Vegetable Oil Road Trip

Here is the second (and final, for now) tale of trucks in Chicago:

Monster Truck for Rent:
“It’s not going to fit.”

“Sure it will,” I say with false bravado. We lift the dresser and start waddling out towards the street and towards the too tiny car. We pop the trunk, and lift again. There’s no way the dresser’s going to fit.

We turn to the seller, she needs to get rid of it before the next day. “Ok, looks like it’s not going to fit, we either need to borrow a truck or do something. We’ll give you a call if it turns out we can get it from you.” She looks crestfallen as we carry the dresser back inside and drive away in the too tiny car.

…
Later that evening, do some brainstorming and call the building supply store about their truck rentals. “Sure, it’s 19.95 for the first 75 minutes, and you pay for gas.”

…
The following evening, we rent a Ford Super Duty truck with a gigantic steel bed. It’s a monster truck. In Chicago.

Right away, we notice the reverence other drivers give to this huge beast with sharp corners. Changing lanes is suddenly easy: turn on your blinker, and the waves of traffic part cleanly – no one wants to be between you and where you want to go.

Giddy with power, we cruise through quiet evening streets, picking up and delivering furniture, and returning well within 75 minutes and 0.3 gallons of fuel.

Monster trucks for rent – I love it.

image: Gunslinger from wikimedia commons

When you don’t have a car, you sometimes find yourself hand-carrying odd things through the public transit system:

• A bottle of champagne (while dressed in all black).
• An ugly ratty blue sleeping bag stuffed with all my clothing (while dressed for business).
• A heavy (50 pound) full-sized electronic keyboard halfway stuffed into rolling luggage.
• A metal stand (for the keyboard, on a separate occasion).
• A chair.

I very nearly carried a 4′ x 2′ chrome and white modernist coffee table as well, but I decided against the purchase at the very last moment.

Commuting expenses:
$20 for CTA (6/26/08)

Total commuting costs since arriving in Chicago: $111.02

To help deal with the loss of Minnie, I spent a little time figuring out the cost of driving versus biking. This analysis helped me get through my mourning period pretty quickly.

According to AAA’s Your Driving Cost pamphlet from 2007, the average cost of owning a (new) small car in 2007 was about $8,000/year (SUVs were around $11,000/year). I tweaked the numbers a bit to account for $4/gallon gas, short (5 miles per day) commute distances, parking costs, the fact that I’d buy a used car (used cars depreciate significantly more slowly), etc. and came up with about $3,500 per year if I were to purchase a small used vehicle for commuting in Chicago.

After some hunting around, I found that the cost per mile for commuting on a newer bike is about $0.08 to $0.12 per mile (by comparison, cars range from $0.374 to $0.596 per mile). I chose to use $0.12 per mile, though I know my ancient bike is probably well below this.

I assumed that I’d only use the bike for about 2/3rds of the year (this is Chicago, after all – I’m not going to ride a bike on ice), so for 4 months, I’ll buy monthly CTA passes ($75/month), and probably use the bus sporadically during the spring-fall due to rain, etc ($1.75/ride).

I came up with about $370/year if I commute by bike and bus.

So, the total savings are about $3,230 per year.

Things ignored by my analysis:

• Airfare for long-distance trips (I wouldn’t drive for long distance trips anyhow, so this is a wash)
• Car rentals, train tickets, and bus fare for medium-distance trips and the occasional visit to Ikea, but I also didn’t take into account the cost of driving those trips in a car either.
• Increased healthcare costs associated with a sedentary lifestyle vs riding a bike to work nearly every day.
• The opportunity cost of not investing the extra $3,230 per year.
• The fact that all money I pay for bus passes during the winter will be taken out of my paycheck as pre-tax dollars (that saves me about 40%).

Next steps:
I’m going to track my biking and commuting expenses for a year and see what my true costs are.

I moved to Chicago a few weeks ago and after a brief period of practicing car free living, I decided to live car free for real, so I placed Minnie on Craigslist and sold her yesterday afternoon!

Now, going carless is an odd thing for me to even attempt. I’ve owned at least one motorized vehicle since I was 17. At one time, I had three vehicles licensed in my name! I love driving cars and motorcycles (obviously, given this website’s original intent).

While it feels odd to no longer have a car, I don’t need one.
I live three blocks from an ‘L’ stop, and there are two major bus lines right outside my door.
I live about 2 miles from work, so I bike there every day. It takes me 35 minutes to get to work by train, 25 minutes by bus, and 15 by bike.
There are grocery stores, restaurants, hardware shops, thrift stores and more within walking and biking distance.

What I found during my experimental phase is that eliminating driving from your available transportation sources is pretty easy (and not just for people living in dense urban centers).

I’m going to continue posting about my experiences going carless in Chicago this year.