Less Car; More Bike Part Seven of Eight

Melancholy is incompatible with bicycling- James E. Starrs

How expensive is your car? Or truck?

I’m sure we all know where this could go, which should result in a comprehensive “yeah yeah, what ever” response. Let’s look at it from a different perspective.

Where do you park your car while you’re shopping? Chances are the space is either owned or rented, but what does it actually cost? There is the real estate cost of each space, and then the development cost. It was graded, paved and painted, and then there’s probably a light to help you find your place in the dark. If the facility has fewer spaces, the cost per space goes up. If it’s in a parking structure, that’ll change it’s price due to the increased engineering. But let’s settle on $10,000 per space as a starting point. It is usable for several years, maybe as long as 40 years. I hadn’t mentioned maintenance! It’s got to be clean, secure and safe, and it all adds up.

Pretty amazing, right? Think about how many parking spaces an average car uses, one each at home/work/mall/ library/etc. If you couldn’t park there, you wouldn’t go there; right? So what are we up to so far? How many spaces, and at what cost?

Someone pays for each of those parking spaces. The Mall, your employer, the City of whoever. To businesses and governments it’s a mandatory cost. The government is you. Your employer takes it out of your pay, although the math gets a little indirect. You are paying for the cost of all those parking spaces in taxes and cost of your breakfast/lunch/dinner/dessert. The cost is added to everything, and you never see it. Who pays? It ain’t them, because there is no them. It’s YOU.

You already know how much gas costs, and your insurance. You might even have a plan to replace your car in the future, and how that’ll change your monthly payment. A car needs maintenance, and repairs. Have you ever calculated how much of each day’s work goes to feed the vehicle? We’ll stop at this point, and also hold up from getting into the political side of what oil costs. People get wildly emotional on that point, and usually pretty quickly.

Let me just finish with this question: When will you start to use a bicycle for daily errands? Think of the impact that will cause if you make it popular!