I love public transportation. I know, I’m probably the only person living in a major American city that would say that out loud, but it’s true. I’m not a big fan of dirt, stench or public drunkenness. What I am is a huge fan of making the most of my time, and in my life, public transportation is one of the greatest tools I’ve got.
I don’t live too far from my office, but in big city traffic, it can easily take me an hour to get to work when I drive. Public transportation takes me only about 40 minutes. You may be thinking that 20 minutes isn’t enough of a personal savings to make it worth while, but let’s take a look at some “lifestyle math” to see how much taking the train contributes to my life on an annual basis.
- Commuting 20 minutes each way is 40 minutes a day. With 5 work days a week, and about 50 working weeks a year, that boils down to 166 hours and 40 minutes (almost exactly one full week of waking hours) that I can spend with my friends and family, or doing things I love, instead of in a car white-knuckling it through traffic.
- My train ticket costs me $6.20 per day. Driving, I use 2.5 gallons of gas (at a $3 average that’s $7.50), plus between $15-20 a day for parking. That’s an average daily difference of $19. Again, multiply that by 5 work days, 50 weeks a year, and I end up with $4750 a year! If I invested that much money every year directly in the S&P 500 (using the last 30 years average growth rate), over a 40 year career I’d end up with an extra $2.3 million dollars at retirement. You read that right: $2.3 million!
- On top of just saving the 20 minutes a day in travel time, the 40 minutes I do spend on the train, I can spend reading - something you can’t (or at least shouldn’t) do in a car. It takes me an average of 4 hours to read a book (assuming about 350 pages), so with 80 minutes a day freed up for reading, I can read an extra 84 books a year or an extra 3,320 books over a 40 year working career. I know I read quickly, but even at a pace of a page every 2 or 3 minutes, the extra reading time freed up is amazing.
- Last, but not least: the difference it makes to the environment. By taking the train, instead of driving alone in a car I can help save about 2.8 tons of carbon emissions a year. It may not change the world, but it’s a simple way I can do my part to protect our environment.
Now do you see why I like public transportation so much? When I get on a train in the morning, even if it’s dirty or crowded, I’m not thinking about the downsides. I’m thinking about all the ways that taking that train contributes to my life. The goal of this post isn’t to make everyone rush out and start using public transportation (though that would be great), but to illustrate how a little flexibility in your life can create great value. We may not be able to wave a wand in our lives and create piles of money, or more hours in the day. But with a little agility and some creative thought you can make a huge difference in the quality of the live you live, and the world you live it in.
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