Thursday, November 11, 2010

Doing less bad is still no good (Final in the series)

Well, here are the results after 41 weeks I have driven 8945 miles and averaged around 218 miles per week.

This number is about 100 miles more per week than I thought and driving has cost me around $900 in gas this year (not including other car related expenses).

I drew a trend line on the graph to see the thing that I realized myself, namely that I am cycling less and relying on my car more. Part of this has to do with the fact that we've been trying to (and now successfully) sold my wifes car, so we've put more miles on mine that was originally getting split between the two cars. The other side of this is that I've haven't been biking to the lab and instead opting to drive every morning.

So I am laying down a challenge to myself, starting next week, for 4 weeks I want to give up my car! It is going to be an interesting challenge especially since we've been enjoying a weird break in good weather that I am sure will crumble during my biking trial. But I want to try to reverse my trend and set a good example for commuting without a car.

The significant down side is the added time. Driving to the lab takes 30-40 mins. The train + bike takes about 70-80 mins. So it means waking up early/leaving early/ and more planning of my days. But, I want to try it...so we'll see how it goes.

Hopefully I'll be able to post miles biked vs miles driven in the coming days.

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