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Comment by erikw | Hacker News Reader

Trains are very cool, and the idea of shared public transportation is probably noble, but there is an intractable economic problem. If my wife and I both take the train, it costs twice as much to us. If we drive somewhere, it costs half as much.

Additional issues that need to be solved to make pubtrans competitive with car ownership are scheduling, the ability to bring cargo, and negative class connotation. And this completely discounts the probable arrival of ubiquitous autonomous electric vehicles before Sound Transit even gets to finish this project. As much as I enjoy the romantic nature of trains, I think the Puget Sound is gearing up for a folly of a white elephant.

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Have you calculated how much you're actually spending per day?

I roughly calculated my expenses once.

$32k car $8k tax/license + loan interest up to point I paid it off = $50k $200 gas a month for 6 years = $14400 $4k renew service plan $1200 a year car ins $7200 2 sets of tires at $1k each = $2k

100k miles on it at 6 years

So $50k+14.4k+4k+7.2k+2k = $77.6k / 100k miles = 0.77 cents per mile.

My commute was 40miles each way or $61 PER DAY!!! That's a TON more than public transportation. That price will slowly go down the longer I keep the car but still, $61 per day is a lot of money. At 20days month that's $1220 a month. That's far more than 2 people's monthly transportation passes.

Living in Seattle or the Bay Area, most people "have to" have a car, so I see it as a sunk cost, rather than amortized. I'm impressed with the political will that it must have taken to plan a line from Everett to Tacoma. With that kind of community planning, the Puget Sound may be more like NYC than the Bay Area in 25 years. The duplicitous rail options interoperating within the Bay Area fiefdoms- Muni, VTA, Caltrain, BART... are ridiculous. Seattle can't do anything to improve their weather, but for those who don't mind being damp, I think it's an easy choice over the Bay Area, and they are proving that they can think long term.

Not that anyone is going to be convinced of anything here, but...

Car: $11,600

http://bellingham.craigslist.org/cto/5494584275.html

Taxes/tags: $1,500

Gas: $150/mo (100,000 miles @ 25mi/gal @ $2.50 gal over 6 years) = $10,000

Maintenance: $250/year * 6 years = $1,500

Insurance: $600/year * 6 years = $3,600

2 sets of 65k mile tires: 2*600 = $1,200

sell the car @140k miles: -$2,000

http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/cto/5488481558.html

Total: $27,400 or $0.274/mi

What about the inevitable repairs on a used car? I find that I spend another 1000/yr on things that break in my car because it is off-warranty. Also, gas prices are more like 2.80 to 3.50 here in Seattle, historically.

I spend at least $2000/year on things that break in my car (and I've never owned a car new enough to know what is or isn't covered by a warranty), because it's a Range Rover and replacement parts cost more than you think they should. That's still far less than I'd be spending on monthly payments if I had a newer car, and insurance is cheap since I don't have a loan company requiring me to sign up for the expensive comp/collision package, so I feel like I'm coming out way ahead.

That's a salvage title, not something most people are comfortable with.

You certainly can find a car for that or much less, but not a 2012 Camry.

Thanks for doing this. Most people have no idea how much their car costs them, and usually just think of the gas price.

The total cost of ownership only matters if you are deciding whether to own a car at all, and that is really less a question of cost than your willingness to change your lifestyle around a commitment to non-car-ownership and stop doing the things which are only feasible when you have a car.

For decisions about any individual trip, gas price really is most of the issue, because you're already committed to paying for the option of driving whether or not you choose to exercise it in any particular instance.

I live in Seattle, and what you're saying doesn't really ring true to me. First, many employers pay for a card that you can use for public transit. So it will be free for a large percentage of people during the all important rush hours. Second, driving is expensive in Seattle. The 520 bridge costs money, parking costs money, the carpool lane costs money.

If you opt for the free I90 bridge or don't use carpool lane, you are going to be sitting in traffic, basically no matter the time of day. And if you are driving within the city limits, you have to deal with parking. There is Uber, and for going around within the city, this is viable. But if you are going longer distances it becomes cost-prohibitive for many people.

SkyTran solves all the problems that come with trains and light rail, which are 19th-century technology. Too bad everyone is happy to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a crappy public transit system that is so slow and inconvenient that no one wants to use it, when it's entirely possible to build a system which is cheaper and much faster and more convenient, but everyone thinks it's sci-fi (but somehow, automated cars aren't).

I'd still like to understand how the Seattle Monorail failed, got spiked. I'd been thinking it was for want of a champion. But now I wonder if the missing ingredient was triggering upzoning.

Well, you can always use unromantic buses. At some point automobiles and population growth cause too much traffic and people waste their lives in traffic.

Here's a classic to drive the point home:

http://www.bikehub.co.uk/news/sustainability/iconic-waste-of...

The bridge toll alone going from Seattle to Redmond and back is ~$8\day.

The train is only ~$3 to go all the way to the airport.

and not having to take the damn bus is worth at least $10/day to me.

So I'll keep driving.

If you drive, it costs the same at best. Cars don't run cheaper when you put a second person in them.

I think he means per person.

Yes, he probably did, but he shouldn't have since he used per trip cost for the train comparison.

Yes, though he's using a double standard.

Per person, a train costs the same regardless of the number of people.

It's a fair comparison and one I make often. Example: My friends and I could take public transport 10 miles. It might cost $5 per person. For four people that's $20. $20 might pay for a cab for all four of us.

Same with planes. I could fly or drive from LA to Vegas. Flying is $240 per person friday to sunday. 4 people = $960. 1 car carrying 4 people will be a lot less even if I rent it.

Your comparison is valid for the scenario 'whats the difference in price for x people to make this trip by car or plane'. His comparison was 'how does the cost of the trip change if I go from one to two people for either method of travel'. Assuming he and his wife operate as a single financial unit, then the cost of the trip by car does not change when they both travel somewhere instead of one person travelling, and you have to make that assumption or his mention of 2 train tickets being more expensive makes no sense.

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