Topper's TravelsTopper Kain's blog. Topper Kain is a world-famous kazoo player and traditional norwegian food chef. He wants you to use the comments. Tuesday, January 30, 2007http://www.commutesolutions.org/calc.htmInteresting link for the “true cost of driving.” According to akitsap transit pamphlet that was sent me, the total operating cost of a passenger only ferry trip is about $9.00. This means that to transport one person on a passenger only ferry, the operating cost is $9.00 Google maps says the driving distance from Bremerton to Seattle is 65 miles. The two estimates I have generated for per mile driving costs of a Toyota Avalon are $0.24 per mile and $0.168 per mile. This means that cost of a driving trip to Seattle costs between $11 and $16 dollars. That even if you paid the full price of travel both ways, taking the ferry would still be cheaper than driving for an individual. Now this doesn’t even take into account the $5 bridge toll, the costs to society of driving, the cost of getting to the ferry dock, or the time savings/loss of taking a ferry, but I’m betting that the cost of driving just goes up. My full write-up: Using as estimates: 2 Cents per mile for deprecation , based on the decrease in blue book value for a 1999 Toyoya Avalon from 10,000 to 160,000 miles) 10.6 cents/mile for Fuel and oil, based on a a $30 oil change ($30/3000miles = 1 cent/mile) and a 25 mpg car taking $2.40/gal gas ($2.40/gal / 25 mpg = 9.6 cents) 5.9 cents per mile maintenance and tires (I’m taking this on faith from the website, but it seems about right) 5 cents per mile accidents (again on faith, but it seems about right) Total cost of driving to individual: $0.24 per mile $0.24/mile * 65 miles = $15.6 per trip to Seattle in a car. This varies slightly with the mileage and expense of the car. AAA’s national estimate for driving costs is lower than this estimate at 16.8 cents, but reflects fuel prices that are cheaper than Washington state and does not include accident costs or per mile deprecation. Still, $0.168 * 65 = $10.92 per trip. That means that the cost TO THE INDIVIDUAL for taking the ferry is less than that of driving. This does not even factor in societal benefits, which according to http://www.commutesolutions.org/calc.htm is around $0.33 per mile (I dispute these numbers and say it most properly calculated at around $0.20 per mile, but this is still HUGE). An interesting things that I noted in this policy analysis: Although it is cheaper for an individual to take the passenger only ferry than drive by themselves, it is NOT cheaper for even a two person carpool to switch to the ferry, even though it is likely that this switch would still have societal benefit. This indicates that there should be some mechanism by which to encourage groups of people to ride the ferry together. The car ferry does this imperfectly by only charging per car on the way to Seattle, but the passenger ferry has no mechanism for this. On way to do this is to use electronic fare cards instead of paper tickets and to allow the grouping of fare cards: a fare card can belong to a group of maybe up to 5 people, and if they board the same sailing they receive a reduced per person rate. .: posted by Topper 2:32 PM
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