Save Gas — Ride a Bicycle (or walk)
by JLRodgers | July 28, 2008 | In environment, society | No Comments
With gas prices rising it seems everyone’s wanting to save as much money as they can in gas. There’s even families that complain about having to only go on two vacations a year due to gas prices! Oh the horror! Only two vacations! But seriously, it does effect many people in the United States, and really the world as everyone to one extent or another uses fossil fuels to power their cars.
Unlike all those chain letters of “don’t buy gas on day X” that really don’t do anything as unless you stop driving as much — you’re still going to be buying the same amount of gas overall. It’s quite simple and logical despite what many seem to believe.
But it’s even simpler: Every week, go one or two days that you don’t drive at all. Walk to work, or even ride a bicycle if you’re afraid of stinking up the office from sweat from walking. If you really worried about it — try to take a change of clothes with you with a little toiletry bag and get cleaned up at the office. Every mile you don’t drive not only saves gas, but lessens the pollution, and causes you to exercise. There’s no real downsides (unless you’re not able to walk/ride a bicycle).
If you live in a city, use the trains! Some people fear them, others love them. Granted there are days that you spend more time going to work (if you have to leave an hour earlier for example) and get home later, so it might not be for all. But if you can use them — do so. The more people wanting to use trains the more the cities will put into them – which will just make them better. You have to decide for yourself whether or not you actually save money by taking them or if it’s just for you.
There’s only a few things you have to consider when not using a standard fossil fuel-based vehicle (car/truck/SUV) when going places: it might take you longer to get there and to get back home.
If you take public transportation, you have to take into account the pickup times, and even the last and earliest run times. Sometimes you might have to leave an hour early as if you get the next pickup time you’d be late. With walking, while you can to an extent determine when you’ll arrive by your walking speed — it’s also the slowest mode of travel. If you assume you walk 3mph, and work’s 3 miles away, you’ll have to allocate 1 hour to and from work.
One advantage to riding a bicycle is that if you’re on streets with multiple stops (or have a bike trail that might be non-stop over distances) — you might get to work in the same amount of time as it’d take while driving more or less! Granted you’ll have to carry your bike to your office and put it in your cubical if your office doesn’t provide a secure rack, but it’d save a lot of gas and take about as much time.
What? Don’t think a bicycle could be about as fast as driving? Well it all depends on the roads and stops. Ever get stopped at every stop light and realize that people walking are catching up to you at every intersection? Same basic thing. And of course if you have a bike trail that might be non-stop (like through a park or not on the roads) you might actually arrive quicker than if you were driving! But it’s all a per-user and per-situation and circumstance thing. But there are a few advantages even over not using gas or polluting: almost no cost to get to work every day. You’ll have general maintenance, but given the price some people pay for car tires — anything shy of having to replace the entire bicycle and you’ll be saving a large amount of money. And you’ll get some muscular legs in the process.
So do yourself and the world a favor. Instead of driving to work, walk, ride a bicycle or take public transportation. And if you really must drive — try and carpool.
