Travel to work costs - fuel

Turgon

At UK fuel rates if you were to fill a 16 gallon tank on your car I estimate it would cost you $123.

How is the price of fuel in the US? Anyone trying public transport instead to get to work?

Stiltz79

I live in the US around the Cleveland, Ohio area. Gas here is around $3.10 a gallon and it costs me between $60 - $70 to fill my truck.

Dave88LX

Public transportation is not really an option where I live, even though I am in Maryland. I live and work between DC and Baltimore.

I also drive an overkill diesel pickup truck as a daily driver pulling 14-15 MPG. I just filled up yesterday, $112. I have a program on my Droid that tracks mileage/gallons/cost and comes up with a handful of charts. The cost of fuel keeps going up up up.

After I catch up on some old credit card bills, I may look into getting another beater for my commute (50 mile round-trip), but I need something that is 2 car-seat friendly.

We have a lot of stupid people on the roads out here, with that in mind I like being in the truck and having that 'cage' so to speak around my children.

mypcrepairguy

I have a 77 mile commute to work each way, I think I noodled it out once and determined that it costs me about 28$ a day to go to work and back…Still better then California where I had 2 5$ toll’s to pay and city parking ect….also It turns out that my 75mile West Virginia commute is quicker (1 hr) than my 40mile (1hr 20min) California commute…lol.

tiersten

I live in and work in London so I get the tube to work and that takes about an hour assuming everything is running okay. As breakdowns are fairly frequent on my line, I'm occasionally late...

I pay £1880 ($3032) a year on travel but that does mean I can use it as much as I want at other times within the 1-5 zones.

xenodamus

I drive 35 miles each way and live in Mississippi. Gas here is about $3/gallon and my car gets around 30mpg. No public trans. where I live.

So, it costs me around $7/day.....not bad.

broc

I live in London and ride to work (motorbike), it takes me about 45 minutes. I tried the tube/train but it is actually more expensive despite the crazy fuel costs and a lot longer (1h45)!

powerfool

17 gallon tank costs right at about $50 to fill here, which is my wife's van.
13 gallon tank costs right at about $40 to fill, which is my car.

US, Indy Metro area

Dakinggamer87

My commute currently is about 10 miles for a round trip to work so not bad. The gas prices are around $3.35-$3.45/gallon currently. It usually costs me about $30/month to fill it up

msteinhilber

My drive into the office is about 50 miles round trip and I get around 24-25mpg. Gas is around $3.10 a gallon for me currently so it can get a bit pricey. Every other week when I have my son through the week instead of part of the weekend and part of the work week, I blow through about 100 miles a day on the days I have to take him to daycare and get to work. I also sometimes end up traveling often for my job and I have family that's a couple hours away that I see often, so a vehicle with better fuel economy is something I'm keeping my eyes out for.

Public transportation wouldn't work for me given my job is very dynamic and I might find out at any point in the day that I'd have anywhere from a half hour to a 4 or more hour drive one way to address some problems that might occur.

cisco_trooper

Public transit in the US sucks. It's virtually non-existent except in the largest of cities. Voters keep shooting it down because they are afraid they are going to have to pay a few extra tax bucks. The short-sighted idiots don't see the long term savings. You should not be allowed to vote if your IQ is under 120 or so...Grrr.

cisco_trooper

So apparently I got reputation points for my comment on this thread. What is that about? Yeah, this is not a political forum but it was perfectly relevent to the thread. Did anyone else get dinged because I'm pretty ticked off on principle alone?

effekted

Turgon wrote: »

At UK fuel rates if you were to fill a 16 gallon tank on your car I estimate it would cost you $123.

How is the price of fuel in the US? Anyone trying public transport instead to get to work?

I have a 5.4L V8 F150, and I fill up when I'm at or slightly below a 1/4 tank, cheapest it's been is like $65 and has been as high as $80. The part of KY I live in has some of the highest gas prices because of a certain individual that owns almost all of the gas station and etc...

powerfool

While I would certainly enjoy being able to take public transit if it would afford me the ability to read. However, the more and more I look at the costs, public transit is not cost efficient nor does it actually reduce aggregate fuel consumption. If you were able to reliably use public transit for your daily commute without having to wait around too long, you could easily justify switching to only owning one vehicle if you had multiple vehicles, however. The savings on registration, insurance, maintenance, etc, could make it worthwhile.

The only reason that it appears cost effective in Europe is because of the inflated fuel prices that are all excise tax that is used to subsidize public transit. So, it make fuel appear more costly than it is and they make public transit appear cheaper than it is. When I am talking about cost... it is true costs. I would fully public transit if it were not subsidized. People should pay for what they use.

cisco_trooper

powerfool wrote: »

I would fully public transit if it were not subsidized. People should pay for what they use.

+1

I would be curious about the amount of money to make this happen in the U.S. I would also be curious as to how much it would cost a person to take a trip across the city. Does anyone know how much public transit costs in large cities in the U.S.?

TLeTourneau

New York - MTA/New York City Transit - Fares and MetroCard

Boston - MBTA.com > Information on Fares and Gifts

Chicago - Deprecated Browser Error

Minneapolis - Fares - Metro Transit

L.A. - Fares

Atlanta - MARTA - Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority

D.C. Metro - Metro - Fares

cisco_trooper

TLeTourneau wrote: »

New York - MTA/New York City Transit - Fares and MetroCard

Boston - MBTA.com > Information on Fares and Gifts

Chicago - Deprecated Browser Error

Minneapolis - Fares - Metro Transit

L.A. - Fares

Atlanta - MARTA - Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority

D.C. Metro - Metro - Fares

Some of these prices aren't too bad. With what I spend in gas, car payments, maintenance, and insurance this is looking pretty good actually.

Forsaken_GA

Marta actually isn't that bad if you live within the service area. If you live out in the burbs where public transit is limited (like me, out in Gwinnett County), then it doesn't do much good. We have buses that run to the Marta station, but those lines are slow and unreliable, and I could just drive to the nearest MARTA station quicker, and by that time, I'm halfway to the city so what's the point.

But if I actually lived and worked near one of the better service areas, I'd take public transit in a heartbeat. I used it all the time in the Tampa Bay area to get around, and never had a problem with it.

powerfool

When my car was in service, I used the bus on several occasions to get to school after work. In Indy, the buses are great if you live on a line and need to just go downtown or directly across town... if you live on the southside and want to go somewhere else on the southside, it is pointless because you have to go downtown first.

There have been plans proposed for light rail in Indy, but for some ridiculous reason they didn't propose a line directly from the airport to downtown.

I know that there is a way to offset the costs without a taxpayer burden. For instance, land access next to the rail is a perfect place to run utilities... especially fiber optic cable. Charge money for that access. Also, rent land space for cell towers... research has shown that a land owner can get $10k/month by renting out some space for a tower. The stops will all be good places to have commerce hubs, as well; restaurants, stores, etc... have the transit service own the land and buildings and just rent them out.

drkat

Trip to work is about 15 minutes - I live in the city and it still runs me $70 a week 3.85 a gallon

cisco_trooper

I'm using about 16 gallons a week. I'd love to be able buy a 30-day unlimited pass. That's a steal for transportation. Not in Kansas City.

Cpl.Klinger

4.70 mile drive one way, 8.8 round trip. At $3.30 a gallon currently (southside Indy) and 28 miles/gallon, I could get away with $5.19 a week in gas. But since I make runs to take the kid to my moms which is 30 miles, one way, that goes up. At least my tank lasts longer than it used to when I drove 20 miles one way.

alxx

Turgon which gallon ? US gallon =3.79liters imperial gallon = 4.546litres

fuel here in Sydney is around $1.50 a litre at the moment for 95 octane(approx $5.60 per US gallon),usually costs about $28 to 33 a week to fill my motorbike (21 litre tank , usually put in 16 to 18l).Can't use 90 octane or E10 as they mix up to 10% ethanol, and suzuki says it voids the warranty

commute is roughly 20km depending on time of day takes from 20 minutes to 45 minutesIf can head off before 7:15 am can get to work in 20 minutes, otherwise its around 30 to 40 minutes.

Getting the bus at the same time of day would take an hour to hour and a half, depending on if you can get on the first one or not and traffic. Can wait an hour on not so good days.

bike parking is free and provided by work.
Had my bike (vstrom 1000) nearly 3 years and just at 45000km.Brought it second hand with 1400km on the clock. City I get around 250km per tank, country rides up to 420km per tank

cisco_trooper

alxx, I don't know about other locations in the US but I can only get 87, 89, 91, and 93 octane, but I have to look really hard for the 93 octane and unless we have fancy sports cars we're generally recommended to only use the 87 octane fuel. Wierd.

Shockwave29361

Gas here in Japan is $3.90-ish but I only have a 4 Km round trip and since I only use my car to drive to work and back I fill up once a month or so for $50. If it wasn't for the humidity, my laziness, and the occasional rogue rain storm I would ride my bike to work.

As for public transportation, the only thing we have are the city buses but everything is close enough that it would take the same amount of time if you walked instead of sitting on a bus while stuck in traffic.

Everyone

0, I don't drive to work.

When I drive to my Air National Guard duty once a month, it costs me about $170 to make the trip in my truck. I have to fill up once on the way down, and once to get back home. 25 Gallon tank.

Also as someone pointed out, don't forget that a US gallon is smaller than an Imperial (UK) gallon.

IndyLoveless

My drive is about 45 minutes (should be about 20). My commute currently consists of 4 construction zones. It takes about 38 dollars to fill up my tank, fill it up probably once a week.

Devilry

22 gallon tank on my truck, 14-15mpg, $3.25/g here in metro-atlanta. Cost me $70-75 to fill up on average. I have a 30 mile round trip commute daily. Gets expensive, once I am caught up in some other areas I am going to pickup a different daily.

ConradJ

In England I used to drive 6 miles each way, in a car that did maybe 20mpg, with a lot of driving at weekends. It cost me about 60quid a week.

In Canada I drive 10km (about 6 miles) each way, and do 32mpg. Unfortunately I do an awful lot of work mileage and it costs me about $65 a week.

Just can't get a break, I tell you...