Recently AAA put out it's annual report on the cost of owning and operating an automobile. It costs $150 a week they figure or 52.2 cents a mile on average. Of course a lot of that is just the cost of ownership. Still, 8.2 to 9.5 cents of that is fuel. 0.7 cents is for tires. Maintenance is 4.9 cents. They don't figure depreciation the way I'd like to see it (Namely, how much is year to year depreciation - if you just left it in the garage and how much is based on increased mileage). Let's call it 15 cents per mile. I know I operate my bike for less than that. My biggest expense in bike commuting it probably the snickers bar I eat when I get to work. Fuel can be yummy.
Someone else did an EXTENSIVE break down of costs (more than mine from last fall) and if you have a lot of time you can look at it. It includes all the social costs like land use and air quality effects - things covered in The High Cost of Free Parking. He figures you make about $12.80 an hour biking (at his expected 2002 cost of gas of $3.03 a gallon) as opposed to driving - if you don't buy a car.
Most of the costs of an automobile are fixed, indirect, societal, or hidden; the immediately apparent expense (mainly the cost of gasoline) is less than the cost of riding a bike, which is exactly why so many see the bike as being more expensive and which is exactly why I wrote this article. The primary individual benefit for the person who prefers to pay for the car but take the bike anyway lies in the health benefit. However, there would be eventual hard-to-estimate financial benefits from the car lasting longer. My old van survived for 24 years because I used it rarely. Many cyclists have saved major costs by letting the bike be the second vehicle in their family. Another way to save is by living car-free and using mass transit, car-sharing, taking a cab, walking or even renting a car on those occasions when a bike is not adequate.
This statement - about using the bike as a second vehicle reminded me of this excellent article I read recently about bike commuting in LA.
When Ziegler and his wife got rid of one of their vehicles and became a one-car household in the mid '90s they invested the $500 per month earmarked for insurance and an auto payment into real estate.
They now own multiple rental properties in Monrovia.
The article goes on to discuss all of the other reasons to bike instead of drive including the high price of gas, fun, time savings, health, the recapture of youth, and politics:
putting two wheels to pavement to get to work is "probably the most patriotic thing that anybody can do at this point and time."
And then there is this - which I'd never noticed but absolutely agree with
To Auerbach, what stands out are "the smells of the city and how that makes the whole world into a total sensory picnic." Her favorites: air fresheners coming from open car windows, taco trucks, hamburger stands (though she doesn't eat burgers), perfume on pedestrians, Latino church sidewalk buffets, car brakes, exhaust and jasmine.
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