A recent Herald article says it costs $5 to ride a bus, $6 to ride a train and $8.33 to commute in a car to Seattle, round-trip. These statistics are inaccurate. Apparently compared were: cost of bus and train tickets, and cost of gasoline for a car.
True costs are substantially greater, particularly in the case of car commuting, where $8.33 grossly understates the actual cost.
The article states that it costs 50 cents a mile to operate a car, based on $2 per gallon gasoline. Round-trip to Seattle is approximately 54 miles, so the cost would be at least $27, parking not included.
However, taxpayers subsidize bus and rail too, so the true cost of riding either system is greater also. Community Transit states they recover approximately 40 percent of the total cost to operate buses. So, the total cost of a round trip to Seattle via bus is $15 ($6 ticket, $9 from taxpayers).
Single occupancy vehicle (SOV) commuters are primarily responsible for other so-called “external” costs, such as road-building, military costs to secure oil from around the world and health costs caused by air pollution. These other costs add up to $3.72 per gallon. (A full bus, which could be hybrid or biodiesel-powered, thus relatively unpolluting, could take 40 cars off the road.)
Oil companies get free protection, paid for by Uncle Sam, and no SOV driver pays those costs at the pump. Instead, the United States goes into the red by billions of dollars.
The upshot: The true cost of a round trip SOV commute to Seattle is closer to $50. The $8.33 cited in The Herald is a fantasy figure, perhaps designed to assuage the conscience and pocketbook of the diehard SOV commuter, who likely isn’t aware that “peak oil” is just around the corner.
John D. Lindstrom
Everett
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