Saturday, August 2, 2008

First Month (plus) Statistics

Dates: June 27 – July 31

Well, it’s been just over a month on this project, and time to look back at how we’ve done. Here are the numbers for the first month (plus):

  • Average cost of gas in Olympia: $4.39 per gallon
  • Total distance for each mode of car-free transportation
    • Walking: 60.23 miles
    • Bicycle: 106.39 miles
    • Bus: 234 miles
  • Total car-free miles: 400.62
  • Gallons of gas saved: 16.02
  • Gas expense saved: $70.02
  • Total transit fares: $36.50
  • Total miles driven: 146
  • Gallons of gas used: 5.84
  • Cost of gas used: $25.74

The total car-free miles really blew me away when I looked at the monthly total. Like everything, you don’t really realize how the “little things” do add up. Our total transportation expense for the month was actually cut by more than half, but what’s truly exciting is that our gas expense was to about one sixth of what we normally budget and spend on it!

Mark

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for this update. I can now use this as proof that not driving can be both beneficial to their health and great on their wallets too.

Now if only we could make city planners begin constructing cities that cater to a healthy living and less smog-filled industrious commuting.

Mark Kirschner said...

meme--I'm glad this will be helpful for you. You might visit Project for Public Spaces for help in dealing with city planners. They have a lot of good information that they can provide to help you.

My wife and I recently came across a book they've put out called The Great Neighborhood Book wich contains a whole lot of ideas that individuals and neighborhood groups can implement. Kind of start out grass-roots style, and then go from there. The book's also got a section titled "Getting Around" which deals specifically with re-thinking transporatation and how road designs affect our neighborhoods.

Good luck and let us know how things go with it!