Fixed Costs

My guess is that the price of gasoline would have to reach $4.75 to truly make bicycle commuting pay for itself.

Today, I'm paying more to ride. I'm paying because I still have to insure a car that sits in the driveway all day long, I still have to register the same car that sits in the driveway all day long, I still have to maintain it, still have to replace the wiper blades each winter regardless of how much it was used, and still have to smog it. Didn't catch any break from Allstate on my insurance. They could care less about how little or how much I use it. I pay roughly the same as if I drove the fucking thing 400 miles a day as a courier. It's a fixed cost, not variable.

Then on top of that I have to spend money to fix bicycle flats, to buy new tyres, to get the wheels rebuilt, and spend time adjusting the brakes and derailleurs.

Over ten years I've commuted by bike almost 14,000 miles. If I assume that over that period gas averaged $2.40 against a car earning 25 miles to the gallon, I saved $1,344 dollars. Over ten years. I spent way more than that on the bike, panniers, shoes, gloves, helmets, shorts, tyres and tubes.

You can easily see how bicycling would only ever "pay for itself" if you could divorce your car, which is an impossibility here in Elk Grove, one of the most car dependent cities in the most car dependent state in the most car dependent nation on earth. The other way would be if the variable cost of oil and gasoline rose at least another one to two bucks per gallon (in today's dollars.) But that will never happen.

We elect to subsidize the cost of freeways through higher income and payroll taxes so we all can save a few nickels on a gallon of gas. So not only am I not fully using these gold plated national resources to the extent I could because they are "free," I get to shoulder the burden of being excessively taxed so you can drive on these gold plated freeways of ours while commuting your 36 mile one-way trip to work.

Now that I think about it, even $4.75 wouldn't be enough to break even. It'd prolly need to be closer to $5.25.