Save $2,100 Per Year In Gasoline Expense - Live Dense
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 07. 3.08
The Chicago-based Center for Neighborhood Technology, who we've featured previously [See: Center For Neighborhood Technologies Releases Cost Of Living Index] has extended their research on how lifestyle choice affects one's budget and environmental "footprint." Their latest work focuses on fuel expenses as a function of where you live. The findings are stunning.
..people who live close to transit, jobs, schools and retail – typically in cities and inner ring suburbs – spend up to $2,100 less annually on gasoline than residents of outer ring suburbs, where homes and amenities are generally more spread out and require more driving.That's considerably more than the tax rebate checks that large US families just got from the IRS. And, unlike a one-time give back from the Feds, the benefit of living denser is like the gift that keeps giving: it comes year after year.
Anyone up to calculating the net present value of a move to the city based on saving $2,100/year, over the period of a mortgage? Or, for a more efficient car, over 4 year loan? Or, for a new job close to home (which might last longer than a few years because of reduced stress)?
For direct access to the interactive gas map tool, click here. Pick a region, and off you go.
Here are a few excerpts from the Center for Neighborhood Technology press release (which you should definitely read if you have questions):
The research, which compares average household gasoline expenses based on the average number of vehicle miles traveled per household, examines 52 U.S. metropolitan areas across the country – encompassing 60 million households. It also looks at percentage of household income spent on transportation, number of vehicles per household, transit ridership and other variables on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis...Across the 52 metro areas studied, residents spent a combined $107.4 billion more on gasoline in 2008 than in 2000, an average increase regionally of 155%.
The gas-cost findings are a newly released addition to the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, an interactive mapping web tool.
Image credit::Center for American Progress, Record Gas Prices Add Pressure to Already Squeezed Consumers, via AP/Jeff Chiu
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I'd love to move back to the city. However, in this housing market, I can't sell my home so guess I'm stuck with paying for gas.
Well Duh!
People who live closer to work drive less, that's a no brainier. Of course they likely pay more for housing. It's a trade off everyone gets.
Where is this $4.01 for unleaded regular?
We have it in Baltimore, although admittedly not everywhere; there is a generic (Ocean) station about three blocks from my house that has had exactly these prices for a few weeks now.
I see where you're going with this, but I don't think gasoline costs matter too much to most consumers simply because you can't put a price on the value of having more space, more privacy, more security, better or comparable public schools and pride of ownership in the 'burbs.
And if gasoline is the major factor here, what happens when many cars are plug-in hybrids or complete electric? What happens when homes in the burbs all / most have solar panels on their roofs and people have their own veggie gardens (for which they have more room for)?
John - you're 100% correct, but don't scare the natives. When they hear "Density" they think Manhattan. We shouldn't use that word so liberally. Just call it "walkable" or "neighborhoods with options" or "places for people, not cars" ... that's what we need. Frankly, the density of Los Angeles is actually quite ideal with a high-rise sprinkled here and there and proper transit/bike infrastructure - it's actually the densest metro area in the united states (including NY) and the city of Los Angeles is far denser than most US metros/cities, with the obvious exceptions of NY, SF, etc... so ironically, the inventor of sprawl, if properly re-designed, could be the harbinger of usable density!
It's only $3.95 - $3.99 in my work area. I live 2 miles down the road from a metro station, pretty nice and my house isn't huge or costly either. Plus+Plus :)
@stadric: it's not just the cost of gasoline that factors in here, but it's obviously a part. it's the costs of transportation. denser, more compact areas have shorter distances to everything. it puts less strain on your car, if you have one. when you own a car, you sink your money in paying off the lease or the ownership of it, the regular maintenance, oil changes, tolls (depending on where you live), car washes... it all piles up.
if you don't have what you need in a walkable (or public transit-accesible) area, you have to drive to get there. how do all those highways and roadways to access these places get paid for? what's the carbon footprint of that production? 'denser' areas are about maximizing efficiency.
even if every home had some renewable energy, and every car was electric or a plug-in hybrid, vastly inefficient amounts of energy and resources need to be consumed, relative to a more compact urban form. i'm not saying suburbs are inherently bad, but the forms they've taken lately are inefficient and should be corrected. go ahead and live in a suburb, but make sure its designed for multiple modes of tranportation, and be able to easily walk to everything you need. check out the the congress for new urbanism if you want some ideas.
The only problem I have with cities is that they are so dense they aren't really built for cars. In my mind, a properly built city would have some form of mass transportation within every square mile, so it should never take more than 10 minutes of walking to get to a station of some sort or where you are going.
People always complain about the parking when the solution is to remove all the cars :p
TO QUOTE:
John - you're 100% correct, but don't scare the natives. When they hear "Density" they think Manhattan. We shouldn't use that word so liberally. Just call it "walkable" or "neighborhoods with options" or "places for people, not cars" ... that's what we need. Frankly, the density of Los Angeles is actually quite ideal with a high-rise sprinkled here and there and proper transit/bike infrastructure - it's actually the densest metro area in the united states (including NY) and the city of Los Angeles is far denser than most US metros/cities, with the obvious exceptions of NY, SF,...
I live 30 miles from downtown LA. What you are proposing is that we all are BORN, WE ARE RAISED, WE LIVE, AND WE ALL DIE in the same neighborhood.... NO THANKS1 !We do not live in a small country We should not be tied down like animals. I cannot have horses where I live (for transportation). So I bought a scooter. I was hit last year and I am still recovering from brain surgery. My wife works 6 miles from home. When she takes the bus, it takes her 97 minutes round trip. When she drives the Honda, it takes her 21 minutes round trip. With the heat and diesel fumes, I think her footprint is smaller in the car.
stradric, I've said the same thing several times here. Out in the country I can produce/harvest all of the key inputs we all need (energy, water, food, fresh air), but in the city all the inputs need to be imported - from the water from a reservior miles away, to the electric from a dam on that same reservoir, to the conditioned air pumped into each apartment. Just because a city dweller doesn't own a car doesn't mean that large amounts of energy isn't used to support their lifestyle.
@ stradric: I'm inclined to agree with you. I would love to see PHEV and homes powered by rooftop solar. Heck, no reason homes can't produce enough excess power to make hydrogen and use that for the non-battery stage, too. A 2000 sq ft.2-floor home in NY with 100 sq. meters of roof space receives, averaged over a year, about 17 kilowatts of power. Current solar panels get you just under 20% efficiency, so with the right appliances, insulation, vehicles, and lighting, you could do it all.
However, I hope that broad adoption of these technologies (which I fervently do hope for, and expect as fossil fuel costs rise) does not inhibit the rising awareness among Americans that we need more and better rail in this country.
Q: "...what happens when many cars are plug-in hybrids or complete electric?"
A: Humanity continues to sprawl outward destroying natural habitat and using more space than we need. People become more and more paranoid of their neighbors. Our children get diabetes, because they never walk more than a few feet.
Q: "What happens when homes in the burbs all / most have solar panels on their roofs..."
A: All the homes in cities get them, too.
Q: "... and people have their own veggie gardens (for which they have more room for)? " Deer eat all their veggies, bears root through garbage for vegetable scraps.
Don't confuse suburbs with rural living. No one will ever force you to live in a city. The problem is some people are not like you and don't want to grow veggies and stuff. But they have been brainwashed into thinking cities are evil, so they all move as far away as possible. When everyone does that, we run into problems.
"Q: '...what happens when many cars are plug-in hybrids or complete electric?'
A: Humanity continues to sprawl outward destroying natural habitat and using more space than we need. People become more and more paranoid of their neighbors. Our children get diabetes, because they never walk more than a few feet."
As urban populations increase, will they get more dense or will they too not "sprawl outward destroying natural habitat and using more space"? Do city dwellers not get paranoid of their neighbors? Are city children not getting more sedentary?
"Q: 'What happens when homes in the burbs all / most have solar panels on their roofs...'
A: All the homes in cities get them, too."
Except that city homes don't have nearly the roof area per person upon which to install those solar panels. Living dense means more people under smaller roofs.
"Q: '... and people have their own veggie gardens (for which they have more room for)?' Deer eat all their veggies, bears root through garbage for vegetable scraps. Don't confuse suburbs with rural living."
Deer in the garden? Bears in the garbage? I think you're the one confusing suburbs with rural living.
"The problem is some people are not like you and don't want to grow veggies and stuff. But they have been brainwashed into thinking cities are evil, so they all move as far away as possible."
I think people move away from cities because their experiences with cities are unpleasant - noise, congestion, crime, odors, filth, etc. That was my experience anyway. I didn't leave the city because someone told me it was evil. I left because I didn't like it, and rent was expensive.
"People who live closer to work drive less, that's a no brainier. Of course they likely pay more for housing. It's a trade off everyone gets."
Not necessarily. There are many smaller cities in the US that have reasonable housing prices and are walkable. My house, which is about 1500 square feet, 4 bedroom, 1 bath rowhome with a nice sized backyard. I paid $117,000 for it, and it's within walking distance of almost everything I need.
Density doesn't mean expensive, nor does it mean dangerous, unattractive, or unfriendly. I couldn't imagine wanting to live anywhere else in the world.
"I think people move away from cities because their experiences with cities are unpleasant - noise, congestion, crime, odors, filth, etc. That was my experience anyway. I didn't leave the city because someone told me it was evil. I left because I didn't like it, and rent was expensive."
Hit the nail on the head
You do not have to pay any gas if you convert your hyprid into a plug-in for $10.000 plus the electric bill if your commute is less than 40miles each way.Electric charge cost around 80cents for 40 miles compared to $10 dollars for 40 miles. You chose?