Okay, so I saw a post about US gas prices (that I then lost bc I tabbed out), but that inspired me to do some rough comparisons about the cost of my commute.
I commute most days via train. The main suffering point of the train is the lack of local connectors, so I also use my bike and rental scooters (company provided) for legs of my journey. I commute sometimes via car if I need more flexibility due to a partial day or after work obligations.
I have a fairly long commute, ~35 miles via car each way. Yes, it's a long commute, yes I'm working on changing my housing situation at some point, that's not the point here.
I'm going to be as unfair as possible to the train here.
In total, my train commute usually takes ~an hour: 40 minutes plus 10 at each end form biking and scooting. The 40 minutes on the train can be used for starting my day, looking at emails, previewing my lab protocols, etc etc.
My car commute usually takes 40 minutes to an hour, inconsistently due to traffic. I can't do anything else with this time.
A monthly unlimited transit pass for that train is $150/month. Divided by 28 days (which is even an underestimate, bc I also get value out of the pass beyond my commute and a month is slightly longer than that) gives an approximate cost of $5.30. I sometimes use a rental bike locker, so let's bump that up to $6 for the commute per day to be as uncharitable as possible.
My Subaru outback gets ALMOST 30mpg in perfect highway conditions. Let's be as charitable as possible and call that 30mpg guaranteed, even though it's usually closer to 25mpg with traffic and city streets.
70 miles round trip per day at 30mpg is 2.33 gallons of gas.
Gas is anywhere from 5 to 7 dollars per gallon where I am, generally holding in the 6.00-6.50 range. But there's one gas station I know of that keeps their gas around 5.50. I'm going to be EXTREMELY generous and call this $5 gas.
So that works out to a daily car cost of $11 in gas alone per day.
I could start talking up maintenance vs the cost of my bike, but that gets very intangible.
The only unfortunate part is the local connectors. This is a main artery train line, but there's basically 0 options to get to and from the actual stations except driving, biking, or company shuttles. This is why, unfortunately, if I need any flexibility in stopping places for appointments or errands during that same day, I do usually take my car.
But uh. Idk the point here but. Love public transit. I love my car too but I love using public transit as my primary method of getting around on a daily basis, while also having a car in moments when it's necessary.
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