My roundtrip work commute is about 40mi/day via car. If I drive to work I have to pay at least $3.50/day for parking. With gas prices hovering near $4.00/gallon I would be spending about $44.00 a week just to go to work. Add to that the fact that if I drive I have to fight traffic twice a day which has my nerves fried by the time I reach my destination.

If I take Marta on the other hand (which is what I do now) I spend $13.00/week on my breeze card and that gets me anywhere Marta goes for 7 days and I spend about $6.00 in the gas tank to get me to and from the Marta train station all week long. So my weekly commute costs just went from $44 to $19. I feel like I just gave myself a $1200/year raise by switching to transit. Plus, there's no traffic and therefore no stress on the train. I get on the train and for twenty minutes I read or nap or send text messages to friends.

No question about it: When it comes to my commute, Marta is definitely smarter!

While the recent run-up in gasoline prices has grabbed headlines and helped move people to consider commute alternatives, the last 10 years run-up in car prices should also share the spotlight. Here are my expected costs to keep my used 2002 Maxima, hardly the most expensive option for transportation, assuming a 10 year life and driving to work 250 times per year:

Purchase price $20,000
Annual Insurance $800 X 10 = $ 8,000
Tags & emission testing $300 X 10 = $ 3,000
Parking Fees $400 X 10 = $ 4,000
Maintenance $500 X 10 = $ 5,000
TOTAL Cost w/o Fuel $40,000
If we divide this by 2,500 days, the cost/day is $16.00 without any gasoline included! Note that this is independent of miles driven as these costs are pretty much fixed even if the car is parked all year (except for the maintenance and parking).

I am lucky enough to live near a Marta Station (Decatur) so I can get 20 Marta rides for $30, which makes my daily ride $3.00 RT on Marta. Pretty much a no-brainer even without the price of gasoline added in!

I have also eliminated the time-suck of getting emission testing each year, taking the darn thing to the mechanic, washing it, etc.. Also, I loose the stress of driving and the chance of an accident (which would increase my insurance rates even more.)

I wonder how many people have done the math to realize the true cost of driving, even if they could run the car on air!

How much more house you could afford if you didn't need the car? ($16 - $3 = $13 X 250 = $3,250 / 12 = $270 / Month, equal to ~ $50,000 additional money you could borrow @ ~ 6% interest)

Something to think about!

I commute 80 miles round trip each day, which is fairly common. 20 miles into my ride I drop my husband off at work, then I continue on to my job. We have cut our gas consumption by 1/3 just by slowing down. Where we once were driving 75 mph, we are now cruising along at 65 mph. The savings is immediate! At the current price of gas, by riding to work together and slowing down our speed, we have figured that we are saving between $125 - $150 a weeK!

I love the new look for The Clean Air Campaign Web site! It does such a good job of presenting all of the TMAs and sponsors and all of the folks who are a part of it. Nice work to all who made this happen. As a former employee and board member of The Clean Air Campaign, I feel a sense of pride and joy in seeing how far this organization, and the greater community it is a part of, have truly come. Keep up the good work!

I wanted to comment on Kevin Green's comment regarding gas prices. The bottom line is that it is too bad we don't see elected officials nationally and locally making better economic decisions that improve fuel efficiency (nationally) and provide the necessary funding for an expansion of transit options locally. These types of changes could have been done in a way that the incremental cost was inconsequential due to long planning horizons and multiple funding streams. Now that gas prices have gone through the roof and promise to go higher, people WANT better gas mileage and people WANT transit choices--much of which we do not have.

The question many are facing both personally and collectively: where do we go from here? How do I get to work? Where should I live? More regionally, what can we do to reduce the burden of high gas prices given we don't expect them to go down anytime soon?

If only we had the wisdom and foresight to anticipate this reality we would be in a much better place. As it stands, high gas prices have hit people who can't afford the costs and even the funding solutions involve sales tax hikes which, unfortunately, disproportionally hit people who have the least ability to pay.

Back in the '70s we HAD a similar opportunity to make the right decisions. Once the gas lines dissapeared so did talk of transit and fuel efficiency. I feel like our past has provided a teachable moment that I hope will inspire local and national leaders to take action. As a nation, we need more fuel efficient cars and we need a more federal support for transit. Locally, we need to explore the idea of a regional gas tax as well as other funding options that make the possibility of a expanded regional transit network a reality.

The role for The Clean Air Campaign and the region's transportation mangement associations is exactly what you are doing -- showing the region that people are using the options they have and as gas prices go up, so does interest in carpool, demand for transit and vanpooling, enthusiasm for teleworking. GREAT job getting Atlanta national exposure for the innovative work that groups like yours are doing to show that the Atlanta region is changing before our eyes. People are hearing the message and responding to the call. My hope is to see greater movement on the policy arena that suggests that policymakers recognize this change in Atlanta and make the right decisions this time around. In this context, every new convert to carpooling, transit and telework suggests a new political base for a very different Atlanta region.

Thanks for all you do. Again, nice job on creating such a great looking site.

I park my car for ANY errands that don't include a heavy pick-up by riding my cross bike with a carrier on the back for small amt groceries and errands. Any one living insider the city should consider (not as easy to do in the sprawling suburbs) and then push for USABLE bike lanes.
This is the time to let the Atlanta Bicycle Campaign know you want bike lanes!!