Rob Ballou

Commuting challenge results

In April, I decided that I wanted to try to match the number of miles that I drive with miles that I bike (or walk or take public transportation). I didn't have any numbers on how much I drove or, for that matter, how many miles I rode my bike.

And I was no where close to the number of miles that I drove. I figured matching wouldn't be easy, but I thought I did only a limited amount of driving, compared to most. Even though I replaced several days of driving to work with riding my bike, walked to the store, rode the MetroLink to pick up something downtown on a Saturday, I still didn't realize just how far I actually drive.

That said:

• The total number of non-driving miles (about 160 miles) made up about 47% of transportation for the month
• Using $3/gallon and 18/miles per gallon, biking and walking saved my $25 this month ($300/year assuming that I rode all year round at the same level). Granted gas prices are actually higher than that at this point, so I like to think I saved more!
• My gas expenses (not tracked via the actual totals, but by the factors above) worked out $58.

So where do I take it from here? While I didn't meet my goal, I am happy with these results. May is National Bike to Work Month in the US (not sure about elsewhere) so I want continue riding, finding new places that I feel good about riding to. So this month I would like to hit 60% and keep my driving cost below $60. I'm also going to change the assumptions to match current gas price averages so that I am counting the price of gas at $3.5/gallon now.

I also mentioned that I wanted to also change my own attitude about biking, and it has significantly changed. My biking fitness level has increased, I've started looking for ways to ride places I haven't ridden before, and I feel more confident about going places on my bike. I've also really noticed the lack of planning and information available for bikers, at least in St. Louis. Some of the marked, recommended bike paths have dangerous intersections and go through bad neighborhoods. Some parts of these routes that could use better visibility for bikers actually have less visibility. Few businesses have appropriate bike racks to make it easy for people to bike there.

A few notes about the numbers above:

1. The driving miles did not include one trip out of town.
2. The biking and foot miles did not include fitness rides or runs, including the half-marathon I ran during April.
3. The foot miles did not include walking to lunch downtown. While I think it could have been, I'm not replacing driving by walking.
4. Public transportation miles (e.g. two trips on MetroLink) did not count towards my savings because of the cost to buy tickets.
5. I also did buy a new bike this month, which cost more than what I saved by not driving.

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