Thread by @SteveStaeger

I just bought an e-bike to commute to and from work. I plan on riding it to the light rail station...then riding from the light rail station to work...doing some quick calculations...

I'll do it 3 days a week. RTD doesn't run late enough when I work weekend nights...(thread)

My Mazda CX-5 gets about 28 mpg on my typical commuting pattern...(not on the sticker - I mean what the actual MPG gauge tells me).

Gas in Colorado right now is on average...about $3.63/gallon.

My commute to work is roughly 12.5 each way.

If you're operating solely off the price of gas alone... I can get away with less than $3.63 per day.

I lease my car (It's a Detroit-native thing) so I don't worry too much about wear and tear. And I'm not going to factor cost of the car in here - because I have to have the car anyway - to get to work on those two days when public trans won't work for me.

If I get on the light rail at Arapahoe and get off at Louisiana-Pearl - it's considered a local fare for RTD - $3.00 if you just buy a ticket. But I have a MyRide card... so I get it weaseled down to $2.80. 20 cents! Huzzah!

Multiply that by 2...since the local fare only lasts for 3 hours...

That's $5.60/day to take transit. $2/day more than simply driving. $6/week more than driving my car.

This kind of calculation, on top of the extra time it takes to commute by bike and train, seems like a reason some people might avoid this.

I used to do this with a non-electric bike and I've seen the payoff....

You get to work feeling better because you've moved your body a bit. Plus the time on the train is nice to catch up on e-mails, listen to a podcast or just unplug for a little while.

But it isn't all that hard to see why people avoid this - cars are mighty convenient. And when you hack off a few bucks per day...why not drive.

This is going to be an experiment. I'll try to document it along the way.

At this rate: I pay about 14.25/day to commute by car.

https://twitter.com/BicycleK/status/1429156050591109125?s=20