Driving is most expensive: HEC study
The HEC has done a study comparing the cost of driving, cycling and walking in Montreal and it turns out that driving is by far the most expensive way to commute. They also found that the car has taken an even more dominant role since the pandemic, as transit ridership has fallen. The impact of the trend to work from home isn’t accounted for.
Ian 09:51 on 2024-06-09 Permalink
Time also hasn’t been accounted for.
Let’s say I get paid 65k a year. Let’s say I’m on the clock for 37.5 hours a week, and get paid for 50 weeks a year because I get 2 weeks off but no vacation pay because I’m a consultant. So that’s about $34.66 an hour, let’s round it to $35/h.
So let’s say it takes me an hour and a half to get to work by transit. It would be 2 hours by bike, at least in the summer, but let’s focus on transit for now. So let’s say I take transit, that’s 3 hours a day devoted to my work day – but not getting paid. So my commute by transit costs me 17.5k a year in lost time.
Now, a commute is a commute, so there will always be some lost time, but let’s say instead of three hours a day I drive and it takes 45 minutes each way. This means my lost time is reduced to 1.5 hours a day, or $8750 a year. Assuming I drive a 7 year old used vehicle I bought without a loan, amortizing the purchase cost over 5 years, that’s more than the driving & ownership costs according to the CAA driving cost calculator.
Even if you don’t work that extra hour and a half a day, just having an extra hour and a half a day is pretty awesome. It can’t necessarily be quantified, but it has value. Just like how “nobody ever says on their deathbed they wished they spent more time at the office” as the saying goes, nobody ever wishes they spent twice as long on their commute.
CE 10:33 on 2024-06-09 Permalink
Economics is indeed the quintessential counter argument to any environmental argument.
Ian 10:40 on 2024-06-09 Permalink
In case you didn’t notice, the first point brought up by Kate was, in fact, an economic argument.
Go sealion somewhere else – we are trying to have a conversation here.
Kate 12:41 on 2024-06-09 Permalink
Ian, CE is a valued participant here, please don’t do that.
In any case, he was quoting Chris from a few posts ago – not that it isn’t a legitimate point.
Ian 12:54 on 2024-06-09 Permalink
He was being dismissive of me, I was responding in kind. It was funny when Chris did it, because it was contextual. CE was taking a cheap shot.
That aside, we already had a good discussion about how it does not cost 16 grand to own a car, just last week.
Kate 14:47 on 2024-06-09 Permalink
I won’t judge on CE’s motivation, but let’s keep it cordial.
Blork 14:48 on 2024-06-09 Permalink
The study cited in the article is primarily about the SOCIAL (i.e., shared/public) costs of the various methods. You don’t need to do a study to determine that owning and operating a car is typically more expensive than owning and operating a bicycle. Public transport is also less expensive than owning and operating a car for the individual but not necessarily for a family (four A+B monthly OPUS cards will run a family more than $600 a month, which — depending on usage patterns — could be more than owning a car).
But again, the study and the article are about the SOCIAL costs. OK, that’s fine, but I take exception to some of the interpretations offered (which may or may not be correctly interpreted in the article, and we’ll never know because the goddamn article doesn’t link to the study).
For example, the article says:
“Les chercheurs rappellent au passage que si chaque automobiliste ayant un trajet aller simple de 10 kilomètres ou moins – le plus souvent vers le travail ou l’école – prenait le vélo ou le transport collectif, des économies de l’ordre de 1,7 milliard pourraient être dégagées chaque année.”
It should be pointed out that this $1.7 billion is theoretical and will only be seen if the pattern described is pervasive enough to result in a long-term change in the infrastructure. It’s not like those savings would happen tomorrow just by having a few people ride their bikes to work.
It’s like saying if your apartment’s rent is costing you $40 a day, you can save $80 a month by staying over at your girlfriend’s house every second Saturday. No. It doesn’t work like that. You still have to pay the rent whether you’re spending the night at home or not. Similarly, the roads and other infrastructure are still there, and being maintained (sort of) even if a few people decide to occasionally take their bikes or the Metro to work.
That said, the value of this study isn’t in determining the obvious (that it costs more to operate a car than a bike or an OPUS card). The value is in showing where the public money goes, and by how much, and how increased use of public transport and active transport (bicycling etc.) can, OVER TIME, result in somewhat less need to spend so much on the roads and road infrastructure. (Also bearing in mind that roads are not just used to allow people to drive to work.)
CE 16:45 on 2024-06-09 Permalink
Re: my comment. My motivation was not malicious, it was supposed to a bit of a joke but it didn’t land because I thought it was Ian who had made the original comment (“Economics is indeed the quintessential counter argument to any environmental argument”).
I think some context is necessary because Chris usually makes these types of comments to play the “devil’s advocate” (to put it diplomatically) whereas Ian’s comments tend to be well thought out and insightful (even if I don’t always agree with them). Because I thought the the sentence I copy and pasted was a comment made by Ian, I saw it in a different light than I do now that I see it was made by Chris.
I think you can see how it was would have been a joke pointing out a contradiction if the comment had originally been made by Ian. I hope this explanation makes sense.
My apologies Ian. It was supposed to be a joke but obviously didn’t work because I didn’t pay enough attention to who had made the original comment.
Ian 16:51 on 2024-06-09 Permalink
Well at the risk of falling all over each other with apologies, I apologize for mistaking your intent.
PEACE BE UPON US AND OUR PEOPLE, HENCEFORTH AND ALWAYS. I hope I did that right.
I mean yeah of course the environmental question is pretty obvious, walking is the best way to get around… and it’s also the cheapest. I’m pretty sure my 54 year old feet are well past their amortization period though.
Kevin 18:22 on 2024-06-09 Permalink
Blork
voila
https://www.davidbenatia.com/doc/mobilitemontreal2024.pdf
Kate 18:59 on 2024-06-09 Permalink
Everyone is forgiven!
Ian 21:07 on 2024-06-09 Permalink
@Kevin tx for the link, good find.