According to AAA's Your Driving Cost pamphlet from 2007, the average cost of owning a (new) small car in 2007 was about $8,000/year (SUVs were around $11,000/year). I tweaked the numbers a bit to account for $4/gallon gas, short (5 miles per day) commute distances, parking costs, the fact that I'd buy a used car (used cars depreciate significantly more slowly), etc. and came up with about $3,500 per year if I were to purchase a small used vehicle for commuting in Chicago.
After some hunting around, I found that the cost per mile for commuting on a newer bike is about $0.08 to $0.12 per mile (by comparison, cars range from $0.374 to $0.596 per mile). I chose to use $0.12 per mile, though I know my ancient bike is probably well below this.
I assumed that I'd only use the bike for about 2/3rds of the year (this is Chicago, after all - I'm not going to ride a bike on ice), so for 4 months, I'll buy monthly CTA passes ($75/month), and probably use the bus sporadically during the spring-fall due to rain, etc ($1.75/ride).
I came up with about $370/year if I commute by bike and bus.
So, the total savings are about $3,230 per year.
Things ignored by my analysis:
- Airfare for long-distance trips (I wouldn't drive for long distance trips anyhow, so this is a wash)
- Car rentals, train tickets, and bus fare for medium-distance trips and the occasional visit to Ikea, but I also didn't take into account the cost of driving those trips in a car either.
- Increased healthcare costs associated with a sedentary lifestyle vs riding a bike to work nearly every day.
- The opportunity cost of not investing the extra $3,230 per year.
- The fact that all money I pay for bus passes during the winter will be taken out of my paycheck as pre-tax dollars (that saves me about 40%).
I'm going to track my biking and commuting expenses for a year and see what my true costs are.
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