Today one of my Metro cards hit 500 trips. In reality, I’ve taken closer to 1,000 when you count my personal card and free trips, but I don’t have a picture for that! This got me thinking about public transportation, how people do and don’t use it, and some common misconceptions about its use.
The setup
While it pains me to have to include this, I’m going to explain what I mean by public transportation. My initial understanding where I live was that there wasn’t any meaningfully useful public transportation system in place. This isn’t New York, and there’s no subway system. Boy, was I wrong!
Exactly one month from my first date with Mrs. Wallet we moved in together. At the time we were working downtown and living in the suburbs, so a regular commute was about an hour each way, although it could be shorter or longer depending on the day and when you left.
We were miserable! On top of paying too much for two cars, we were each enjoying fighting traffic in a stress-fueled haze for two hours of each day. Luckily, I only enjoyed the “freedom” of this hellish commute for so long before finding another option.
The trade-off
There seems to be a misconception among many individuals that taking public transportation is somehow beneath them or not worth their time. While this may be the case for some people, my intuition is that many people either don’t understand the trade-offs they are implicitly making or have an inflated understanding of what their time is worth. Or both!
If you are paying $100/month for insurance, have a $300/month car payment, drive 20 miles for thirty minutes each way five days a week, and pay $2.50/gal with a fuel efficiency of 20mi/gal, you’re already paying over $500/month for your commute. Add in parking for $70/month and wear and tear on your vehicle (which is probably more significant than you realize), and we’re talking well over $7,200/year before we even factor in interest for the “freedom” of driving your own personal couch on wheels to work. That’s $72,000 every ten years, without even factoring in interest or taxes!
To take an example from my life, in 2014 when Mrs. Wallet and I met, I was averaging $700/month in auto & transportation costs, mostly for my commute (gas plus car payments and insurance). Now, I pay $0.00/month to commute*, and this past month we spend $100 on transportation, mostly because we went on a road trip. Invested at 7% over ten years, $600/month is worth over $100,000, and $700/month is worth over $120,000.
Sadly, even these outrageous numbers are conservatives, below average. Compare this to taking public transport. Taking the bus from thirty minutes out in my city costs just $3.25. If you’re a student or your work subsidizes your ride, this could be anywhere from free to half that. Let’s be super generous and say it costs $5 each way. Assuming four work weeks in a month for convenience in both examples, this ends up being somewhere between $0-$200/month.
Let’s also generously assume that it takes our bus rider fifteen minutes to get to the park and ride, and then it takes the same thirty minutes to get into work as the car commuter. In many cases, no time is actually added as the buses can take the HOV, although the specifics obviously depend on your situation. Thirty minutes “lost” per day, translates to ten extra commuting hours per month. At a net difference of $400/month, even without wear and tear, our car driver is effectively paying $40/hour for the luxury to drive a personal vehicle.
But the fun doesn’t stop there! $40/hour roughly translates to an annual salary of $80,000, which puts you in the 22% tax bracket. In order to pay $40 in after-tax dollars, you actually have to make $51.28! ($40 / (1 – 22%) = $51.28). So you’re effectively paying over $50/hour to “save” thirty minutes each day.
But my time is valuable!
Now I can already feel you itching to tell me you couldn’t possibly give up that time, so let’s address that. While this may be true in some limited cases, it’s probably based on some additional faulty assumptions.
Even in our hypothetical (and very conservative) scenario, does the bus rider really lose time? After battling through traffic for many months, someone mentioned taking the park and ride (where you park your car and ride the bus) from a location near where we lived. I was surprised: buses go out that far?
As it turned out, there was a park and ride a few minutes from our house. To sweeten the deal, not only would I no longer have to pay for parking, but my company would foot half the bill! In addition to that, I found out that for the other half that I would have to pay for, there was a student discount for 50% off, effectively reducing my cost to ride by over 75%.
In my case, riding the bus took the same amount of time as driving if I left early, at a fraction of the cost. If I left later and hit morning traffic, the bus cut my commute time in half. But that wasn’t the true beauty of the situation.
Riding the bus gave me my time back! As a busy college student, time was my most valuable commodity. Riding the bus meant I could sleep, study, read, meditate, or just about anything else I pleased for almost my entire commute! In fact, I now do most of my writing for this blog on public transit (the rail vs the bus now when I don’t bike in).
Going back to our hypothetical car driver vs bus rider, if we assume the bus rider gets her thirty minutes on the bus back, she ends up with half the amount of “unusable” commute time as her poor car driving friend, and is paying herself $400/month for the pleasure. It’s not even possible to calculate the hourly rate the driver is paying because she’s not saving any time – she’s losing it and paying hundreds of dollars a month to do so.
Beyond the first order
In addition to the explicit first-order costs in terms of time and money, there are other considerations. One second order impact to consider would be to your health. While both riding the bus/rail/subway/train and driving your car are similar from the perspective that you’ll likely be sitting for all that time, the amount of stress could not be more different. In case you aren’t aware, stress has a huge impact on your health.
When I drove my car to work, it was a very stressful experience. Fighting traffic where I live is not fun. By contrast, once you get on the bus, not only do you not have to drive and fight traffic, but there’s literally nothing you can do to affect when you arrive after you get on the bus, so it’s pretty relaxed. Sleep, read, watch the scenery go by. It’s up to you. I would have paid extra for the reduction in stress. And it extends beyond the immediate to your whole day.
Looking even a little further to beyond ourselves (third order consequences), taking public transit is inarguably better for society. Fewer emissions, less wear and tear on public infrastructure, less traffic, you’re probably less of a jerk because you’re not as stressed… The list goes on.
Should everyone take public transit?
Ultimately, public transit isn’t for everyone, but that wasn’t the point of this post, anyway. While the specifics of your situation will change the results of a comparison of the costs and benefits of driving versus riding, at least you’ll understand the real trade-offs you’re making and maybe even think a little longer term or a little beyond yourself. Let’s be honest, you should be riding a bike, anyway!
Love,
(Your) Wallet
PS – What has your experience been like with public transit?
PPS – I’ve known several people who said they didn’t feel safe taking public transportation. My experience in my area has been that this fear was overblown and unnecessary. Most of the people on a park and ride bus, in particular, are professionals trying to get to work, like myself. However, you should always be conscious of your surroundings and do your research. Don’t put yourself in a dangerous situation or area needlessly.
* My company pays for me to use public transit 50% of each month, but I usually bike.
