https://maxmautner.com/2026/10/11/how-fast-is-a-car.html
The median American worker earns $23.80/hour, or ~$19 after taxes. A used car driven the US average of ~10,900 miles a year costs ~$8,200, counting $1,700 a year for a parking space at home. That is ~430 hours of work before the car moves. A new car takes ~700 hours. A $999 e-bike ridden 3,000 miles a year takes ~25 hours.
There’s so much to be said about reclaiming commute time too. If I commute by car, I’m super stressed the entire way right as my body is waking up and winding down. When I commute by ebike, that time is really enriching. I’m interacting with wildlife, stopping for neat flowers and river photos, and getting some gentle exercise while zipping around like it’s a childhood bike. It turns the worst part of my day into one of the best, like meditating twice a day. To me the big thing the Mythical Garden City achieves is reconnecting you to nature in an ongoing, mutually healing relationship. Ebikes achieve that better than anything outside of hiking for me.
I agree heavily here but I think the stronger case is usually much more finance-based but you have to look at the cost not from a carbrain perspective. The german green travel sphere has this concept of “effective time” which I think is useful, because it considers opportunity costs.
I.e. if your car journey is 30 mins and your train journey is 45 mins but you can work 30 mins on the train because your job allows that, you save 15 mins per trip, even if it ls longer. Or even expressed in more cold, hard, cash agreements to pick up your post here: If you spend 4 hours a week at work to pay for your car, supposing you also drive everywhere else, you’re like a a few bicycle trips in your private life away from working a 4 day week and come out the same financially.
I like that framing. For me the opportunity costs are socioecological because I have socioecologybrain, but financially cars are so miserable to own and they’re only getting worse compared to anything else. I could buy a new ebike just with the yearly insurance/registration costs for my econobox car. That’s like 100 hours of work to pay for the privilege of using a car.
Time is a real cost for driving. If I’m driving I’m engaged and focused on not crashing, it’s stressful (especially in heavy traffic) and especially list time. 45 minutes on the train is 45 minutes I can read, play a crossword, draw, whatever. If I want to just stare into the middle distance and disassociate I can no problem (so long as I don’t miss my stop) whereas in a car I have to be locked in paying attention.
Yeah reading on transit is 👌👌👌👌
Some days my time on transit is the only time I get to read/relax
I see I may be the odd one out here. Driving doesn’t stress me out at all
depends on the situation. uncontrolled lefts are really annoying, i’ll drive an extra couple hundred meters or on a slower road rather than gamble for 5+ minutes.
If I’m late or in a hurry i might find a better turn but waiting for it to be safe is fine too
Depends where/when I’m driving. On a country road/a divided highway it’s chill, even a little relaxing, but anywhere with traffic (and since I’m in the city that’s everywhere) is instantly stressful because I’m also having to keep an eye on every vehicle around me & make sure they aren’t making mistakes that I have to compensate for/avoid.
There’s a huge difference between driving 20 minutes in the country vs 20 minutes in rush hour traffic
Where i live is touted as having some of the worst traffic. Not on the same tier as like a Los Angeles or something though to be fair.
Windows down music up really keeps me chill in traffic i guess.
Guess you’re just built different
Edit: I just can’t see how windows down in traffic is at all relaxing, exhaust fumes and traffic noises are already too much
My noises are louder and idk about the fumes maybe that’s something I’m noise blind to after 20 years of driving
what jobs have the flexibility for this? i suppose it’s easier if your job isn’t tied to your healthcare
I read this idea as cutting out the car entirely means you get the financial benefit of the time you work, though it’s not well worded. For example if you work 40 hours a week, 5 days a week and it costs 2 hours a day to pay for your car, choosing to move around exclusively by bike, that means you instead spend 0 hours on a car. This would give you 8 hours of earnings back, a full day’s wage. This assumes you don’t use a car for any non-commuting trips.
I’d argue most white collar work in germany which is the context for this. maybe not so much in some of the more male dominated, toxic tending fields but legally you have a right to go part time unless there’s real good reason for your employer to say no. It’s far from everyone but not exactly an insignifcant share of the workforce here that this’d apply to. I don’t really mean it as universal, either, just as a point that even given the very real options to be less car dependent people don’t tend to work it out
yeah i’d love to touch computer 30% as much for 30% pay but there aren’t really jobs like that
What makes driving so stressful? I’d rather be able to look at my phone or whatever but i wouldn’t call driving stressful
The constant threat of crashing, or other people crashing into you. Needing to check mirrors, speed, maintain vigilance for pedestrians, other cars, cyclists, and cops.
The driver needs to be on alert to drive safely, which is not a relaxed state
I suppose i thought of stressed out meaning an active state of stress. Is simply not being relaxed the same as being stressed? All those aspects of driving can still occur while I’m bobbing along to loud music.
I learned to drive in an ambulance and it’s still mentally the same for me. There’s a lot of destination fixation, really defensive driving, and I get neurotic about passenger/wildlife safety. Driving can be genuinely fun if I’m doing it alone in a winding canyon, but normally I put on a podcast and stay hyper-alert for the entire drive with accidents in mind. Biking is closer to how I walk- constantly stopping to look at things and exploring on impulse. There might be a brief moment of stress but it’s sandwiched between really engaging decompression time.
Your bike commute is blessed. It shouldn’t be this way but for many of us being on our bike would be more stressful because of the car hellscape. Maybe the physical activity of biking cancels it out but idk.