Being unable to fall alseep (even though I'm pretty tired) I figured that it would be interesting to do a cost analysis of different commuting methods. Just rough estimates, but let's see where it takes us.
According to google maps, a route that's close to what I take to work is 7.7 km. Let's assume that it's closer to 7.2 km each way. Aprox 20 working days in a month, times 8 months of possible biking a year, that works out to 2304 km. Actual costs would be almost zero (let's not count extra food I eat during biking season nor when I take the bus when it rains).
Using the bus actually takes longer even though I'm 10 minutes walk from a major downtown hub. Monthly bus pass is $84.75, times 8 months is 678 $. That works out to aprox 0.29 $ / km.
For a car, let's assume that I could get parking for 10 $ / day. That works out to 1600 $ in parking. Our car's fuel economy is listed at 10.7 L / 100 km in the city (I consider this a lower limit). That works out to 246.528 L of gas. Assuming aprox 1 $ / L, that works out to a total cost of 1846.53 $ or about 0.80 $ / km.
Again, to put that into a daily amount, that works out to something like 0 vs 2.09 vs 5.76 $ / day for bike vs bus vs car. The one that I find helps me the most? Biking of course. ;-)
I was surprised that the km came out to 2304 km. With those numbers, I wouldn't be surprised if the actual km that I put on / season was in the 2500 - 3000 range. 2300 km is like biking from Ottawa, ON to Brandon, MB.
If you want to get more accurate distances for biking, you can use the google maps pedometer (http://www.trails.com/googlemap.aspx), to draw the exact path you take to work, even if it isn't on the road.
ReplyDeleteI'm also a biker, and used to ride all the way to work and back. I just moved though, and until my office is moved, I'm doing the bus+bike to get into work.
One other thing to think about is this. If I took the bus all the way to work, it would take me at minimum, 1 hour, and 20 minutes. That's with express bus. Depending on when I catch connections it could take anywhere up to 1 hour 40 minutes. Now, just for fun, I biked all the way home on Tuesday. 25 KM. It only took me 1 hour. So if I was in good enough shape, and really felt like getting a lot of exercise, it would take me less time to bike, then to take the bus, even when going from Kanata, to the south end of St. Laurent. Good thing is though, is that with my current bike + bus, it takes about an hour to get to work. So I can make it in the same amount of time, without completely wearing myself out.
Thanks Kibbee.
ReplyDeleteI used that site and tried to match what I actually bike as best I can. It came out to 6.998 km. Let's just call that 7km.
With an average biking time around 20 minutes (including all my stops at lights), that puts me around an average speed 21 km/h. The path speed limit is 20. Oops.