Mon 24 Jul 2006
A colleague again led me to a new website Bikely.com. This is a wiki with google maps that users can trace out their favorite rides. I mapped out my route that I rode in the four-part Bike Minneapolis series.
Take a look at the Bikely site and I will attempt to use it on good routes in the future.
Thu 20 Jul 2006
A few weeks ago, I was wasting some time with a colleague at work discussing the important issues of the day. During these random vignettes, he told me how awful his commute was that morning. “I could tell it was the beginning of a holiday weekend, the traffic back-up started miles before the usual point,” he said. He lives in the sticks so he kind of brings it on himself, but the topic reminded me of one of the unheralded perks of bicycle commuting – immunity to traffic jams and tie-ups. I figure this immunity from traffic bring predictability to travel in addition to the bonus of an annual savings to me of $7,350 and 50-hours of time.
The aforementioned points are difficult to believe so let me explain:
As a bicycle commuter, I am able to ride to the right of the vehicles in traffic at a consistent speed. For this fact I have reliable ride times to and from destinations. Only my desire to take the “long way” and an occasional puncture factors into these calculations. Remember time is money, and for most who do not ride the commute is becoming and expensive activity.
In the United States single-occupancy commuting continues to reign, but due to development patterns and growing metropolises this activity is taking longer and costing more. Let us explore the commuting time of a typical Twin Citian as an example. According to the Texas Transportation Institute’s 2005 Urban Mobility Study a typical commute that took 20 minutes in 1980 now takes 26. That is not a whole lot of time for one individual trip, but if you look at this 6-minute increase per trip over a year, it adds up to an additional 50 hours per-year. One (alas now growing typical) additional workweek per year more spent in your car than in 1980 for every 26 minutes of commuting time. I would guess that is not factored into the vacation compensation package of most firms.
In addition to growing commuting time is the added cost that driving alone has on a family’s bottom line. In a quick calculation of my commute I found that I would spend over $2,300 per year to own a car, drive it to work and park it for a year. My estimated costs for bike commuting (with a few bus trips thrown in during major weather events) is $850 in the same year. Riding to work saves me $1,450. With my logic in place I should be able to buy a new bike every year with the money I save or go on a nice weeklong trek with the time I save, but time and money are not the only benefits in the ride vs. drive debate.
The third and fourth significant benefits to the bicycle commute are the physical and environmental rewards. Quantifying the environmental impacts of driving alone Dan Scheuller sites a UC Davis study that the average vehicle mile has a $0.20 environmental cost. For my commute of 50 miles round trip per week that equates to $500-per-year in external environmental costs savings, my contribution to the planet, you’re welcome Earth.
Physically, by me riding, I burn about 800 calories per day going to and from work. In a purely unscientific calculation, 800 calories is about the majority of an 8-ounce bag a chips or $2 per-day, which extends to $500 per-year. But more importantly, my heart works better considering the aerobic activity and that fact that I am not pushing 400 lbs. And what is a heart worth? According to the Battelle Institute/Seattle Research Center the average cost of a heart transplant is $148,000. If, say, it takes, 30-years to destroy a heart, the annual cost to me is just over $4,900. That is simply for the heart, I will not ever begin to try to quantify the cost of increased health care premiums.
It is good to realize (really to quantify for once) that bicycling is better both physically and financially for me than driving a car. The only dilemma I have now is what to do with all these savings. I will go out for a ride and think about it.