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Your cost calculation is a little off. I commute to work by bike since around 8 years, payed 800 $ initially for the brand new bike and only needed 3 maintenanc

Your cost calculation is a little off. I commute to work by bike since around 8 years, payed 800 $ initially for the brand new bike and only needed 3 maintenances in the bike shop for 400 $ total. Plus I bought some extra tires once for around 80 $ and a couple of replacement brakes / tubes / a bit of oil every now and them for a total of around 100 $. In terms of rain gear I've never needed to buy anything extra but my 20 $ cheap rain coat. So we're at 1400 $ spread across 8 years and the bike still runs smoothly and is being used for other activities than commuting to work. There is no cheaper alternative than this.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago
You almost always still need to take public transport, so you'd need a bus or rail pass. To truly do it, you'll probably need a cart/trailer for the car, that's another couple hundred bucks. You need a bike lock, you almost always need pannier racks and bags. Lights. For rain gear, do you just tolerate getting your shoes and pants wet? I agree it is still fundamentally cheaper, but it starts to get close to "ah, I might as well get a beater car" too quickly. We need a really good incentive to get people away from using cars for short trips. Likely that is high fuel prices and taxes...
- HanaShiratori 5y ago
  You're right regarding panniers and bike lock, since I bought them back then... So throw in another 200 $ into the calculation above, but in the grand scheme it's still not that much less cost efficient. No rail pass needed though, since I can bike across the city comfortably (can reach everything within my social circle in 20-45 mins). In the rare occasion that I really need to take public transport I just buy a single ticket / day pass. I used to have a small Peugeot 106 back then, but sold it since it was rarely used and the cost was immense compared to what I have to pay for maintaining a bicycle. The rain coat is huge and protects most of my pants, shoes will get wet, however on rainy days I commute with my red wings boots (which I didn't specifically buy for riding my bike) and even in heavy rain the inside of my shoe stays warm and dry, so a wipe at work is enough to have them dirt free again on the outside. Obviously cars are more comfortable and have their purpose, especially in rural areas, but claiming that commuting by bike is close in costs is just not true. And I consider myself the average bike commuter in terms of commute-related spendings, I know some extreme examples of coworkers / friends that ride used 20+ year old bikes with just the basic maintenance (breaks/chain/gear) that spend way less. I agree that more incentives are always good to bring people out of their cars onto their bikes, but the incentives are already there...the amount of money I spend in the past 8 years commuting by bike is what I had to pay on a single repair of my Peugeot 106. If we add up fuel, insurance, other repairs, tax, parking costs than we're easily talking about a different dimension of costs.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago

You almost always still need to take public transport, so you'd need a bus or rail pass. To truly do it, you'll probably need a cart/trailer for the car, that's another couple hundred bucks. You need a bike lock, you almost always need pannier racks and bags. Lights. For rain gear, do you just tolerate getting your shoes and pants wet? I agree it is still fundamentally cheaper, but it starts to get close to "ah, I might as well get a beater car" too quickly. We need a really good incentive to get people away from using cars for short trips. Likely that is high fuel prices and taxes...

HanaShiratori 5y ago
You're right regarding panniers and bike lock, since I bought them back then... So throw in another 200 $ into the calculation above, but in the grand scheme it's still not that much less cost efficient. No rail pass needed though, since I can bike across the city comfortably (can reach everything within my social circle in 20-45 mins). In the rare occasion that I really need to take public transport I just buy a single ticket / day pass. I used to have a small Peugeot 106 back then, but sold it since it was rarely used and the cost was immense compared to what I have to pay for maintaining a bicycle. The rain coat is huge and protects most of my pants, shoes will get wet, however on rainy days I commute with my red wings boots (which I didn't specifically buy for riding my bike) and even in heavy rain the inside of my shoe stays warm and dry, so a wipe at work is enough to have them dirt free again on the outside. Obviously cars are more comfortable and have their purpose, especially in rural areas, but claiming that commuting by bike is close in costs is just not true. And I consider myself the average bike commuter in terms of commute-related spendings, I know some extreme examples of coworkers / friends that ride used 20+ year old bikes with just the basic maintenance (breaks/chain/gear) that spend way less. I agree that more incentives are always good to bring people out of their cars onto their bikes, but the incentives are already there...the amount of money I spend in the past 8 years commuting by bike is what I had to pay on a single repair of my Peugeot 106. If we add up fuel, insurance, other repairs, tax, parking costs than we're easily talking about a different dimension of costs.