Does mass transit cost $500/month?
Where by "mass transit", I mean:
1. Actual cost spent on metro / subway / BART / whatever.
2. Difference in rent to be close enough to use mass transit.
3. That may be it.
$500 is the number we go to in discussing car-ownership, and is total cost of ownership in the DC area from someone who rarely takes mass transit, ie drives to work. And doesn't have any kids.
For me:
(1) I spend very little per month, thanks to a subsidy from work. I spend maybe 20-40/month on metro. And I metro everyday.
(2) This is the kicker. Rents near to metro for a one-bed are easily $1,500. Rents out in the sticks are what, $1,200?
That's 350. If that is close to true across the board, then metro is cheaper than car ownership.
Easy ways to prove this is false:
A. I've got a fairly sweet deal, I admit.
B. I could be massively wrong about the cost of apartments out in the sticks. Do tell!
Probably some other things! But, it looks at first blush that not owning a car and living closer in due to it is cheaper than living further out and owning a car.
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I don't think point 3 is fair. Where I live and work, it takes me about 30 minutes by car, and about 1:15 by bus. That 1.5 hours a day I'd lose to mass transit.
ReplyDeleteProper bike parking areas / buildings are also becoming more popular so no need to live very close by to the metro stop.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right, Jonathan Beverley. I haven't yet done the time exchange. This is raw money, and not quality of life.
ReplyDeleteWhat major city are you in, Gerrit Reininghaus?
ReplyDeleteBerlin, Cologne, Paris i.e. Germany / Europe, and therefore maybe outside of your focus. But I would expect them to come to come to the States some point, too.
ReplyDeletePublic transit also has an opportunity cost: It limits the possible jobs you can apply for to those with reasonable access to public transit. In some cities this isn't a big deal, in others it is a monumental limitation.
ReplyDelete3. On time, it extremely depends. Searching for parking and rush hour traffic is making the car more time intensive for many people I know. Time on public transport for me also transforms into reading and podcasting and letting the mind flow. So it's not a complete loss.
ReplyDelete4. Moreover, driving is stress.
Both points will eventually also cost money but obviously less directly.
I only once had to use a car to get to work (Johannesburg, South Africa) and that was the worst commute ever. Never want to have that again.
Gerrit Reininghaus In both DC and NYC, we have bikeshares that seem to be working. It's ~75/year for access to bikes that are built like tanks: big, clunky, and armored. I find them incredibly useful, and I know many other people do.
ReplyDeleteSo, we've got it, but not a huge amount.
Tony Lower-Basch That's a real good point! I won't apply for jobs in Chantilly, for instance, which by car isn't that bad. I'm not sure how to estimate that opportunity cost even for the DC metro area. Can you?
ReplyDeleteGerrit Reininghaus While I agree with those, I want to keep non-costs outside the scope of this particular discussion. We'll come back to it.
ReplyDeleteTo be clear: I absolutely hate driving.
Yeah, we alternated taking the train last week and if one hadn't been dropping the other off at a train station it would have added a half hour of buses to the 40 minute train ride and 10 minute walk. Contrast with 30 minutes by car for me (Baltimore). It would not have been doable had we not had someone else available to pick up the kids.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols: No idea how to estimate those costs. In many cases they probably form a step function (e.g. "I can't afford to both pay rent and eat if I restrict myself to applying for jobs I can get to by public transit"). How do you estimate the statistical cost in areas where it's so prohibitive that the sample size becomes zero?
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I kind of feel like this is one of those issues where trying to analyse it like this is not going to be useful. Limiting it to just hard money costs allows you to judge it a certain way, but there are so many things where defining a "cost" to them is near impossible. You might be able to say "The mass transit option is quantifiable cheaper by $150", but what is the time of an extra hour or two in transit, or the inability to look for jobs you can't easily get to, or how easy is it to get to the grocery store, or your doctors office? Is it reasonable to say someone who has to make a transfer or three, or walk a half mile to a stop has "access" to mass transit? How often do you need to use a taxi (jitney, uber, whatever) because where you want to go isn't on the metro lines, or you need to travel at a time when the metro isn't active/convenient?
ReplyDeleteIt's like, you can do this analysis for you because you can quantify these things, but doing it as a general thing...
For me, I use buses to get to work because it is cheaper and I'm willing to take that cost savings in exchange for adding 1-2 hours of travel a day. But we also own a car because my wife needs the ability to drive to her various doctor appointments, and the ability to drive to her mother's multiple times a week since she is her part time care giver. So this isn't a one or the other choice we can make, it's a both and for a lot of people I bet most people have to make that both choice as well.
Matt Johnson for me this is still valid as an analysis to clean the too often heard argument "that public transport is more expensive than a car" but then only comparing fuel versus a monthly ticket.
ReplyDeleteHave you considered the price of parking? Renting a parking space in central Hong Kong averages at 350 USD a month.
ReplyDeletehongkong.asiaxpat.com - Auto - Car Park Spaces for Rent | HK Free Classifieds | AsiaXPAT - 1 page
Are you factoring in taxis and getting lifts from friends/other people when needed?
ReplyDeleteAlso, a three bedroom townhouse out in the sticks went for $1,500 here, though a one-bedroom apartment closer to downtown Minneapolis is $1,200-$1,500 depending on the age of the building/neighborhood. A one-bedroom apartment is $800-$1,000 in the sticks, depending on the proximity to a freeway, and more square footage.
Jaye Foster The cost is a local friends full-in cost of car ownership per month for the last several years. Apparently DC isn't Hong Kong.
ReplyDeleteKelley Vanda Not yet.
ReplyDeleteFiguring out additional costs is maybe next. This little series could expand forever. I could easily have one just on rent, and maybe should.
William Nichols understood. It was a long shot suggestion as I expected with American car culture that where you work will have a car park.
ReplyDelete