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This is a good example of a misleading infographic. The assumption that the time spent commuting would otherwise be spent earning $25/hr is unrealistic. Jobs generally don’t offer such flexibility in minutes worked. Also, it ignores taxes on the additional earnings. Furthermore, the depreciation component of car expenses is not a linear function of distance driven. Lastly, the assumption that the money could be invested to earn 8% per annum is questionable.
Some good points, especially on the magical 8% return on investment.
However, if someone asked me if I regret changing jobs and lopping off 80 km and 70 minutes a day from my former commute, I’d ask if they were drunk. BTW, that works out to almost 300 hours saved a year, as well as a far lower operating cost on our econobox.
Before that my commute was six minutes on foot a day and zero per km commuting costs. That’s living in the inner city for you.
Of course, that’s a great improvement in quality of life, but making this monetary argument that you would somehow work longer is stupid. The quality of life argument is much better.
That’s not what I said. I referred to hours saved, not extra hours worked when I switched to a better job closer to home. However, I do recall working hundreds of hours more at one particular job before that irrespective of the short commute.
The 8% is probably based on historical ROI, which obviously doesn’t currently apply with the low interest rates we have had since 2008.
Depends on how much YOU get paid after taxes for a shift Divide $???? by the time it takes from when you leave home until you get home. Its free if you find commuting to work a pleasure
Someone should work out the “lost wages” of all of us reading and commenting on Price Tags.
Indeed. It also does not list benefits such as a cheaper house 30 minutes from work.
Of course living in the country or beautiful suburb in a cheap(er) house and walking to work and making $250,000 is better than sitting in a traffic jam. But it is also better than sitting in a crowded SkyTrain for 1/2 h surrounded by people you do not know or do not care about in a temperature and speed you cannot control.
At least in a car you can control:
a) when you leave
b) what temperature the care is
c) how loud the music is (or how quiet it is)
d) where to stop
e) which route to take
You can also use it to call people on your cell phone and make it a fairly productive 1/2 h unlike in a crowded, noisy bus or SkyTrain.
That is why people still commute by car.
On skytrain you can also control when you leave, where you get off, and transit offers many possible routes. In fact, you can also call people without causing possibly deadly distraction (even hands-free devices are proven at making driving more dangerous), not to mention work, write things, surf the web, comment on price tags, etc.
People commute by car because there’s not enough transit capacity and/or it doesn’t reach them and/or where they need to go. It’s why neighbourhoods near skytrain have exceptionally higher rates of transit usage.
Yes, texting and websurfing/blogging is better in a SkyTrain or bus, but talking is not.
My point was that time spent in a car (or bus or SkyTrian) is not dead time if you wish to use it. As such, depending on your profession, commute times can be somewhat productive.
Agreed that it’s misleading – or at least touting it as more expensive that taking transit, is misleading.
The breakdown is:
– $170 / year in car expenses
– $625 / year in lost wages per mile (6 minutes/mile x 500 trips)
If the alternative is taking transit – is that faster or slower than driving?
How does the speed of transit compare to the 6 minutes / mile used for the lost wages calculation?
If the speed of transit and driving are comparable (and in many situations they will not be), then the lost wages cost may actually be higher for taking transit – in which case the $170 / year car expense offset cost looks reasonable.
Note the car expense item should also say “per mile”.
An excellent observation!
Transit can still be advantageous even if it takes longer, because you can make productive use of your time. I learned Japanese over a few years while commuting to and from work on the Skytrain and Seabus.
Car time can also be used productively, listening to language podcasts (German in my case), courses from The Great Courses, and other educational material. (I’m not trying to argue that it is better to drive, however!)
Oh you can’t listen to CDs/tapes/PodCasts in a car ?
You can also use it to call people on your cell phone and make it a fairly productive 1/2 h in your car UNLIKE in a crowded, noisy bus or SkyTrain.
You’re dangerously mistaken If you think that you can drive safely while performing tasks as requiring as much attention as you could while riding as a passenger.
Handsfree, voice activated call features are further along as you may think.
Talking while driving .. still legal !
Hands free maybe legal, but it is just as dangerous as hand held, as your ability to safely drive is still impaired. It is the fact that your brain is being used, not your hands.
@Colon B: So, no talking to your fellow passenger either ? What’s the difference to talking on the hands free phone ? Do you actually own a car or have owned one to make such outrageous comments ?
Yes, I do own a vehicle and drive and have had a licence for over 40 years. If facts are outrageous so be it. Look at the studies, they all show what I have said. When you have a passenger, you have another set of eyes on the road. Often when navigating a risky situation, conversation with a passenger will cease, not so when talking on a cell phone.
Handsfree talking is exactly the same as talking to another human next to you, in fact less distracting as one doesn’t look at him/her as one often does if driving with a passenger.
Have you ever tried to have a meaningful discussion on a bus or in the SkyTrain with a person on the other end of a phone ? Hence, many chose to use a car and use that time productively.
“Handsfree talking is exactly the same as talking to another human next to you”
Nonsense. That is an example of wobbly logic, to use your favourite phrase. Nothing more dangerous than someone convinced they are safe while in fact they are a danger to others on the road.
Start here with this link, then do your research instead of making these ridiculous unsubstantiated claims:
http://www.nsc.org/DistractedDrivingDocuments/Cognitive-Distraction-White-Paper.pdf
Handsfree talking is not going to disappear. Handsfree talking started with phones, then it moved into many the other features of the vehicle such as the entertainment system, then the navigation system, and etc.
This week the Royal Bank introduced funds transfers for clients using Siri. Now you can be driving, press your Siri button and donate to Greenpeace while cruising over the Port Mann Bridge. Then, call ahead to CHOMP to order for your vegan dinner to pick up on your way home. Etc., etc.
“Handsfree talking is exactly the same as talking to another human ”
Said no one who has done their homework ever.
@ Eric, I think it would be far easier to dial up an order for a four-meat pizza from the Canada Line when you can devote 100% of your concentration to also chatting up the order clerk, much to the annoyance of your fellow passengers.
This is where cycling really shines. Costs are low and one gets necessary exercise at the same time as transportation. For trips up to 10km/hr it is often faster than car or transit. One can also feel good about:
– reducing motor vehicle congestion or leaving space on transit.
– no fossil fuel use
– less noise and pollution
– improved health
– improved productivity
– a most enjoyable commute
260k over 30 years? You can save that much on a house by moving, what 5 miles further out in Vancouver? This is basically making the case for the commute.
Exactemente, hombre. We saved about half a million by buying on the other side of the ALR. So we have to commute but it’s quieter and we have much, much more room than if we had stayed in Vancouver. Because we work shifts, including nights, we have to have two vehicles anyway.
What really peeves us is the Metro Vancouver gas tax for transit, so we buy most of our gas across the border. Another big saving. Last time I was over there in the US a guy was filling up next me wearing his Coast Mountain Bus jacket. An off-duty metro bus driver. The irony!
The net gas tax for transit is only 11c.litre. You shoud be happy to pay that since without transit, driving in Metro Vancouver would be impossible. By buying gas in the States,you are simply adding to the huge subsidy which I provide to you for the privilege of driving 2 cars.
You’re welcome.
@ Some Guy @ Anon, what is your time worth? How far do you have to drive to work? For groceries? To schools / daycare? For fuel? What is the financing and operating costs of your multiple cars? Where is your social life? What will you do with the empty bedrooms once the kids leave? Can you grow old in your large, cheap house (no doubt surrounded by a vast high-maintenance lawn) or will you have to downsize?
Your description of your neighbourhood doesn’t leave the impression it is part of a well-designed, complete community. Moreover, bragging about having to drive all over the landscape is not indicative of any definition of economic freedom most of us here would ever subscribe to.
In addition, comments like Some Guy’s and Anon’s, followed by Arno alluding to the highly subsidized road system, means the level court of road and distance pricing can’t come fast enough.
My time is as valuable as anyone’s. I savour the time I am driving as much as the time I am walking or sitting. I see the time I am driving as a very pleasurable time. I like road trips too. Driving the road to Key West, Big Sur, the French Corniche and many in British Columbia like the Sea to Sky are highly pleasurable experiences for me and for many others.
A comprehensive shopping area starts about 100m from my front door. The financing of the vehicles is perfectly manageable. We never think about it. In fact, I’m considering upgrading. I like the Nav and the back-up camera, as well as the surround-sound Bluetooth audio in the present vehicle so perhaps the next Tesla might be fun. It seems cheap enough.
The extra bedrooms are perfect for when guests come to stay, or even when dinners run late and guests feel like just crashing here, as is frequently the case.
The garden and the tiny lawn is maintained by a service company that is very happy to do the work. We share the cost with our neighbours, who are all good friends on both sides. We are a close community with everyone having keys in case someone is away.
If we downsize the biggest problem will be trying to spend all the money. Only 30 minutes from Vancouver, it’s a very valuable neighbourhood.
As to your other question Alex, about where is our social life, well – it’s all over the place. If someone offers us lunch in Whistler or dinner in West Vancouver, or a party near UBC it’s all an easy drive. If we have a function in Vancouver, or want to try a new restaurant then off we go. Sometimes it’s an opening at the VAG or a gabfest at SFU, even a theatrical production in Deep Cove, all easy to reach in one of the cars.
@ Anon. To each their own.
I take just as much (if not more) pleasure from walking to six grocery stores, two bookstores, an untold number of retail and antique stores, a major drugstore and too-many-to-count cafes — all within 10 minutes. Work, unfortunately, is a 25-minute drive, but that’s the greatest distance we travel except when on vacation. Our social life is very active and nearby and entertainment venues are close too, and we have a wonderful small garden that gives us great pleasure. Added together, our transportation and time expenditures are no doubt a fraction of yours.
I have had a driver’s licence for a half century and at one point was putting on 150,000 km a year. No accidents outside of two minor fender benders. I now believe that car commuting is an inhuman and destructive activity, and that walking is a fine replacement and the most superior of all transport modes. This dovetails well with the increasing interest in sustainable urbanism initiatives.
If you gave me a Tesla, I’d sell it the next day.
I forgot to mention, we’ll be giving serious considering to going car-free in two years. Now that’s a liberating feeling!
From your rambling and generous notes Alex, I’d bet we are neighbours. It is wonderful to live in a comprehensive neighbourhood, serviced by efficient roadways. You make it sound so lovely. Aren’t we so fortunate? I’m sure you’re as grateful as I am.
After bingeing on 150,000 km a year I can well understand that you just want to kick that habit. At your age you probably are making a wise decision. Just like a heavy smoker, driving now seems so horrible to you. Did you go to Drivers Anonymous?
If you do get a Tesla and don’t want it, it would sell in a day. Like Porsches, they can’t turn them out fast enough to meet the demand.
Canada customs should be collecting duty & taxes on fuel purchased in the USA. Canada customs don’t need to prove that anything was purchased in the states. The” importer” has to prove it was purchased in Canada that would end gas tax cheating.
It is common for cross border gas tax cheats to to buy cheese eggs& milk as well.
There’s no cheating involved as it is perfectly legal to shop in the USA. It’s the purest expression of the free market to reject a highly taxed option for one less so.
Even the City of Vancouver bases its purchases of fuel on price.
“The City of Vancouver (the “Lead Agency”) on behalf of the British Columbia Petroleum Product Buying Group (“BCPPBG”) invites proposals (“Proposals”) for the supply and delivery of gasoline, diesel”
RFP PS11122 – THE SUPPLY AND DELIVERY OF GASOLINE, DIESEL, BIO-DIESEL AND FUELS. City of Vancouver.
…. it is perfectly legal to shop in the USA. It’s the purest expression of the free market to reject a highly taxed option for one less so.
Only when it’s convenient. Anyone who drives 160+ km there & back for cheaper goods and to make a point about the “free” market is in fact shackled by their ideology. Moreover, they haven’t done the math.
I did NOT say that buying gas in the USA is illegal. Canada customs collects duty & taxes on most imports but not petrol. Canada Customs policy should create a level playing field for all. Tax policies that discriminate are are NOT an expression of the free market. Most gas tax avoidance by people living l16 k from the border not 160 k
(116)a TYPO Live about 16 k not 160
A few years ago, I did a rough calculation and did not account for inflation each year over a 30 year period…which how long I’ve been car-free: over $320,000CAN money available. Let’s say even if I over-estimated (doubtful) a lot, then use above figure for last 35 years instead. I did not include lost wages at all spent in a car. Not sure that’s even worth considering that type of measure….ie. what is the hourly “cost” value of family/significant partner time? When is the cut off between work (when people are still responding to email outside of work hrs.) and personal time?
https://thirdwavecyclingblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/08/30-car-free-years-cycling-pumps-money-into-my-wallet/
Not certain of $1 miilion in retirement savings for infographic’s same 30 year period. I assume that’s without investment interest.
It’s a very hard sell for those with very young children and babies when living in regions with quite cold, long winters.. -15 to -25 degree C sometimes, for walking, transit, cycling. However, still the cost of occasional taxi and car-share (which Calgary Car2Go fleet is expanding, diversiftying and becoming popular), it’s still a savings that is noticeable.
The problem with all studies of this ilk is they assign absolutely no benefit to car ownership, which of course is not the case. That’s why they come across as urban condecension, assuming those poor suburbanites have no idea of what running a car costs.
That’s because most actually don’t until they are challenged to do the math.
And one of the main points of these studies is that society is subsidizing all drivers, especially those who drive the most. The condescension truly flows in the opposite direction when said drivers arrogantly assert an undeserved sense of entitlement onto their gluttonous consumption.
What is the cost of commuting to those of us who don’t? We subsidise and enable this harmful, non-productive movement in so many ways: infrastructure, policing, ICBC, the judiciary, crash-related activity like ambulances, emergency room visits, fire trucks…
In exchange we get air and noise pollution, decreased property values on busy streets and “rat runners” on quiet ones.
The question is often asked: How to reduce commuting time – instead of how to reduce the number of commuters.
If employers were made to pay their wage slaves for commuting instead of those costs being externalized, they’d hire locally. There are billionaires getting away with having job desperate people driving all over hell’s creation (roads, bridges, tunnels) to earn paltry wages, much of which is wasted on just getting to work.
When I was in the situation of commuting to a stupid poorly-paid job in one of a vast array of businesses owned by a billionaire, there was literally no disposable income left. Wage Slavery. Working Poor.
And in return you get gas taxes to subsidize transit.
Perhaps you can clarify which requires more subsidy on a per capita basis.
(Warning: that will require actual research.)
Or which (car driving or transit use) is closer to the democracy of user-pay.
Since Translink only declares earnings from transit to be 1/3rd of their expenditures, it seems obvious that those that drive their own vehicles are paying fully for them and for a sizeable chunk of transit too.
User-pay is a somewhat libertarian concept. Education, health care, user-pay for these is what we have so far avoided in Canada.
Anyone that wants to start bringing in user-pay to anything should proceed with caution, unless they want it extended to other areas.
Eric writes: ” it seems obvious that those that drive their own vehicles are paying fully for them and for a sizeable chunk of transit too.”
I hope you realize by now that automobile transportation is hugely subsidized. It may be the biggest social program in Canada.
@ Arno: Roads, like taxes or energy cost are in EVERYTHING. As such, make roads more expensive (or energy via CO2 taxes or taxes on labour) and everything will get even more expensive !
Even if you bike to your grocery store, the bread and apples and yoghurt you buy there gets there by road usually !
it is NOT a subsidy. It is paid for by general taxes such as PST, GST or income taxes.
==> Since healthcare and education eats up almost 70% of the provincial budget, perhaps we ought to discuss those mega “subsidized” areas of services use first, before roads ? Are you also proposing school fees or co-payments for healthcare say your knee operation or a doctor’s visit ? That is the equivalent of per km or usage charges for roads, you know ?
Arno: A couple of hours ago you wrote, ” automobile transportation is hugely subsidized”. Yesterday you wrote; “drivers should be happy to subsidize transit ”
Which is it, one or both?
Be careful, Arno. If you want user-pay it might well be very interesting. Should we presume free passage for emergency vehicles? How about hospital supplies and transfers? Though, not for commercial vehicles in general, so immediately there will be inflation of all foods and services to all aspects of property construction and maintenance, as well as all servicing of everything.
’tis a slippery slope. Imagine too if those in Squamish, for example, have to pay Vancouver to pass through to the airport. Retaliation is certain.
You’ve misrepresented his remarks Eric. Bad form old boy.
How can something that is subsidized subsidize something else? Not until something has paid its way fully can there be an extra to apply as a subsidy to something else.
We should get ride of the “transit tax” because it is not, in fact, a subsidy toward transit. Fuel taxes in their entirety do not cover the costs motorists put on the road system. How can there be something left to contribute to transit?
The term “transit tax” has one purpose: It is to make car drivers feel superior and generous and make transit riders feel like beggars.
If it were to be named for what it is it would be an “inadequate road tax that lets drivers off far too lightly”.
@Ron: indeed a per km charge, by car weight, by time of day, is certainly far better than a tax per liter of gasoline as even the Squamish or Bellingham driver, gassing up in Squamish or Bellingham would pay it, or the Tesla or Leaf driver that also clogs & wears down the road but pays 0 in gasoline taxes. In addition, time of day charges could discourage road use at peak hours, shifting behavior.
This technology exists today and with more and more e-cars or out of town road users in MetroVan it is a function of time. Gasoline taxes used to be an approximation of it, but better & fairer systems exist today that could and should be implemented. I believe Oregon tried to introduce it but then didn’t (voter backlash ?) but it is certainly discussed on the MetroVan level.
In MetroVan: http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2016/05/metro-vancouver-transit-expansion-mayors-council/
In Oregon: https://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/RUFPP/Pages/index.aspx
Bob, would you rather have no transit? Surely drivers should be happy to subsidize transit since otherwise driving would be impossible. Note that much of the gas tax goes to roads. Even so, driving is still heavily subsidized.
For those who purely want numbers and lean solely on financial information, then look at Canadian magazine, Money Sense: http://www.moneysense.ca/spend/shopping/car-costs-keep-rising/ Interestingly, it was felt to use car share more than 3 times per weekly, would be more expensive than owning and driving a car for frequency..
It was estimated in this 2016 clip, owning and using a 2nd car would be approx. $200,000+ over last 20 years.
I’m not against car ownership…it’s judicious use of car and just knowing how much it costs you annually. Not sure why car drivers here are so overly defensive against alternative transportation and savings. Have you made a home location decision to be at least near transit for those who don’t drive and visit you? All members of my family consciously bought homes near transit, even for those who have and use a car.
No one here factored in the cost of annual fitness club membership + car ownership/use vs. simply riding a bike several times per wk./combined with taking transit for lousy weather days for distances under 10 km. daily.
In the past 25 years, I’ve only paid for the cost of 3 short term courses on yoga, pilates and tai chi..probably in total under $300.00. The rest of personal health benefits is walking ,cycling and transit…in 3 cities: Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary where I’ve lived.
Does this work for a family with young children? I’m less sympathetic to complainers against cycle tracks and transit funding, who don’t have children and the responsibilities which require presumably tighter personal scheduling and efficient transportation.