Exactly. I fI lived in Chicago proper, I would never need a car...unless I was going to the burbs. Get outside of suburban Cook County and it just fall off a cliff as far as public trans. The only reliable and useful public trans out in the burbs is the Metra train system, but that is only for either going into the city or one of the towns along the rail line...and then you still need a car once you get to your destination (ecept in the city of course). They have been talking about doing a line that connects all of the metra lines to give it some interconnectivity, which would be really awesome and that would allow suburbanites more freedom to use public trans. PACE bus, which services the suburbs (CTA is in the city and collar burbs) completely sucks ass. I wish the CTA would take over and provide decent service out here. I hate driving.
-----Original Message----- From: Larry C. Lyons [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2012 9:51 AM To: cf-community Subject: Re: Average Annual Spend on Gas I think its really dependent on where you live. For instance here in the DC area, housing costs rise quite sharply the closer in to DC you go. When we first moved to this area we looked at townhouses that were fairly close to the DC area to right on the edge of the region. Prices for rentin a 3br townhouse in a decent area went from 900/month to over 1800/month depending on how close to DC you were. On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 10:25 AM, Cameron Childress <[email protected]> wrote: > > I often talk about living in the city and how I choose to live close > to my work. Some people just don't want to live intown, and that's > understandable. But frequently I hear someone say that it's unaffordable. > Thing is, I think the living expenses intown are offset (to some > extent) by fuel savings. I wonder how this math actually works for > those on this email list? > > According to this article, the average American spends $4,155 on gas > last year. > > http://bit.ly/zi0RFi > > I use the same Credit Card card for gas 100% of the time, so it's > fairly accurate when I say I spent about $1,400 on gas in 2011. > That's $2,755 a year less than the average American. I'll assume that > represents the average suburban commuter. So - breaking this math > down differently, that's about $230 a month savings - and that's just > gas. Factor in the rest of auto maintenance and it's probably about > half again as much. Maybe $350/month savings because I have such a short commute. > > So really, all else being held equal, I can afford to buy $350 a month > more house/condo/apartment than my counterparts in the burbs. This > means I'm probably renting or owning a place about the same size as > they are, only it's intown, I can walk alot of places they have to > drive, and I don't live in my car. > > But, snide self-justifications aside... > > I wonder - what did you pay for gas last year? Anyone looked? I'm > curious... > > 1) How much did you pay in gas in 2011? > 2) How far is your commute? > > -Cameron > > ... > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:347760 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
