Commuting

Transportation facts regarding my job:

1) my company does not provide on-site parking

2) available street parking is at least three blocks away from my building

Since I started over a year ago, transportation has been a struggle.  I do not live far from work, although we’ve moved within the year.  Even the new house is close enough.  According to the U.S. Census, the average daily commuter spends 24.3 minutes getting to work.  If I drive, park on the street, and walk to my building I can get there in 15 minutes.

I used to walk to work.  It took 20-25 minutes on average.  But I was sweaty, had to come home and let the dogs out, my bag was sometimes uncomfortable, etc… Strangely, there are equally annoying, different reasons not to drive to work.  I have to walk three blocks anyway, one-way streets are annoying, parking is never guaranteed, paying for mileage and gas, etc…

Unless I have an errand to run during work, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to drive.  One might argue with the cold, midwest winter it would be dangerous to walk (darkness, going through unsavory areas, etc).  My mother-in-law walks to work and church from her house throughout the week.  Both of these places are near my house.  She’s been walking the same route for at least a decade, and she’s got some great walking tips.  My favorites are to walk in well-lit, heavily trafficked areas (“it might not be scenic, but at least there are witnesses”) and a good umbrella can be a weapon if necessary.  I think I can handle that.

So let’s do some math:

Walking mileage: ~1.5 miles (there’s a railroad bridge you can walk over like my MIL does, but GMaps doesn’t recognize it, which means there’s extra mileage built into its estimate)

Driving mileage: 2 miles (includes the overshot past the building to park

Walking energy expense: $0 financially,about 135 calories burned

Driving energy expense: 27MPG/2.79Gallon=$.09 cents per mile, so $.19 per trip plus wear and tear, 0 calories burned

Let’s assume I walk to work three days a week.  Roundtrip, I spend no money and burn 810 extra calories.  That’s not a bad deal.  Sure it’s inconvenient because I’d have to leave early, but it’s so worth it.  I canceled my gym membership, so I’m saving money there, plus it takes way more than the 10 minutes I’d use leaving early just to get to the gym.  Extra bonus: I can use the walking time to catch up on my podcasts, which I haven’t listened to since I stopped walking to work last spring.

I have to get to work, so it’s not like I can get lazy and hit snooze.  I can choose to drive knowing I have to walk from my parking spot anyway.  Or I can choose differently, suck it up, and just walk.