this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2024
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I’d go broke without a car. I live close to work but shop in the suburbs. The price of groceries at the “bodegas” are shockingly offensive.
consider the cost of the car in those estimates. Cars cost over $10k a year to own and maintain in the US. Local corner stores encourage local business and walkable neighborhoods, whereas supermarket chains depend on government subsidies to exist.
My car does not cost $10k/y. $833/m? I would probably have to spend that much on inflated city prices. Not to mention the crazy inconvenience that public transportation would create when venturing outside the city—like the beach, where I enjoy going frequently.
I’d need to be able to get places in a reasonable amount of time, not waste my day on a slow bus system that takes an hour or more.
I’m not trying to support oil, but we need better options than “take the bus” which aren’t going to happen, sadly.
Edit:
I did the math on the time loss. It would take 4 hours round trip to visit my best friend. We hang out twice per week. Driving takes about 50 minutes round trip.
Also, I stay there until 11 or midnight. The busses don’t run.
The goal is to take the car as little as possible. It sounds like visiting the beach and visiting your friend isn't possible without a car, and that's not something that you need to worry about. If there are car sharing services available in your city, like zipcar. You can still do that without committing to the $10k/year cost of owning a private car.
Let's say you use a car 3 times a week, twice to visit friends, and once to go to the beach. Zipcar offers a $11/hour rate, and we'll assume you spend 4 hours on each trip. That comes out to $132/week, or $6870/year, saving you over $3k/year over owning a car. You'd no longer have to worry about maintenance or car insurance. This would also be much better for the environment, since you can use a shared car instead of dedicating a car to yourself. Any week where you don't go to the beach, or your friend visits you, would be pure savings for you, too.
This video is a really good video about why car-sharing is so useful:
https://youtu.be/OObwqreAJ48
Source for $10k/year number:
https://newsroom.aaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2021-YDC-Fact-Sheet-FINAL-8-9-21.pdf
I understand. I think your math is wrong though. Also, it’s not $11 anymore. Also, the closest zip car to me is a 31 minute walk…. Which I could use, but… that’s an hour both ways and an hour is walking on the street in the snow or rain.
The earth is already toast. Even if we all stopped driving, humanity pollutes like crazy. Nothing we do matters anymore because we are already past the tipping point. Science can back that up. We are far warmer than we predicted. We will probably hit +6 by 2030 at this rate.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/OObwqreAJ48
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.