My day job requires me to drive daily to Ladner, a 20km trip. The best time I've ever gotten in my Prius is around 20-25 minutes. Average trip is typically 30-35 mins, but the longest commute I've ever had was over an hour.
Since I'm going counter traffic, the main bottleneck on my journey is the Massey Tunnel, which normally has two lanes going either way but switches to 3 lanes rush traffic and 1 lane counter flow. This means that up four lanes of traffic will need to merge into a single lane before we can squeeze through the tunnel and pop out on the other side and spread back out. It's this wait that causes the ridiculously inconsistent drive time.
If I had a car pool buddy it would make a huge difference, but unfortunately that's not an option. I can, however, take the bus. With the new Canada Line complete and the buses rerouted to take advantage of that, I can make the trip in style with one quick skytrain ride and one comfortable and stress free bus ride. One transfer and roughly 50 minutes later I'll be at work, with a few blocks of walking to add valuable steps to my day to day activities.
The only thing stopping me is the price. It costs $5 to travel three zones, which makes a round trip a daily toll of $10. A book of 10 tickets is $38 while a monthly pass is $136. A tank of gas for my Prius costs around $35 ($25-$40 depending on rates) and lasts me the whole week (and a bit) including trips to Burnaby for Kick Boxing and night-time/weekend entertainment.
I most certainly will not be using the bus on weekends or on Monday/Thursdays when I need to rush home to prepare for Kick Boxing. Other days may get scheduled down the line as well, making a monthly pass a poor purchase, especially when it is just $4 cheaper than driving the whole month. Additionally, the average commute time is worse and does not allow for me to exercise in the morning before I take off.
What I will gain, however, is freedom to do whatever I want during the commute. Assuming the average commute was 30-45 minutes, that's 5-7.5 hours a week, 20-30 hours a month. If I was working during those times and earning minimum wage, I am losing $160-$240. And I can use that time for writing, no problem. But I'll also be napping, playing games, and reading the daily paper.
So you can see, it is hard to gauge whether taking the bus to work makes sense. There is no clear winner when considering time, cost, stress, convenience. When it snows later on this year, I will definitely be taking the bus, so those 3-zone tickets I bought yesterday is not money down the drain. In the meantime, I simply don't know if I want to make this a regular habit.
Showing posts with label Prius. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prius. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Happy Belated Earth Day!
No, I didn't miss Earth Day. In fact, I posted the revival post on Earth Day with the intent to write a later post but I got lazy (certainly a theme with me).
We got some recycling bins in our office this week and, on Earth Day, my boss asked me to write a memo to go out to the office so that they know what the bins were for. I don't think she realized it was Earth Day, I didn't but I was looking for some clip art to add to the memo (her request) and searched Earth Day for inspiration and there it was serendipitiously.
The clip art I eventually picked was something off the theme of "Make Everyday Earth Day" and I'm happy to say that I feel like I am doing something towards that cause. Since I was little, my parents taught me things like save water and electricity. Not that the environment ever entered into the equation, frugality was the topic in question, but as I grew up and got educated on sustainable living, I realized that I was already doing most of these green activities and it motivated me to pursue it more.
And, really, that's the reason why a lot of big companies invest in greener policies. Not only do they save money in the long run (only the short term set up costs are restrictive), but they get to market themselves as eco-friendly, which helps to attract similar minded customers.
Recently, six months ago in fact, I got my first car (that is, one that is solely for my personal use and enjoyment). Despite being male and asian, I really didn't know much about cars and didn't have a "dream car" vision, except for the impossible to get Vision SLR and Aquada. I was following various blogs from the Gawker network and one of them had an article about the top 5 cars with best mileage.
At that time, gas was really expensive and I really didn't want to bother with filling up all the time. Plus, my parents were offering to cover a good part of the car tag price, which really gave me leg room to look around. Naturally, topping the top 5 list were hybrid cars, including the Prius and the soon-to-re-released Insight.
My conditioned urge to save money and motivation towards reducing my carbon footprint essentially made the Prius the only car for me. I had a bit of a disliking towards Honda cars at that time, driving my family's Accord around, as I found the body of the vehicle large in the rear area and very unwieldy. So I went out and hunted myself down a Prius.
The Prius has a 45L tank, which is really quite small, comparable to a smaller class vehicle. This means, that to fill a tank, it will only cost me 25-35 bucks. Yet, this tank can last me 1.5-2 weeks and I'll be driving to work in Ladner every day, Kickboxing in Burnaby three times a week, and out on dates at least 3 other times a week.
What's really great about the Prius is the in-dash display that tells you what your current km/100L rate is. Watching this real time meter, though dangerous, really helps to show you where and when you spend the most gas and, through some personal discipline and trail and error, you can use the meter as a guide to improve your driving so that you can go further with less gas.
I took an entrepreneurship class when I was still in SFU. Our prof talked about one of his previous groups that went on to start their own business, designing, producing, marketing and selling a device that can monitor how much power you're spending at home and link the information to a handy gadget that connects to an outlet on your wall or detaches and can be carried in your pocket.
Since then, I have noticed exactly that device in the new condos going up for Milennium Waters and the Olympic Village, which is great for my fellow alumnis. However, it is also great for the gold LEED standard building and will, with no doubt in my mind, definitely guide even non-green minded inhabitants to lead a lifestyle that is healthier for the planet.
At our current consumption and population rate, it is said that it would take about 100 Earths to sustain the hunter/gatherer lifestyle that our pre-evolutionary ancestors led. With current technology, it is said that 85% of the land would be needed for cultivation purposes in order for us to live a sustainable life, which is still huge, but is much better than what we had before. Certainly, technology will play a huge factor towards our goal of long existence. While the monitors and meters don't do that much, they do help a lot in terms of motivating otherwise uncaring individuals to led a better lifestyle.
We got some recycling bins in our office this week and, on Earth Day, my boss asked me to write a memo to go out to the office so that they know what the bins were for. I don't think she realized it was Earth Day, I didn't but I was looking for some clip art to add to the memo (her request) and searched Earth Day for inspiration and there it was serendipitiously.
The clip art I eventually picked was something off the theme of "Make Everyday Earth Day" and I'm happy to say that I feel like I am doing something towards that cause. Since I was little, my parents taught me things like save water and electricity. Not that the environment ever entered into the equation, frugality was the topic in question, but as I grew up and got educated on sustainable living, I realized that I was already doing most of these green activities and it motivated me to pursue it more.
And, really, that's the reason why a lot of big companies invest in greener policies. Not only do they save money in the long run (only the short term set up costs are restrictive), but they get to market themselves as eco-friendly, which helps to attract similar minded customers.
Recently, six months ago in fact, I got my first car (that is, one that is solely for my personal use and enjoyment). Despite being male and asian, I really didn't know much about cars and didn't have a "dream car" vision, except for the impossible to get Vision SLR and Aquada. I was following various blogs from the Gawker network and one of them had an article about the top 5 cars with best mileage.
At that time, gas was really expensive and I really didn't want to bother with filling up all the time. Plus, my parents were offering to cover a good part of the car tag price, which really gave me leg room to look around. Naturally, topping the top 5 list were hybrid cars, including the Prius and the soon-to-re-released Insight.
My conditioned urge to save money and motivation towards reducing my carbon footprint essentially made the Prius the only car for me. I had a bit of a disliking towards Honda cars at that time, driving my family's Accord around, as I found the body of the vehicle large in the rear area and very unwieldy. So I went out and hunted myself down a Prius.
The Prius has a 45L tank, which is really quite small, comparable to a smaller class vehicle. This means, that to fill a tank, it will only cost me 25-35 bucks. Yet, this tank can last me 1.5-2 weeks and I'll be driving to work in Ladner every day, Kickboxing in Burnaby three times a week, and out on dates at least 3 other times a week.
What's really great about the Prius is the in-dash display that tells you what your current km/100L rate is. Watching this real time meter, though dangerous, really helps to show you where and when you spend the most gas and, through some personal discipline and trail and error, you can use the meter as a guide to improve your driving so that you can go further with less gas.
I took an entrepreneurship class when I was still in SFU. Our prof talked about one of his previous groups that went on to start their own business, designing, producing, marketing and selling a device that can monitor how much power you're spending at home and link the information to a handy gadget that connects to an outlet on your wall or detaches and can be carried in your pocket.
Since then, I have noticed exactly that device in the new condos going up for Milennium Waters and the Olympic Village, which is great for my fellow alumnis. However, it is also great for the gold LEED standard building and will, with no doubt in my mind, definitely guide even non-green minded inhabitants to lead a lifestyle that is healthier for the planet.
At our current consumption and population rate, it is said that it would take about 100 Earths to sustain the hunter/gatherer lifestyle that our pre-evolutionary ancestors led. With current technology, it is said that 85% of the land would be needed for cultivation purposes in order for us to live a sustainable life, which is still huge, but is much better than what we had before. Certainly, technology will play a huge factor towards our goal of long existence. While the monitors and meters don't do that much, they do help a lot in terms of motivating otherwise uncaring individuals to led a better lifestyle.
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