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From experience, $1 is not enough to keep out the people who spend the whole trip talking about where they want to go to jail for the winter. And $1 is already
by o11c 11mo ago
From experience, $1 is not enough to keep out the people who spend the whole trip talking about where they want to go to jail for the winter.
And $1 is already expensive enough that if the destination is within 5-10 miles, driving is cheaper if you already have a car and parking, so you are keeping that class of people out.
Though really I find the main reason people don't take the bus is that there aren't enough buses (in time or space) for where/when people really want to go. This is an `m×n` problem.
- PlunderBunny 11mo agoHow are you calculating driving any distance as being cheaper than $1? Surely if you factor in wear-and-tear on the car, you couldn't even get out of the driveway without eating that $1.
- o11c 11mo agoLet's say a gallon of gas costs $4 and your car gets 40 MPG. So $1 gets you 10 miles if you only consider gas (which very many people do, even if you think they shouldn't - much maintenance is imagined as time-based, and this is not entirely wrong - cars do decay even if you don't drive them, and insurance only rarely considers your odometer and only coarsely if so). Wear and tear is generally assumed to be roughly equal to gas costs on well-maintained roads, depending on a lot of varying assumptions of what to include. So, 5 miles.
- piva00 11mo agoAdding depreciation, recurring costs such as insurance, parking, perhaps even opportunity cost from capital allocated in a depreciating asset. It starts to not look that cheap.
- HPsquared 11mo agoIf you already have access to a car, the marginal cost of driving an extra mile is low.
- bombcar 11mo agoLots of those things are relatively fixed, so it’s a “use the car today” question, not a “do I buy a Car” ideation.
- matt-p 11mo agoMarginal cost of a mile is about 20-40c including wear and tear. If you've got a car already that's all that matters
- plorkyeran 11mo agoDriving 5 miles costs a lot more than $1.
- trollbridge 11mo agoIt really doesn't, though, especially if you've already decide to drive 10 or 20 miles for some other reason. Marginally, the cost of driving 5 miles is quite a bit less than $1.
- gizmo686 11mo agoThe IRS sets the reimbursement rate at $0.7 per mile, which would estimate a 5 mile trip as costing a marginal $3.5
- matt-p 11mo agoUpto 0.7 per mile I think? That includes an allowance for depreciation so it's not really a true marginal cost, however for a moment let's assume it is. If the bus was $3 do you think it's wise that it's cheaper to drive a 4 mile journey than take a bus?