Daily Decisions: How did I get here?

Throughout 2013, Adding Light will take a look at practical decisions that everyone can take to contribute to making our communities more ecologically and economically resilient. Everything in this Daily Decisions comes from experience or research applied directly by our family or people we know directly.

Tonight, I took a tap class for the first time in almost a decade, and it felt great.  Although there is a "feed your soul" sort of personal quality of life moment associated with doing this, my decision today had to do with how to get to the class.  Let's look at my three main options for this kind of commute and see how the balance of quality of life compared with the economic and ecological impact.

Starting point:  my house on the Southside of Chicago
Ending point:  the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue
Event time:  6:00 p.m. to 7:15 p.m.

Option 1:  Drive
Departure time = 5:10 p.m. (25 minute drive + 5 minutes parking and walking to car)
Return time = 7:45 p.m. (20 minute drive + 10 minutes leaving, walking and retrieving car)
Total miles travelled = about 30 miles
Cost per mile = $0.35-0.45 (in my 2001 Toyota Prius)
Parking = $5.00 - $18.00 (street vs. garage)
Total cost of trip = $15.50 - $31.50
Gasoline used = 0.78 gallons (the Prius gets about 38 mpg in winter)
CO2 emissions = approximately 7 kg (8.92 kg/gallon per EPA)
Activities in transit = listening to music, sports radio, or news

Option 2: CTA (103rd St bus to the 95th Red Line Station; transfer to Red Line to Jackson)
Departure time = 4:25 p.m. (10 min. wait + 10 min. bus + 5 min. wait + 45 min. train + 5 min. walk)
Return time = 8:35 p.m. (same travel + 5 minute leaving event)
Total miles travelled = about 30 miles (9 by bus, 21 by heavy rail)
Total cost of trip = $5.00 ($2.50 each way including transfer)
CO2 emissions = approximately 4 kg (using values from Figures 2 and 3 in this DOT document)
Activities in transit = reading online magazines, texting friends and family, doing crosswords, reading

Option 3: Metra (Rock Island Line to LaSalle Street Station)
Departure time = 4:20 p.m. (10 min. walk + 30 min. train + 5 min. walk...last train for event was 4:30)
Return time = 8:20 p.m. (10 min. leaving/walk + 20 min. wait + 30 min. train + 5 min. walk)
Total miles travelled = about 30 miles (almost all by commuter rail)
Total cost of trip = $7.65 ($3.825 each way)
CO2 emissions = 7.8 kg (using values from the Appendix of this DOT document)

Given the options above, I chose Option 3.  I did not choose it because it was the most environmentally friendly way to travel, nor because it was the least expensive.  I chose it because it combined the cost effectiveness with the reliability.  On Option 2, those times heavily depend on the frequency of operation and could vary significantly, especially on the return trip.  For Option 1, traffic could have held me up, but in general, I would spend less time in transit, but at a significant cost.  It should be noted that the environmental performance of my single-occupancy vehicle travel is heavily influenced by the car I would have chosen to drive.  If I had driven a mini-van or SUV getting less than half of the gas milage, I would have had more than twice the environmental impact and slightly greater cost.  All in all, there is no perfect solution to the question right now.  If we can shift vehicle travel to all electric vehicles, that still does not improve the cost of parking or owning a vehicle.  Lastly, the per passenger mile data that feeds into this analysis comes from current ridership, which is under capacity.  Performance would be improved greatly if more people used the service.

This analysis can be done (and in the future I will revisit it) for many different types of trips.  What makes sense for one type of travel (in this case, short duration event travel), may not make sense for others.