastructure a price war favours them and besides, a price war is a lose-lose for you and them, as is splitting the market.
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.
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).
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The personal cost of public transportation cannot be compared directly to private transportation costs. Political decisions, along with federal, state and local tax subsidies determine the cost of public transportation. For some people public transportation is free (e.g. NYC school children). For those who can't use public transportation but are taxed for it, the cost per mile is infinite.
In 2002 federal transit subsidies were over $7.3 billion dollars. This works out to a subsidy of about 12 cents a mile for every passenger. In NYC, Washington DC, Chicago and Boston the amounts are much higher. On the other hand, the net federal subsidy to highway passenger transportation was negative as a result of gas taxes and tolls.