In a recent Auto Blog Green post, contributor Sebastian Blanco writes:
“According to a new study by the American Public Transportation Association (which, yes, has an interest in the results), the average public transportation rider can save $9,242 a year by ditching a car.”
The post includes APTA’s news release on how the stats were deduced. And you can check out their online calculator to ascertain how much you’d save personally.
Chicago fares well in the rankings among cities: We’re fourth in savings at averages of $946 monthly and $11,357 annually. New York, Boston, and San Francisco are ranked first, second, and third.
Blanco adds:
“A car-sharing option was not included in the APTA model, but it’s easy enough to see that going by bus and rail most days and using the savings to rent a car when needed certainly puts one ahead financially, if public transit is a viable option.”
That option certainly extends to I-GO, which offers a joint transit smart card with the CTA. We estimate that members who’ve sold a car or shed one in switching to car sharing can save as much as $5,000 a year in reduced transportation expenses.
And in this economy, those savings can mean quite a lot for many of us.
