So with that crazy incident that happened at the mall yesterday one topic that I heard a lot of people rumble about was how it was so inconvenient if you were taking public transportation yesterday and that it would have been so much better to just drive there. That then brought up the topic of the amount of money you spend buying a transit ticket to get to your destination vs gas for your car.
For the car advocate they were using an example on how it costs about $2.50 a ticket one way and so you burn about $5 going to say the mall for a day. Compare that to $5 worth of gas where you can probably go back and fourth to the mall about 10 to 20 times with $5 worth of gas. For the public transportation advocate they mentioned how you have to factor in all of the other expenses associated with having a car such as the monthly insurance rates where in the end taking public transportation is cheaper.
I was thinking with those examples and it seems like technically the cheapest middle of the road way to go based on all of those factors is to simply participate in something like a carpool or vehicle sharing program. Of course, unlike things like a house or apartment I’m sure sharing a vehicle is not as straight forward. But imagine if four people normally spent about $100 a month in transportation usually for the sole purpose of traveling to work.
Assuming the insurance is about $100 a month with gas being say $150, that means everyone could potentially save about $37.50 a month or more. Of course, there are always the non vehicle options such as walking or riding a bike which can work just as well depending on your travel distances.
I know here in BC there are a lot of rideshare type of programs available too. I think this is really dependent on where you live and the options you have available. Example, I know many that just take the rapid transit to work at the core of downtown as it is a nightmare to find parking that can also cost you a lot of money in parking alone.
Mixing and matching doesn’t hurt too I’d say. Example, if one day you are traveling to a fireworks show that would be a 20km ride one way and a rapid transit option is available then it may be wiser to use that option. If you find yourself having to travel smaller distances frequently and need the convenience to get from point A to point B then a car would make more sense financially. Sharing one with someone else could make more sense too.