Hacker News Reader

Comment by saintx | Hacker News Reader

I have a license, and my wife has a car, but I don't drive. Haven't, with some exceptions on vacations and long road trips, since about 1998. Having grown up in a rural community where driving was compulsory, I made it a goal, upon moving to a large city to attend University, that I would live close to grocery stores, restaurants, and my workplace so that I could walk and ride my bicycle to work and class. It was a conscious lifestyle choice, and I still adhere to it, 15 years later.

Side benefits are immense. I walk or ride somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 miles each year. Overall, the pedestrian commute energizes me in the morning, and helps me quickly recover and decompress at the end of the day. The money that would otherwise go into a second vehicle, fuel, insurance, and maintenance instead goes toward higher quality food.

View on HN

"The money that would otherwise go into a second vehicle, fuel, insurance, and maintenance instead goes toward higher quality food."

I love this. It shows how so many of our lifestyle choices affect one another. I'm sure the domino effect doesn't stop here either. I've noticed how much more I feel like a part of the human race when I bike. When you drive a car you're so isolated, it's easy to get angry when someone makes an honest mistake in the next lane. When biking or walking you always have to constantly confront smiling faces and "good morning!"s and I think it's important to have this interaction with strangers.

> I walk or ride somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 miles each year.

That's 2 miles per day. Certainly nothing to brag about, but if I could do all my shopping or commuting without a car, and only had to walk/bike 2 miles a day, I would. Why own a car? Even walking that's a only 30 minutes a day.

"I walk or ride somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 miles each year."

"The money that would otherwise go into a second vehicle"

I don't think you're going to like the math very much.

700 miles divided by 4 mph which is real slow for a bike (maybe up a hill?) or real fast for a walker, times maybe $100/hr as a consultant, equals about $17500/yr or about $1450 per month. You can rent a decent new Porsche 911 for about one grand per month as per leasetrader, so ... More realistically selections of vehicle and billable rate scale hand in hand. Or if you like a cost basis, my cost per mile has averaged under fifty cents per mile for my car so you're talking about around a buck per day, which buys like one organic apple around here. Which is better for you than no organic apples. I'm just saying the extra food probably isn't enough to fatten you up.

Note I walk about most nights after dinner and also after lunch. For health, and fun. Have to be realistic that neither of us are saving any money doing so. Long term medical bills, maybe.

Only if you bill your walking hours at a consultant's rate, which is silly. I'm making more than both of you if you calculate it that way by sleeping an hour less a night while playing World of Warcraft.

~700 miles each year is about 2 miles each day. Presumably if saintx hadn't structured his or her life around maintaining walkability then it would be necessary to travel longer distances each day. This would drive the total cost up. I don't know anyone who owns a car and only drives 700 miles each year.

"I don't know anyone who owns a car and only drives 700 miles each year."

My grandma and mother in law resemble that remark. Once you get old enough that shopping is an agony instead of a fun hobby, and you no longer work, there's not much but Dr visits. Also beyond a certain age people expect to drive to visit you rather than you drive to visit them, sign of respect or whatever. Finally, much like maintaining / living in a suburban single family house, still being able to drive a car at advanced age becomes a status symbol rather than a tool or recreation. "I might be old, but I'm still healthy enough to drive that thing... if I wanted to" An 80 year old woman in a suburban house, with a car, is pretty much the same mentality as a 40 yr old dude with red sports car and girlfriend half his age.

Sorry. What I meant was I don't know anyone who owns a car and is able to charge a $100/hr consulting rate and only drives 700 miles each year. Barring edge cases, I expect the usage pattern for the average person for car driving is >700 miles per year.

Saving money in comparison to what? To spending that extra commute time working for money, no. To spending the extra commute time driving to a gym and riding a stationary bike? Definitely.

It often takes as long or longer to accomplish daily tasks in a car-oriented suburban neighborhood as in a pedestrian-oriented urban neighborhood; for example, it's about a 5 minute walk to the grocery store in my city neighborhood and about a 5 minute drive to the grocery store in my parents' (inner-ring) suburban neighborhood; likewise it's a 20 minute walk or 5 minute subway ride for me to a mall and around a 15 minute drive to a mall from my parents' house.

The main benefit the suburbanite gets is that much of their neighborhood is empty space in the form of grass and parking lots, not that they save particularly much time.

And the long-term mental and physical health benefits from daily physical activity are difficult to assign a dollar value to, but very significant.

That said, the OP must live right in a downtown to only walk and bike 700 miles a year; I live in a city neighborhood and have a 10 mile round-trip bike commute which comes to 2400 miles a year without errands or recreation or social calls or anything.

Bikes can be faster than cars in densely zoned areas, which is why cities have bike messengers.

I think one of the big things bike messengers get over cars is that they can park a ton faster than a car.

When I ride my bike I get the same advantage.

Another advantage is that it's a lot easier to bend and break traffic laws on a bike.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com