Compared to bike and transit, your car commute costs how much!? #cycling #bike #commuting

Have you ever really thought about the full costs of your car commute? It can be shocking.

Car dependency is depressingly expensive and stressful. A new study by MarketWatch surveyed people about the impacts of car costs on their lives and the results struck me. Not only are many of us spending a huge proportion of our income on automobiles – often more than we can afford – these struggles have a huge impact on our well-being. The worst part? For many people, these are not optional costs because there are no other viable forms of transportation.

Shifter Big Stories, presented by Riese & Müller. This is the third video in a series exploring the most important stories in urban cycling and transportation. A big thanks to Riese & Müller for their sponsorship that enabled the creation of these videos.

#cycling #bikecommuting #urbanplanning

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#cycling #bike #commuting

[niceone]

Thanks to trafic jams, commuting by bike is faster than a car for me. Costs me almost nothing and keeps me healthy. Plus I arrive at work in a good mood, while my coworkers are pissed because they were stuck in traffic.

[GrabASpriteB]

In the US at least, a car isn’t even seen as an absolute necessity, it’s almost like an extension of one’s body. It’s always there, you wouldn’t even think about not having it, and any costs associated with it are unavoidable and rarely given much thought. It’s one reason multimodal transit is so hard explain to some people, including politicians. They just cannot fathom any other way to transport yourself.

[jetfxs]

while there are some downsides to cycling in Calgary, it's been so much cheaper than owning a car, and I've never been so fit in my life

[joshaalders]

Just had this conversation today
It’s like the money side of the argument doesn’t even compute.
Thanks for doing what you do. This is a breath of fresh air to listen to

[stevenwalter]

I have been biking to work for about 2 years now, regardless of weather. I haven't measured the difference in immediate costs, but I do have noticeably more spending money. And I'm far happier.

[MrHeff]

2022 Stats Can report stated that Manitoba has the highest provincial annual car ownership costs: roughly 12, 000$ a year. People here don’t realize the savings they could have by cycling and using public transportation.

[mwoolgardens]

I'm confused. How could a 20 km commute by transit only cost 11¢? Is that supposed to be 11¢/km?

[shaunhilliard]

Commuting to work is 10 minutes longer than driving & it feels a hell of a lot better

[robd]

I cant get rid of my car, but I do commute on a bike every day and just bought panniers and a rack to further decrease car use. The fixed costs of my car: insur and reg, remain.

[cube_cup]

I didn't notice the switch from cents to dollars and was surprised that cars weren't supposedly that much more expensive to the city.
Now I'm surprised in the opposite direction. That's a 100x difference! I thought it'd be closer to 10x!

[michellebyrom]

The second set of figures make sense to me. Driving is too often reduced to fuel costs. Insurance, tax, parking and maintenance are all significant. In smaller cities with 80% of public transport running just outside standard business hours, having a car costs about the same or just slightly more than public transpirt plus taxis. It also has the advantage of fitting your own schedule. Until public transport is run for public benefit with more safe cycling/walking integrated car usage won't fall. Public transport having more carriage space for cyclists between cities will help a lot too.

[cheeseparis]

My former car costed me 90€ per month (initial cost+repairs), 40€ fuel, 50€ insurance. My city bike rent is 9.30 € per month. I'm currently doing the math to find which is the cheapest ;-)

[thaneknight]

It’s really city design whether you walk ride or drive. If the infrastructure is there people will use it. cities designed for walking people will walk before they worry about how much a car costs to get around

[RandomAccountHolder]

I strongly believe every car should have a cost counter in it for that day, total, and per distance. So you pop in what your insurance, purchase, registration, fuel, etc into it.

[zeemon]

Where I live it takes only a few years for purchasing a high end bike to end up cheaper than running a gift car.

[radwanderer]

A few automobilists are aware of the full cost (even only of that for themselves).

If you take into account, that a car looses value whilst money on your bank account will grow, the cost of a parking lot at home, parking near to to the workplace, parking near to shops, insurance, taxes, maintenance, repairs, wearing parts such as tires, fuel and many more, for Germany it will reach something between 500€ and over 1.000€ monthly -only for the owner, not for the infrastructure, pollution (health of those breathing the fumes and fine dust) ...

[JoshKablack]

While this argument needs to be amplified, the individual numbers given have to be per kilometer or something, not per 20km commute. Because that's absurd at first glance.

I mean if you look at a 250 workday year, that's $20 a year for 5000km. So like one inner tube and one can of chain lube per year and no other costs.

My actual experience, riding mileage close to that for the past couple years comes out a lot closer to $2000 a year when I include maintenance, parts, accessories, upgrades, and a shiny new N+1 bike every year or three.

Still, my bikes are pretty blinged out with gear and paying a bit under $2k per year to have a quiver of them is a bargain compared to the roughly $12k per year median all in cost of owning a single car.

[adrian_zombturtle]

I'm from Southern California and I was doing research on how much it would be to use a bike to go to a train station and it was $10.50 a day and it would take twice almost 3 times as long. But perhaps the first mistake was being dependent on a highway to drive 15 miles to work each day

[danielmaldonado]

It all depends. I live in NYC but I work in Long Island, which is very car centric and public transit is very scarce.

Whenever my car broke down, I’d spend the same amount of money I spent in gas, but in train and subway fares roundtrip.

[Servergmr]

I pay 0 cents per day for bicycling. That's for sure. I ain't invested an ounce. My family paid the expenses. I may have turned 18, but I am still in high school and jobless.