Bicycle commuting and income

[dasgeh]

I also think the focus on pure commute numbers is too limited. Arlington may not be able to get its pure commute numbers to Amsterdam numbers, but over all trips? Sure. In fact, I posit that Arlington is kicking a$$ against a lot of other places in terms of weekend bike trips – the number of trips within Arlington that are made on bikes. I see and know of lots of people who bike to the gym/park/restaurants/etc around Arlington, but don’t bike to work (in part because crossing into DC is harder than it needs to be). But we don’t have numbers on non-commute trips.

Everyone prefers for childcare to be near home or near work, and most people I know achieve that (I’ve never seen overall numbers on that). Most regular errands also fit into the on-the-way category, so to mstone’s point, I don’t think those add significantly to the total commuting numbers. Sure, there are errands you do every once-in-a-while that are out of the way, but there are other transportation options for that.

[ShawnoftheDread]

@lordofthemark 122542 wrote:

I am not sure what the point of this “debate” is..

I’ve put this into a macro for Forum use.

[dkel]

@ShawnoftheDread 122583 wrote:

I’ve put this into a macro for Forum use.

This is in addition to your already well-worn snark macro?

[rcannon100]

For future use…..

[dkel]

@rcannon100 122586 wrote:

Draw a scraggly beard on that, and it’s the spitting image of Shawn!!

[ShawnoftheDread]

@dkel 122585 wrote:

This is in addition to your already well-worn snark macro?

Hey, all my snark is original and spontaneous.

[ShawnoftheDread]

Scraggly?!

[dkel]

@ShawnoftheDread 122595 wrote:

Scraggly?!

I’ll say whatever it takes to get a rise out of you. For example, I still think you’re an Irish Catholic, but you won’t admit it.

[dplasters]

Just to continue to stoke this fun, those trip numbers are for the individuals current commute, probably by single occupancy vehicle.

My bike commute is about 2 miles longer than my car commute each way. Just because it works for one, doesn’t mean it works for another. I now open the floor for people to correct my anecdote with their own anecdote that cycling is a more direct route for their personal commute. Which I am sure is true in some cases. We can then later debate which is more likely.

Sidenote – Peak bike was reached in my office park in west west west west west falls church earlier this week:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]9379[/ATTACH]

[TwoWheelsDC]

@dplasters 122618 wrote:

J I now open the floor for people to correct my anecdote with their own anecdote that cycling is a more direct route for their personal commute. Which I am sure is true in some cases. We can then later debate which is more likely.

Not to correct, but my bike commute is the exact same route I’d take by either driving or the bus (oddly enough). Riding is definitely faster than the bus, but maybe 5-10 minutes slower than driving, although car parking is a nightmare. For me, driving simply isn’t an option though, since we only have one car and my wife commutes with it.

When I worked downtown, driving was basically not an option since parking at the building I was at was non-existent, and parking nearby was prohibitively expensive. During that period, biking also was significantly shorter than the bus+metro option.

[lordofthemark]

I guess my ride is a bit longer in miles than my drive (because I395 is the hypotenuse to 4MRT and the MVT) and is longer in time (except for a really terrible traffic day) but I dislike the drive, dislike paying to park, and we have one car, so I rarely drive.

My ride is probably about the same as my transit commute (same hypotenuse issue, but the bike avoids going up to L’Enfant and doubling back to Navy Yard) in miles, and I have now gotten to the point where it is shorter in time on a moderately bad transit day, and about the same on a normal transit day. Despite my generally slow riding pace, and my continued refusal to Idaho the red lights on Eye Street.

[AFHokie]

My commute is about the same distance regardless of method.

On average my commute by bike is the fastest and most consistent. The Metro can be faster if I’m lucky and have little to no wait for a connection, but on average its about 10-15 minutes slower. Driving can be the fastest, but is the least consistent. I’ll have days it takes less than 30 minutes and days it takes over two hours to go less than ten miles.

The cost for parking makes driving prohibitively expensive and more so once I include gas costs. Surprisingly or not so surprising; monthly Metro costs are not much cheaper.

I estimated that for roughly every three months of work days I’m able to bike to work I save about $1k in transportation costs. That includes bike maintainice. It does not include the costs of ancillary items such as lights, bike specific clothing, etc. Essentially items with an initial & occasional replacement cost, but not regularly reoccurring.

[DrP]

My bike commute is about 3 miles longer than my car commute since I prefer to ride the trails as opposed to the car route I take (and I am not sure I can legally be on some of that route with a bike). Except on extremely rare occasions, it takes me nearly three times as long to bike than to drive, although about the same as metro (bus + two rail lines). If you add in the changing time, it is longer (for most metro days). However, the stress is less and I have done some exercise to make up for some of the sitting at work. Also, while I will get annoyed at others on the trail at times (peds who wear headphones and then get annoyed that you didn’t warn them, crazy ivans, cars at intersections, etc.), a little more riding will remove that annoyance/higher-blood-pressure/etc. More driving or standing on a metro train rarely removes that when traffic, delays, etc. get me annoyed. I can’t believe it took me so long to realize that just because it was much longer than my bike commute in CA (nearly a factor of 5), it was still possible to make it work.

[Author]

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