if living in place with decent public transport, potentially no need to own a vehicle at all, of course.
This I realized as a 15 year old. I balanced the costs of a drivers license (time and cost), total cost of car(s) and the time spent driving against the costs of public transportation (including occassional larger transports) and freedom of mobility. Note that public transportations saves lot of time and time was important to me. So I decided against a car. And I have not regretted it. Since I’m free-lancing I’m using cabs more often. But driving a car myself? What a horrible waste of precious time. Disclaimer: Public transportation is quite good where I live and allows to work on a laptop during commute.
From my point of view in an ideal system significant commute and relocation shouldn’t be neccessary at all. Besides leaving a place often means leaving a social environment which has to be balanced—except you see independent singles as more highly motivated or that virtual relationships are sufficient.
Note that public transportations saves lot of time
What? How does that work? Public transportation runs on a specific schedule, and you have to wait to catch it. It also runs on a specific route, which is not always the most direct route to your destination, and which therefore takes longer, plus any extra time for walking if it doesn’t take you exactly to your destination. Transfers also require waiting. Are you in New York? Or in one of those European cities that deliberately sets up the system to discourage the use of cars?
In Bremen, where public transportation is regularly used (and cars are banned in the city center), buses run every half hour, and light rail runs every ten minutes—sometimes at even shorter intervals.
In most of America, public transportation is inefficient because of the suburbs, but suburbs are inefficient anyway, a product of strange priorities (a house! with a lawn! that you have to mow! but we really care about having a lawn! even though there are lawns in Bremen!) and stupid misgovernance (see: busing) which would really be better replaced. Saying public transportation is inefficient because of the suburbs is like saying cars are inefficient because there are no roads—the inefficiency is not inevitable, but caused by a deeper problem, which can be fixed.
I live in the city purported to have the best public transportation west of the Mississippi. My apartment could probably be considered to be on the edge of the suburbs, but inner suburbs, not exurbs. I have a driver’s license and a membership of Car2Go (freeform by-the-minute rental SmartCars).
It takes roughly a quarter of the time to drive anywhere that it does to take the bus. And on the bus, I spend about as much time having to focus on making connections as I would have to spend on driving.
Fwiw my experience of public transportation is similar (although I still prefer it when the costs are tolerable), it’s slower to get where you’re going, and my productivity is not optimal, although I can do simple tasks like going through my anki decks and checking my email on my phone pretty well.
Public transportation does take longer. On most routes a lot (x2-x3). But this is wall-clock time, not lost life-time. At least it doesn’t need to be.
The schedule in Hamburg is very good mostly. Often every 10 minutes with good connection. The pricing is good and you get get almost everywhere with at most 5mins to the station (bus or train) by foot. It is publicly funded. Note that in Europe the cities are old thus not built for cars esp. in the inner cities.
For me this means that I take the commute heavily into account when evaluating jobs.
The last years my commute was as follows: 1min. to the bus, avg. 5min. waiting, 35min. bus ride (in almost all cases with a laptop on my lap), 1min to the office. Compare this to a car commute which would likely take 20min. (but might be longer due to traffic, ice scraping, parkinglot,...) of which no part allows for productive or free time (I admit that some people like to drive, so for some this might count as fun/free time).
If you can bill by the hour then this time alone is worth much. If you can’t you could still think/work on job topics and thereby produce better results and earn better paid jobs.
Not many people report enjoying inner city commutes, but if you enjoy driving it might be worth commuting by car in order to order to enjoy leisure driving on the weekend.
I have stuck to public transport usage in the UK , although I have to say that the French, German, Belgian and Dutch systems are exquisitely blissfully in comaprison to what we have.
Having the license would be useful, but you have to balance the cost against the benefit. I figured that a) I (or my parents) could put the money to better use, b) the investment wouldn’t pay off.
Note that if you are in a relationship or larger family it is usually sufficient that one person has a drivers license (but then better one including lorries and/or trailer, which has additional costs).
More than a few. Add up the costs of buying or leasing a vehicle, fuel, maintenance, parking, and increased risk of getting smashed to death (http://www.schallerconsult.com/taxi/crash06.htm), and that’s quite a lot of taxis.
Public transport isn’t free. My interpretation of Gunners point is that while a tank of fuel can look cheap compared to a long distance train ticket, the private car has a lot of hidden costs.
This I realized as a 15 year old. I balanced the costs of a drivers license (time and cost), total cost of car(s) and the time spent driving against the costs of public transportation (including occassional larger transports) and freedom of mobility. Note that public transportations saves lot of time and time was important to me. So I decided against a car. And I have not regretted it. Since I’m free-lancing I’m using cabs more often. But driving a car myself? What a horrible waste of precious time. Disclaimer: Public transportation is quite good where I live and allows to work on a laptop during commute.
From my point of view in an ideal system significant commute and relocation shouldn’t be neccessary at all. Besides leaving a place often means leaving a social environment which has to be balanced—except you see independent singles as more highly motivated or that virtual relationships are sufficient.
What? How does that work? Public transportation runs on a specific schedule, and you have to wait to catch it. It also runs on a specific route, which is not always the most direct route to your destination, and which therefore takes longer, plus any extra time for walking if it doesn’t take you exactly to your destination. Transfers also require waiting. Are you in New York? Or in one of those European cities that deliberately sets up the system to discourage the use of cars?
In Bremen, where public transportation is regularly used (and cars are banned in the city center), buses run every half hour, and light rail runs every ten minutes—sometimes at even shorter intervals.
In most of America, public transportation is inefficient because of the suburbs, but suburbs are inefficient anyway, a product of strange priorities (a house! with a lawn! that you have to mow! but we really care about having a lawn! even though there are lawns in Bremen!) and stupid misgovernance (see: busing) which would really be better replaced. Saying public transportation is inefficient because of the suburbs is like saying cars are inefficient because there are no roads—the inefficiency is not inevitable, but caused by a deeper problem, which can be fixed.
I live in the city purported to have the best public transportation west of the Mississippi. My apartment could probably be considered to be on the edge of the suburbs, but inner suburbs, not exurbs. I have a driver’s license and a membership of Car2Go (freeform by-the-minute rental SmartCars).
It takes roughly a quarter of the time to drive anywhere that it does to take the bus. And on the bus, I spend about as much time having to focus on making connections as I would have to spend on driving.
Which city is this?
Fwiw my experience of public transportation is similar (although I still prefer it when the costs are tolerable), it’s slower to get where you’re going, and my productivity is not optimal, although I can do simple tasks like going through my anki decks and checking my email on my phone pretty well.
Portland, OR.
Public transportation does take longer. On most routes a lot (x2-x3). But this is wall-clock time, not lost life-time. At least it doesn’t need to be.
The schedule in Hamburg is very good mostly. Often every 10 minutes with good connection. The pricing is good and you get get almost everywhere with at most 5mins to the station (bus or train) by foot. It is publicly funded. Note that in Europe the cities are old thus not built for cars esp. in the inner cities.
For me this means that I take the commute heavily into account when evaluating jobs. The last years my commute was as follows: 1min. to the bus, avg. 5min. waiting, 35min. bus ride (in almost all cases with a laptop on my lap), 1min to the office. Compare this to a car commute which would likely take 20min. (but might be longer due to traffic, ice scraping, parkinglot,...) of which no part allows for productive or free time (I admit that some people like to drive, so for some this might count as fun/free time).
If you can bill by the hour then this time alone is worth much. If you can’t you could still think/work on job topics and thereby produce better results and earn better paid jobs.
See the boring advice for more on this.
Not many people report enjoying inner city commutes, but if you enjoy driving it might be worth commuting by car in order to order to enjoy leisure driving on the weekend.
I have stuck to public transport usage in the UK , although I have to say that the French, German, Belgian and Dutch systems are exquisitely blissfully in comaprison to what we have.
I wonder what parts of Belgium you’re talking about . I find it horrible, generally speaking.
Zey perhaps meant the ability to work during the journey, and the lack of upfront time cost in getting a licence.
Cool! (Though does seem that a license would be useful for longer trips, so you’d at least have the option of renting a vehicle if needed.)
And interesting point re social environment.
Having the license would be useful, but you have to balance the cost against the benefit. I figured that a) I (or my parents) could put the money to better use, b) the investment wouldn’t pay off.
Note that if you are in a relationship or larger family it is usually sufficient that one person has a drivers license (but then better one including lorries and/or trailer, which has additional costs).
Yeah, you can get a few taxis a month for what it costs to keep a car in a garage.
And you can read or even work in the taxi.
More than a few. Add up the costs of buying or leasing a vehicle, fuel, maintenance, parking, and increased risk of getting smashed to death (http://www.schallerconsult.com/taxi/crash06.htm), and that’s quite a lot of taxis.
Public transport isn’t free. My interpretation of Gunners point is that while a tank of fuel can look cheap compared to a long distance train ticket, the private car has a lot of hidden costs.