I think I’m going to take the train to work tomorrow.
It won’t save me any time, although with some creativity I could save five minutes some days (but lose five on others). I do figure it can save me some money.I drive 76 miles to and from work every day. My car gets about 35 miles to the gallon, but I just put more than $30 worth of gas in my car and I’ll have to do it again in a week at the rate I’m going. I’ll spend about $6.50 driving to and from work tomorrow.
I also had a bunch of maintenance done this week. I figure the consumables in my car–oil, timing belt, shocks, tires, compliance bushings–cost me about a nickel a mile, so potentially it costs me more like $10 to drive to and from work every day.
I’m not factoring in depreciation since I intend to keep the car 10 years, and I’ve only had it five. But going by the IRS’ standard mileage deduction, my commute costs a whopping $38.38 a day. And I don’t get to deduct that. Ouch.
The closest Metrolink station is 8 miles away, but the route from it to work is impractical–it’ll add almost an hour to my commute both ways. I need to go to a station closer to work and catch the train there. I figure I can drive about halfway, take the train the other half, and not end up spending three hours on the train every day.
A monthly Metrolink pass costs $60. Assume 21 working days, and that’s $2.86 a day. Even if all I was saving was gas, it’s worth doing. But I stand to spend $2.86 to save $5.50. That’s a good deal. Or if you ask the IRS, I stand to spend $2.86 to save $19.19. Even better.
If gas goes to $4/gallon like some are predicting, it becomes an even better deal. And there’s nothing I can do to control the price of gas.
Nothing, that is, except burn less of it.
Dunno how it is in St. Louis, but here in Dallas the local transit authority (DART) makes it hard for a lot of folks to commute. Their whole system is a hub and spoke arrangement, with the hub being downtown Dallas.
If you work downtown, that’s fine. But many sorts of cross-town commutes simply aren’t practical with that system. We’re actually lucky that I live about 10-15 min from work, and my wife telecommutes about 95% of the time.
I was spending $10/day in gas alone on my trip (6-cyl engine, 47.5 miles one-way to work). I was pretty surprised when I did the numbers. I still don’t regret switching to mass transit.