> So it seems that you're agreeing that a bike costs 1x to 5x more than a car, if commute times are held constant, and housing is considered, correct? This was

> So it seems that you're agreeing that a bike costs 1x to 5x more than a car, if commute times are held constant, and housing is considered, correct? This was my only point, that, if you calculate the math in a wholistic way, a bike is not cheaper. No, I don't agree. Because I believe that the relationship between drive time and cycle time is not usually directly proportional - see my point about 20min commutes. I'm serious. It's peak drive time and I just put a 30min drive into google maps (4pm right now) and it gets you 12-15km from downtown depending on where you put the pin. That's around 30-35min by ebike. Add a few minutes to walk from the parking lot (we haven't even talked about parking costs) and you're describing the same distance. All in all we're trying to make an apples to handgrenades comparison here - you can't hold everything else constant and live in two different places. My point is cycling is cheaper for many distances, less time consuming for short distances, and has plenty of fringe benefits. It does require spending more on housing to live closer to where you work, which if that's the city center, may end up either being more expensive overall, or requiring you to live in a smaller home. If you want to live near the city center, that might end up being worth it when you consider all the factors. If you want to live outside the city, it's probably not going to be worth it - in which case I'd urge you to live somewhere suburban but with a good transit system since our planet can't actually sustain this much driving anymore.