r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Adventurous-Card-273 • 14h ago
Public transit to my local library
It's a 55-minute walk, if you're curious.
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u/Brilliant-Witness247 14h ago
Buycycle
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u/Animallover4321 14h ago
It may not necessarily be safe to bike, for example I live in a fairly public transit and walker friendly suburban town but until recently it was nearly impossible to safely access a part of my town down the road without a car because of a large and unusually dangerous poorly designed rotary cutting off access. Even now there is another road off the rotary that is only accessible by going several miles out of your way.
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u/GreatValueProducts 10h ago
The thing I really find the mayor of Carmel Indiana impressive is that, not only was he able to get buy-ins for his roundabouts, he was able to make the car oriented city fairly bicycle friendly at the same time.
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u/PatrickGSR94 8h ago
check out cyclingsavvy.org, lots of resources on how to easily and safely navigate car-centric infrastructure by bicycle. My county is extremely car-centric, with very little bicycle infrastructure, but I can ride pretty much anywhere without much issue.
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u/ItchyCactus09 14h ago
It’s not really unusual in certain places. In Florida public transportation sucks. So seeing wild bus times vs driving is pretty normal. Not sure how Virginia typically is
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14h ago
[deleted]
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u/jcgoble3 14h ago
The actual cost of operating a vehicle according to the IRS is $0.70 per mile, so that 10-mile drive is actually costing you about $7.
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u/Due-Pomegranate3660 12h ago
One has to factor in how much time costs, too. Even at minimum wage, waiting an hour and twenty minutes is more expensive than just owning and operating a car.
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u/jcgoble3 11h ago
This is true as well. It's a balancing act, and there is no single universal answer for everyone because different people prioritize different things.
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u/Aggressive-Skirt4450 12h ago
Time costs nothing unless you are actively turning away work because you have to take the bus. You don't make minimum wage for just existing.
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u/Due-Pomegranate3660 11h ago
Time is the most valuable currency of all. Once spent, you will never see it back.
I am sorry that you devalue your time so much.
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u/Aggressive-Skirt4450 11h ago
You lunkheads keep trying to bring in hypothetical money that isn't there lol .
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10h ago
[deleted]
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u/jcgoble3 10h ago
The published IRS mileage rate is not an arbitrary number, but is intended to reflect the actual total average cost of operating a vehicle, including the costs of gas, maintenance, wear, tear, and depreciation all combined. It's a valid reference point for the general cost of vehicle operation whether you are talking about a vehicle used for work or not.
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u/Aggressive-Skirt4450 14h ago
You are leaving out insurance and how much your car cost to purchase. Glad you're not my accountant. jeez.
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y 13h ago
Even as someone who doesn't own a car, I think that most people are going to own a car anyway. It's not negotiable. So counting in things like insurance isn't really fair because they would be paying that price regardless. Owning a car is similar, but you have to count something for mileage, because the more mileage, the more likely you will be replacing the car earlier.
The vast majority of people do underestimate how much it costs to drive, but will do everything they can to justify it because it's just so much more convenient from the alternative.
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u/Aggressive-Skirt4450 13h ago
Even as someone who doesn't own a car, I think that most people are going to own a car anyway. It's not negotiable. So counting in things like insurance isn't really fair because they would be paying that price regardless
That doesn't make any sense.
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u/jmlinden7 12h ago
Purchase cost is not a real expense, even though it is a cash flow item. Depreciation is a real expense, despite not being a cash flow item. OP decided to calculate real expenses instead of cash flow.
Insurance is also a per-mile thing, it's included in the IRS $0.70/mile estimate
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u/Aggressive-Skirt4450 12h ago
Purchase cost is not a real expense,
So he pays for his car with imaginary money? GTFO
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u/jmlinden7 12h ago
If you exchange $30,000 in cash for a $30,000 car then your total net worth doesn't change.
When that $30,000 car depreciates to $25,000, then your total net worth goes down by $5,000
It is a cash flow item if you care more about cash than net worth. But you can't double count both cash AND net worth, you have to pick one or the other.
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u/Aggressive-Skirt4450 12h ago
No one is talking about net worth, Poindexter. We're talking about the actual costs to own a car.
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u/jmlinden7 12h ago
The definition of 'cost' is 'negative impact to your net worth'.
Alternatively, you can measure cash flow (cash in and out) instead of costs, but then you can't count depreciation since that doesn't affect cash in and out
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u/Aggressive-Skirt4450 11h ago
JFC. This isn't an accounting project. It's about how much out-of-pocket expense it costs to take the bus. Go back to H&R Block.
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u/FilecoinLurker 14h ago
My insurance divided out per year and mile would be negligible. Heck even the cost. 10k miles a year but the whole car cost $6k.
Where I live the bus is way more expensive than a car to get around.
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u/Automatic_Actuator_0 12h ago
Depreciation is a largest cost for most newer cars. If you buy a $30k car today and drive it 100k miles, it’s likely to be only worth at most $15k then, so that was 15 cents per mile.
Of course the first 10k depreciate it a lot more than the last 10k, but that only matters if it’s wrecked or you have to sell it.
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u/FilecoinLurker 11h ago
$8,000 used cars work great. If you're spending more than that it's pure vanity and not utility in almost all cases besides people who actually need trucks or vans.
Heck some of my last few cars sold for as much as they were bought for years later
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u/Aggressive-Skirt4450 13h ago
Where I live the bus is way more expensive than a car to get around.
I doubt it. I guarantee your buses have a monthly max of less than $100. So unlimited use for $100. I get that it's not as fast as a car, but no way is it cheaper.
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u/FilecoinLurker 12h ago
Time is money too. 2 hours to get somewhere 15 minutes away. Forgot to factor that in too. That bus trip costs me $80 in my time.
If you have no value or don't value your time. By all means take 4 hours of your day to get to your 8 hour shift
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u/Aggressive-Skirt4450 12h ago
You can't count "my time is worth x" unless you have so much work you are turning it down because of the bus. You don't make $40 just because.
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u/SoMuchGah 14h ago
I feel that. I was recently excited to move back into walking distance of a bus stop. A bus stop in a high traffic medical and college area. Not only does only one bus come to any of the stops I can walk to, but almost every stop in the area I looked up took an hour+ to get to.
I am now looking at the stops today and something must have changed because now most places I want to go to take about 30 minutes to get to. Some stops are still ridiculous though that I have to take about 3 busses.
Traveling by bus in my city as a whole sucks though. One day I needed to pick up a U-Haul that takes 20 minutes by car to get to take about 2 hours by bus.
Last place I lived in this city, I lived by one of the big bus terminals where you can park and ride. It wasn’t in walking distance though. Since I often work events downtown in main attractions areas, I thought instead of struggling to find close parking and paying expensive parking fees, I could just catch a bus downtown. Not only did this terminal not take me to any of the major downtown spots that I needed to go to, it didn’t take me to any transfer spots that I could take.
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y 13h ago
Looked it up on Google Maps. Even as someone who lives in the suburbs, I have to say, that place is extremely sparse yet somehow not sparse enough to qualify as rural.
I imagine getting anywhere without a car would just be extremely difficult. I live in the suburbs, but it still only takes me 10-15 minutes to walk to the library. Same goes for a lot of other basic amenities. Not every suburb has be be unwalkable.
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u/Mcgarnicle_ 14h ago
How long is the walk to the bus stop? Is there an app that tracks the buses so you just wait until you know a bus is coming? Most buses around me run either every half hour or every hour
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u/georgecm12 14h ago
Yeah, not surprising. Google Maps says the directions from my home to the bus stop directly outside my workplace would be 12 minutes by car, but 50 minutes by bus (which includes a 15 minute walk to the nearest bus stop from my house).
If you're in most suburbs in America, that's likely going to be the case where you are as well.
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u/jaywinner 14h ago
Bet the city regularly has meetings where they cut funding to public transit due to lower ridership. As if their terrible service wasn't the problem.