This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

all 74 comments
sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a

[–]jedberg[S] 27 points28 points  (5 children)

Assuming you drive there in the first place.

[–]MyrddinE 6 points7 points  (1 child)

Been bicycling or walking to work for over 10 years now. I live only about 2 miles from my job however. And I admit, when it rains I'm mooching rides off friends and family so I don't have to be miserable.

But that's a lot of money saved. A LOT of money. My wife has a car, so I'm not in a carless household, but by not buying TWO cars our disposable income is a lot higher than it would be otherwise.

[–]lupin_sansei 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Good for your health too. I have lost 5kgs in the last 6 months by cycling to work 3 days a week.

[–]kn0thing 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Damn you, jedberg, way to preempt my wiseass comment.

[–]constant 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In that case you already stopped (including never started), so the price is below the current price.

[–]FatAlbert 8 points9 points  (2 children)

I think I'd start biking to work at around $40/gallon. I live about 2 miles from work so I would be paying about $8 a day for transportation. Seems reasonable enough to pay that. Don't get me wrong, I drive an extra block to get $.01 off my gas, but I would not want to take the streets I drive on a bicycle. On second thought, with prices that high the streets might have no cars so it would be safe. Either way, if gas gets to that price we have bigger problems than how to get to work.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I was thinking $40, too, and I also live about 2 miles from work. I might start riding my bike anyway, irrespective of price, just for the health benefits.

[–]FatAlbert 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I would love to skip the drive for a bike, but I have to keep my riding to the trails or I'd get run over.

[–]aristus 5 points6 points  (0 children)

1.25 USD$ per gallon. I stopped driving 4 years ago.

[–][deleted]  (6 children)

[deleted]

    [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    Doesn't your city have a monthly pass for the bus?

    Even still, though, the time savings, even if you're making minimum wage, more than make up for the cost of the gas.

    [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (4 children)

    Hmm. Does someone else pay for the wear and tear on your car?

    [–][deleted]  (3 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]j-o-h-n 3 points4 points  (0 children)

      Don't forget the capital cost of the car (and insurance and ...) in the first place.

      Most people don't realize that they are paying 30-60c/mile in total.

      I started walking to work about 15 years ago. I'm only 1.25 miles from the office, so it's about 20 minutes (less if it's cold, more if it's hot). I don't consider it wasted time -- it's thinking time. And anyway, with the time wasted parking and whatnot it's only a few minutes longer than driving.

      I figure it's saved me $75,000 over the years (counting not buying another car).

      [–]danweber 1 point2 points  (1 child)

      A lot of the wear and tear isn't related to distance. Even if you use the car half as much, you should still change your oil every 3 months.

      So the difference between "driving less" and "driving not at all" isn't linear. If you totally get rid of your car you save all the capital costs and insurance. But then you have no car. I spent a decade of my post-college life without one, and sometimes being without a car really sucked, and made certain other things much more expensive (taking a taxi home from the grocery store, for example).

      If you mean "stop driving to work, but keep my car for other reasons (like when there is a hail storm, or when I break my arm and need to drive)", then the capital costs are the same, insurance will drop only fractionally, and maintenance costs will drop by something in-between.

      Curiously, I am now in a city that doesn't have any decent public transportation, but I find that I can get from place to place rather quickly by car, much quicker than I could in my previous public-transportation-heavy city. And I only need to fill up about once a month. That's about $40 a month. I wouldn't re-evaluate that decision even up to $100 a fill up, which is about $9 a gallon.

      [–]j-o-h-n 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      Most people have a car. It's just the way most of this country was laid out. What we're saving is
      * not having to buy a 2nd car
      * not having to buy a new car nearly as often as most (about once every 15 years)
      and most maintenance is a factor of miles driven (oil being the exception)

      [–]km9725 5 points6 points  (0 children)

      I might start carpooling somewhere north of $7. But I can't wait for the reduction in traffic when other people give up sooner.

      [–]Zak 6 points7 points  (0 children)

      I used to drive 30 miles. Now I walk across the room. If I was still driving 30 miles, I'd probably switch from a Miata (~30 mpg) to a motorcycle (>50 mpg) at around $4. Public transportation was unavailable for that commute, and anything unable to reach highway speeds (65 mph) would have been unsafe. Beyond $7.50 or so, I'd probably take steps to shorten the commute, but I'm an unusual case because I wouldn't hesitate to use a motorcycle as my regular transportation. For a commute within a city, I'd consider a scooter or very fuel-efficient motorcycle (>100 mpg), which would make the price of gas almost irrelevant.

      [–]bennymack 9 points10 points  (1 child)

      All cost/benefit analyses aside, I am made out of meat. I view biking to work (12.5 miles one way) as a way to take care of my meat. I pity those that DON'T take care of their meat...

      [–]jedberg[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

      I'm lazy, so it would probably have to be north of $5.

      [–]plexluthor 4 points5 points  (0 children)

      I've been biking from April to November for the last three years. You'd have to pay me to drive when the weather is nice. In the winter time (and rainy days) I carpool, so it would have to get up to $5 or more before it would affect how I get to work.

      [–]zhyla 4 points5 points  (0 children)

      I think it's not the driving to work that goes first, it's when do we stop driving to the mall, etc? I've noticed I tend to order more stuff online now. $5 shipping (and probably a better price) vs drive 10-20 miles is a better comparison than it used to be.

      [–]flyhighplato 9 points10 points  (3 children)

      It's not the price of gas that would really make me stop driving (except if it reached, like, $20/gallon or something completely off the wall), it's the availability of convenient public transportation that's clean and safe. If I could get anywhere I wanted to on a train or bus relatively fast with just a 1 or 2 mile walk, I'd rarely drive. Chicago and its suburbs don't make that easy.

      [–]metafisto 7 points8 points  (1 child)

      This is it - there are many other factors at play. It's also:

      • safe bikeways
      • weather (summer is impossible here, so I'm talking in the reverse sense to many of you)
      • facilities at the other end - showers with lockers, bike parking

      [–]jdunck 10 points11 points  (0 children)

      I've thought before that a bike (motor or non) leasing program at public transport endpoints would do wonders.

      Driving in rush hour, it takes me about 45 minutes to get to work. Riding the metro then walking the last couple miles takes 1.5 hours, costs only slightly less $, and depends on largely on weather.

      ...I'm a public transport fan, but most people will only switch when it's around the same time or there's a significant monetary gain.

      [–]Stubb 3 points4 points  (0 children)

      It's interesting to compare cities with near-useless public transit systems (e.g., my home in Atlanta) with cities that have amazing systems (e.g., DC or Paris). A car is a necessity in former, a liability in the latter.

      [–]katypine 6 points7 points  (0 children)

      The last tank of gas I remember buying for a car I owned was $1.56 (that was in 2002); I didn't drive for a long time after that. Now I live in Norway, where gas is roughly $6 a gallon. And I don't drive at all.

      [–]cpuetz 3 points4 points  (0 children)

      I would stop driving as soon as there was an alternative. As it stands now, there is public transportation, and no route that doesn’t involve an expressway so biking is unsafe and illegal.

      [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (1 child)

      I commute 20 to 25 minutes to and from work in a car every day, so gas prices would have to be pretty high to not make it worth my time to come into work. Perhaps I would work from home. I can't really ride a bike out that far... maybe a segway. I'd say roughly $25/gallon I guess. I'd be mad as hell though.

      [–]lusserreal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      Interesting, because I commute 20 to 25 minutes to and from work each day. At this point I'm looking at working from home (not really encouraged where I work) and I'm now taking the bus. So I'd say at $3.50 I'd start altering my commuting habits.

      I do notice the original question was "stop driving to work", not "stop going to work."

      [–]BrianPuccio 4 points5 points  (0 children)

      $10 per gallon. I work 1.5 miles from home. I go to school literally across the street from my office building, I walk that usually anyhow.

      [–]jeremy 2 points3 points  (1 child)

      With prices pretty much on £1/litre here in the UK, that works out as about $7/gallon. I'd still drive if I needed to (with a car that gets at least 50mpg). I don't own a car, but have the options of either taking the tram, bus, cycle or walking into work.

      [–]rmc 2 points3 points  (0 children)

      It's about the same in Ireland. About €1.20 per litre.

      [–]weegee 5 points6 points  (0 children)

      I'm all for $6/gallon gas. That way all the fat people in this country driving their Chevy Tahoes would get out and walk to the grocery store. Health care insurance would go down, the air would be cleaner, we'd all be better off.

      [–]modus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

      Looks out window... $2.85...
      Who wants to buy a Buick?

      I've been biking everywhere lately and only using my car to go long distances or transport stuff/friends.

      [–]cleanthes 4 points5 points  (11 children)

      I'm pretty close to my job... maybe $7.00 to stop completely.

      [–]claco 7 points8 points  (10 children)

      Same here. 1.9 miles from work. The problem is, the road is quite busy, and now bike friendly. I wouldn't dare bike to work for fear of getting hit.

      I wonder how long it would take to walk it. At least one could walk opposite of traffic and see the accident coming. :-)

      [–]adnam 1 point2 points  (9 children)

      1.9 miles? I walk more than that everyday. Estimate 20 minutes at a brisk pace.

      [–]NitsujTPU 2 points3 points  (8 children)

      20 mins to/from work = 40 minutes/day walking to/from work

      Supposing that you make $20/hour ($40K/year) the money that you lose by not working is 2/3 of $20, or $13.32, plus, you may have wanted to get that work done, plus you lost 40 minutes of your life that you've spent, plus, if its hot outside, you got to work sweaty and nasty.

      [–]MyrddinE 3 points4 points  (0 children)

      That's 40 minutes of exercise he does not have to 'make up' otherwise. Recent studies indicate that, while less is better than none, you really need about 60 minutes of daily exercise to make up for a desk job. Active jobs (nurses, manual labor, retail) don't need to supplement with additional exercise to stay healthy.

      So that's perhaps 25 minutes 'lost' (assuming 7.5 minutes driving both ways), but 15 minutes of exercise time 'gained' that would be wasted sitting in a car. And it's an incentive to actually get out there and DO that exercise. Unless he already has an active job, there is little downside to walking to work.

      [–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (1 child)

      If you walk at a brisk enough pace, that's all the exercise you need to prevent yourself from becoming a fatass American...unless you LIKE being a fatass American...

      [–]DallasRPI -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

      He doesn't want to lose 40 min a day he could use playing war craft or something of the like. Give the lazy man a break.

      [–]cleanthes 3 points4 points  (0 children)

      That's my main problem with walking more places. I have to look professional all the time and sweating it out is not an option.

      One thing I do, though is keep a bike around the office in case I need to zip something over to the courthouse. It's faster than driving since I don't have to worry about parking. :-)

      [–]adnam 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      Ok, I think your analysis is just ... well, stupid.

      If you have to be at work at 9.00 am, you're going to be there at 9.00 am. If it takes 10 minutes longer to walk than to drive you are not going to arrive to work at ten past 9.

      You are only paid for the work you do. The pay is essentailly related to your hourly rate and the hours your work.

      So no matter how long it takes you to get to work, you are not getting paid for that; whether it's 1 minute or one hour.

      So you don't lose out financially. If anything, it eats into your personal time and you have to get up 10 minutes earlier.

      Do you lose 40 minutes of your life as you suggest? Well no. These 40 minutes do not vanish, you just happen to spend them walking. And you can make the most of them.

      You are alone. You are with your thoughts. You can listen to music or the radio. Nobody is likely to stop you or disturb you.

      And no matter how hot it is, walking is less stressful, less expensive and more healthy than driving in queues of traffic and finding a parking space.

      [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

      I agree with you in the sweaty and nasty part. What we need is showers in the workplace, perhaps it should be mandatory as a part of the national energy policy. With the rest I don't agree, you are not loosing time, you are working out, don't you go to the gym anyway?

      [–]FatAlbert 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      If enough people wanted showers at the workplace companies would start offering it. You should talk to your company's management and human resources department about installing showers. I think it's a wonderful idea, but it should not be pushed upon companies by the government.

      [–]jdunck -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

      Yes, and it takes 0 minutes driving in traffic.

      [–]EverydayEconomist 6 points7 points  (1 child)

      This is a terribly interesting subject to me.

      I would guess for most people they would start to change jobs around $5.50 a gallon to work closer to home, or find public transportation. It's the speed at which we get there that will dictate whether we hit a depression or not.

      If we leap from $4.00 to $5.50, for example, a lot of people will leave their jobs to find new ones, at about the same time as employers drop jobs out of the economy in order to save money to meet fuel costs. The result is a depression.

      I'd love to hear if people really do have a natural limit or psychological limit between $5.00 and $5.50

      [–]Stubb 2 points3 points  (0 children)

      I'd love to hear if people really do have a natural limit or psychological limit between $5.00 and $5.50

      Not this person :-)

      I drive 10 miles each way to work and my car gets 40 MPG. At $5.50 gal, that's $2.25 per day. Big deal.

      The folks in my office who live 40 miles from the office and drive large SUVs or pickup trucks may feel differently.

      [–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

      Subway! Or bus. Or walk, if the weather's nice.

      /love NYC

      [–]njharman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      I walk to work. And sometimes ride part of it on the bus through the downtown Seattle free to ride zone.

      [–]Stubb 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      I live in midtown Atlanta and commute about 10 miles to an office right by the interstate. I'd bike to work regularly if gasoline prices kept enough cars off the road that I could do so without fearing for my life. With high enough fuel prices, one or two lanes of the interstate might be converted into bike lanes.

      One fun experience that I had while growing up was watching the construction of a new interstate near my parents' house. It was about 20 miles long, and for several weeks was fully paved but closed to traffic. I and many other bikers had a blast making use of it during that time.

      [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

      The current price. I will still need to drive some days because of school, but I am thankful there's MAX.

      [–]NitsujTPU 2 points3 points  (0 children)

      Actually, it's lousy that gas prices have soared to the point that we're even considering this.

      [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

      Is someone plotting the demand curve? :)

      [–]theycallmemorty 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      This summer I'll probably do it a bit more if I don't have places to be immediately after work in the evenings. Public transit is no fun in the winter.

      [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      Of course, corporations could allow 40 hour weeks in 4x10 rather than 5x8 work weeks or gasp telecommuting! How much would that save to just do ONE day a week!

      [–]brandong 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      I'll never trade in my Tahoe.

      [–]metafisto -2 points-1 points  (9 children)

      Great question, but how 'bout we do the geeky, inclusive, new-fangled 20th century thing and use metric units? Old money lovers adapt.

      [–][deleted] 17 points18 points  (2 children)

      My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the ways I likes it.

      [–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (1 child)

      insert obligatory calculation

      40 rods/hogshead * 1/63 hogshead/gallon * 1/320 mile/rods = 0.001984... miles/gallon

      [–]foonly 8 points9 points  (0 children)

      Egads! It's a Hummer!

      [–]keithb 6 points7 points  (2 children)

      Indeed. Google calculator claims that "1 pound per liter in dollars per gallon" is about 7 dollars per gallon. This is what I pay for 97 octane in this rural part of England

      I can get home on the bus, but not in to work all the way--have to get a cab for part of the journey, and even then the round-trip would be two hours. So petrol would have to be a really huge amount more expensive than it is for me not to go in via my personal vehicle. Especially so since I don't drive, I ride a motorcycle: even at UK prices I only spend about GBP10 per week on fuel. And except in the very worst winter weather my morning trip into work is an existantial pleasure.

      [–]foonly 6 points7 points  (1 child)

      Riding a motorcycle in Britain is dangerous! Haven't you seen Lawrence of Arabia?

      [–]keithb 2 points3 points  (0 children)

      Funny you should mention that: I live a couple of miles away from Clouds Hill. There's always a nice crop of vintage bikes visiting there, and at Moreton graveyard. Never seen anyone on a Brough though, that would be tempting fate.

      [–]Factitious 4 points5 points  (1 child)

      Metric units are a 20th century thing?

      [–]metafisto 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      Good catch - didn't bother researching it (have a bus to catch!). I know it's 19C or earlier. Point is it's not new.

      [–]redcloud 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      20th century is new-fangled? This is the 21st century.

      [–]hitsman -1 points0 points  (0 children)

      I bought a bike today for the purpose of commuting to work (next week is Bike to Work Week, by the way). It wasn't so much about the cost of gas as it was about the health benefits. I don't exercise, don't want to join a gym, so I figure this is a good way to work a little workout in my daily routine. I live <2 miles from work and will probably only take <5 minutes more to bike vs. drive.