Dahon.Steve

Here's another study showing those using public transit in Pittsburgh save $744 dollars a month! I had no idea the American Public Transit association was keeping score for all these years. Working in New York City, you would really have to shell out a lot of money to drive and park. To be fair, it costs me about $2,500.00 a year in bus and subway fare. I'm saving about $10,000.00 each year commuting into New York City!

APTA Releases February Transit Savings Report. Pittsburghers Using Public Transit Save On Average $744 Per Month | BCTA

https://www.apta.com/mediacenter/pres...t-Savings.aspx

Walter S

The savings are yet another order of magnitude by bicycling

denis123

When I sold my car 8 years ago, I calculated that I was saving at least $6000 per year even if my car was very ordinary, I kept it for a long time, and I didn't use it much.

Dahon.Steve

The numbers are not that large away from a large city. But once you start commuting into a major metropolitan area, the savings become very real. This is the reason we have so many lurkers and motor centrist on the forum.

Dahon.Steve

+1

We're about to have a possible transit strike in New Jersey because the locomotive drivers want a 2% raise for the next four years. I happen to think that's reasonable considering they have been working without a contract for four years. However, our politicians raided 330 million in transit funds and left only 30 million.

However, I still have options of taking jitney vans or other private bus lines that are not going on strike. That's the key to living carfree is to have multiple of options for transportation. I'm not dependent on trains and can take buses, taxi, ferry and yes, a bicycle.

Rob_E

They arrive at the number by assuming that if you take public transit, you don't own a car. They also calculate the cost of driving using the AAA estimates for average cost of driving. I know that I save money by not driving to work, but I always feel like those numbers are seriously inflated.

I-Like-To-Bike

They also assume that if a person uses public transport at all, it serves equally well for all transportation needs, and that car ownership would only provide an unnecessary redundant service.

But not to worry, the usual LCF suspects will continue to post seriously inflated numbers culled from the internet, presumably for another round of group hugging and back slapping about how much money they think they are saving.

denis123

No matter the method used in the links above, I keep track of my expenses and my calculation includes all costs related to car when I owned one and all costs related to bus, bicycle, bike sharing, car sharing, and train after I sold my car. People grossly underestimate the cost of owning a car and forget to include all transportation costs not related to car.

Rob_E

Well, if you're Living Car Free, then you actually are on the upper range of the savings. The problem I have is that the linked article seems to assume that if you take public transit, you don't own a car. That seems like an unwarranted conclusion. But it seems like a much more reasonable conclusion to say that if you're living car free, then you don't own a car.

I think using AAA data to estimate savings, though, is also a little tricky. It's not necessarily wrong, but it's an average that takes data from a pretty wide spread of numbers, lumping in people who buy a brand new car every other year or so with people who drive beater car and keep in running as long as possible.

But for all their unwarranted assumptions, I think there are clear points to be made in favor of public transit:
If a monthly bus pass costs less than what you pay to park downtown, that's a simple, direct source of savings, even if you continue to own a car.
And if you can meet your other transportation needs without a car, you can stand to save quite a lot more if you're willing to let go of the car.

I have no problem with those assumptions. In fact, I think they both apply to me. I just have a problem with article's assumption that everyone using transit falls into those groups.

tandempower

The bus route to where I live stops around 6pm and only runs about once an hour. It's just enough to be able to leave the house once in a day and make it back by evening. The message seems to be that the bus is something people should use to get to a job so they can make enough money to get a car, at which point they can really have a life. The transit system doesn't seem to be interested in putting car-free people on par with drivers in terms of freedom of mobility and access to broader area. I.e. it seems to be assumed that once a bus-rider can get a car, they will.

I-Like-To-Bike

Actually the AAA cost estimates are based on a relatively narrow range of car ownership scenarios, specifically on owners of cars bought new and traded in every 5 years with only 75,000 miles of use. "It incorporates standardized criteria designed to model the average AAA member’s use of a vehicle for personal transportation over five years and 75,000 miles of ownership". It is not an estimate of car costs for people looking to save the most money short of depending entirely on the availability of public transportation.

No beaters, no high mileage cars. Relatively high and exaggerated yearly depreciation costs as a result of frequent trading in of low mileage (75,000 miles) cars. Not the type of car purchasing/owning regimen for someone who has a high priority set on saving money.

See Your Driving Costs | AAA Exchange

https://exchange.aaa.com/wp-content/u...Costs-2015.pdf

denis123

To be exact, they assume that you don't own a car or that you don't need a second car. It is obvious that the biggest savings come when you replace a car ownership by taking public transit. I also find the CAA estimates a bit high but I would not say they are seriously inflated. I don't see what interest they would have to give estimates that are too high.

I-Like-To-Bike

Or choose to travel only to locations serviced by public transportation.
Really? You mean they are unlike many other advertisers or promoters willing to stretch the truth or exaggerate the benefits of their product in order to make a sale?

Rob_E

It's not that I think they are inflated. It's that they are reductive. Cost of car ownership becomes a single number even though the actual cost of car ownership can vary greatly. Then we get into another binary discussion of owning or not owning a car. In reality, there many things you can do to reduce car-related costs that don't involve getting rid of your car. I'm a fan of car-free living, obviously, but I don't think the discussion is helped when you reduce everything to one number that will be clearly inaccurate for many people, and, in particular, by some of the people most motivated by saving money. I sure didn't find myself with an extra $700/month in my pocket once I sold my car. I saved money, but I hadn't spent $700 on my car in the previous year of ownership, because there are lots of decisions you can make to cut costs that don't involve selling your car, and if saving money is a big objective for you, then you're probably already doing some of those things.

Rob_E

That's not necessarily true. Not having a car does not mean relying 100% on public transportation. There are non-car, personal transportation options, which should be fairly obvious given the URL and your username.

I-Like-To-Bike

Nor do I make that claim, apparently that is what the flacks for the American Public Transportation Association believe.

Of course I agree that the biggest savings comes from reducing the number of cars owned, and if bicycle riding or walking or skateboarding is the practical key for some individuals to take this step, great. I really doubt that many people are about to eliminate a car currently used for 15,000 miles of yearly travel because shoe leather and bike riding might be used for some local travel.

It should be noted that another flaw in the OP Report comparison is the public transit cost of the various cities only includes the costs of commuting, and ignores costs of traveling anywhere else. And ignores the possibility that locations currently traveled to by car may not be reliably traveled to by any other means. The AAA costs are based on average commuting distances of 3-10 miles day, that comes to nowhere close to the alleged AAA owner's average 15,000 miles of yearly travel.

IOW, commuting is only a small slice of the average car travel use by the so-called typical AAA car owner.

denis123

Actually, if they count the return that one could have on the money saved by not owning a car, their numbers would make perfect sense.

Seattle Forrest

Of course it's more complicated than this.

I used to commute by bike until my job moved our office to the north. Now it's too far from home for cycling to be feasible, and public transit isn't an option with our new location. None of my coworkers live close enough to make carpooling a realistic option. In short, without a car I wouldn't be able to keep my job. I'd have to find something nearer to my home; moving to the suburbs is simply not on the table. With my seniority here I'd likely take a pay cut. It's a shame because I hate driving in traffic and used to enjoy commuting by bike.

My girlfriend recently applied for a sales job that will require a lot of driving to visit customers. It pays better than her current job, and they won't hire her without a license and transportation.

These figures about how much people would save by not having a car don't account for lost income that comes with lost mobility. I have no idea how anybody would work that out in the aggregate, but I know these figures don't apply to the two cases I'm most familiar with.

Ekdog

denis123

I don't see how you can reduce costs significantly when you own a car. At least for me, I couldn't have. I didn't have any special expense that I could avoid. The car would depreciate itself alone, I had no control on the price of gas or insurance, the car still needed maintenance and repair and so on.

denis123

Car ownership would be still very expansive even if you keep your car longer. You would not save that much on depreciation compared to the total cost of car ownership and part of those savings would be offset by the extra costs of repairs.

Rob_E

Well, the article deals with people already using transit to get to work. It makes no claims that it's a viable option for everyone. It simply says that there are people doing it successfully.

But then your situations aren't that straightforward either because it sounds like you and your girlfriend each have a car. If you didn't have a car, and the company moved you out to the boonies, then it wouldn't be a straightforward calculation of more money + driving vs. less money + biking. It would be a question of whether the more money you make with your commute would offset the cost of a car.

Your girlfriend presumably has a car, too. Or else the job she would be applying for would have to pay enough to offset the cost of a car.

If you are really interested in living car free, then that factors into your job selection, and the cost of having a car factors into how you view your pay. Your pay is not just the number on your paycheck. It's the number minus whatever you have to pay to keep that job. I could be misinterpreting what you're saying, but it doesn't sound like a case of, "I need this car so I can make more money." as much as it sounds like, "I have this car, and have no desire to get rid of it, so I might as well use it to get/keep a better paying job."

I don't have an issue with that line of thinking. It just doesn't seem to have anything to do with living car-free. It seems more like a way of explaining to yourself that a lifestyle that you don't want is unattainable anyway.

denis123

Why would the Canadian or American Automobile Association would promote the idea of selling your car?

Rob_E

I think you can control all of those factors. At least I can. Your situation may be different, but let's look at them.

Depreciation. The newer your car is, the faster it depreciates. An older car depreciates more slowly. Hell, I paid $800 for my car, owned it for almost 10 years, and sold it for somewhere between $100 and $200 when it needed it's first, major repair. I've never seen a depreciation figure that made sense in terms of what I paid for my car. They all assume that the car is somewhat new.

Price of gas. Well, we're talking owning a car vs. being car-free/car-lite. You can't control the cost of gas, but if you're in a position to go car free, then you're also in a position to use as little gas as you want to. That final year, when I was deciding what to do with my car, it didn't use any gas because I wasn't using the car. In the year or two prior, I was filling it up every two or three months unless I took it out of town, which happened maybe 3 times a year.

Cost of insurance. My insurance rate is set in part based on how much I drive. Because I have always tried to arrange my commute to not require a car, I have been in the lowest insurance bracket for a long, long time.

Maintenance/repair. Same as gas. The more you use it. The more it costs. There are some items that might need to be dealt with no matter how much you drive, but there are many more that are "wear and tear" type of things. There's an element of luck involved, too, I admit. But for the most part, things wear out more slowly when you don't use them. Also, there are a number of things that the owner of a car can do at a fraction of the cost of a garage. I change my own oil, spark plugs, brake pads. There's still a cost, but if saving money is your objective, sometimes there are cheaper ways to do things.

I'm not saying that your costs aren't legitimate or that they didn't make sense to you. I'm just saying that numbers like this article throws out: $700/month in savings, are simply not realistic for many people. Those numbers represent an average, and if you want/need to cut costs, you have already found ways to chip away at that number. Hell, I owned a car when $700/month was my take home pay. If the car was costing me $744/month, then I would have been $44 poorer with every month.

denis123

lol. A $800 car is good for scrap. Or maybe this was in 1960.