Transportation & My Thoughts
...brakes, oil changes, tires, MASSIVE insurance payments, the occasional accident. constant fuel costs - driving is expensive.
Growing up in rual Ohio, like most young American boys I couldn't wait to get my drivers license. In fact I didn't wait, I got pulled over several times for taking my parents car out for late night drives after they went to sleep. So many times that I nearly lost my privilege to even get my license when I was finally of age. I stopped stealing their car when I was 14 years old. Only 2 more years and I could be a man, that's what we all thought as young boys.
Eventually the reality of life set in. Car payment, speeding tickets, brakes, oil changes, tires, MASSIVE insurance payments, the occasional accident. constant fuel costs - driving is expensive. All for a something that was only used to to take me some place. Something my bicycle had done for years for free, suddenly was my biggest expense. Not saying a car is not needed, I am only saying for the amount of time used it is hardly worth the price paid. A car is honestly used what, maybe 6% of your day?
You sleep all night , wake up to go to work and your car is sitting in your garage, You drive it a few minutes to get to your job and again the car is then parked for another 8 hours while you work. After work you might go out to dinner or a movie then home to start the cycle all over again. Of the 24 hours in a day, most of us are in the car what? Perhaps an hour?
On the flip side I have lived in large metropolitan areas with incredible public transit systems, subways, trains, buses, thousands of taxis etc. Transportation is quite cheap in these areas. There are many negatives but the major downside is the lack if freedom, you abide by someone else's schedule. But for most people it is just part of life. Most people in New York City do not own a car for example.
Group transportation is clearly the cheaper option. Consider the cost to fly from Dallas to Boston. First on a private jet, and let's imagine there is no cost of ownership, someone gave you the jet for free. The cost for fuel alone to get you from Dallas to Boston would be $3,993 or you get a coach ticket and fly just $95, Flying private doesn't make much sense does it? Forget Boston, let's go see the land down under, how about a flight from Dallas to Melbourne Australia...
- Distance: 7,814.1 nm
- Long-range cruise speed: 488 knots
- Fuel burn: 462 gallons/hour
- Estimated flight time: 7,814.1 / 488 ≈ 16.0 hours
- Estimated fuel used: 16.0 × 462 ≈ 7,398 gallons
- Dallas Love Field Jet A price: $6.82/gal
- Estimated fuel cost: about $50,450
Cheap coach comparison:
- KAYAK showed a cheapest one-way Dallas to Melbourne fare of $449 today
- So the private jet’s fuel alone is about 112 times the cost of a cheap coach ticket
Obviously flying is extreme, but even smaller scale ride sharing is cheaper and often faster, think of car pooling. It is not always the best or the most convenient but sharing the expense is easier on everybody rather than one person carrying the burden of expense all on their own.
The problem is infrastructure. NYC has a great subway system. LA has incredible buses, Chicago has great taxis but these are major cities. 98% of the USA does not have the infrastructure setup to handle transportation like this, in mass. Why? The great American dream of freedom and car ownership primarily is the culprit. In Bangkok, Tokyo, Shanghai car ownership was for the wealthy and elite, public transit was a must. So they have it. In the USA we were sold the dream,, so we do not have it.
Uber & Lyft got us to where we almost felt the freedom, but the Robotaxi is coming my friends. Again the private sector is doing what the government could not.
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