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Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

datadriventhoughts.com

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Re: Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

#41

Post by honkhonkpants »

This analysis makes the same mistake that innumerable other analysts have made before: that going a mile is something worth doing. If you stipulate that everything is a mile apart, then you're guaranteed to get this outcome.

The point of walking is that if you throw out the cars then everything is much closer together, and then you don't have to walk a mile. If I start from the Ferry Building in San Francisco and walk a mile up Sacramento street, I'll pass thousands of establishments of all kinds. If I start at the Ponte Vecchio in Florence and walk a mile I will pass literally every single thing there is in the old city. In a walkable city you'd never need to walk a mile, so finding out what is the most energy efficient mode of going a mile is relatively pointless. What you actually need to know is the most energy efficient form of building, not the of transport.

Re: Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

#43

Post by loeg »

aji wrote: post #2

people who drive probably aren't going to eat less because they're walking less. also, walking (to me) isn't just about saving money, it's about good habits and contributing less to traffic and pollution edit: people travel farther distances in cars than on foot, usually. nobody would replace a 20 mile commute by car with 20 miles of walking.

I eat a lot more running 30 miles per week than zero. And I drive, sometimes. :-)

Re: Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

#44

Post by dogma1138 »

knowtheory wrote: post #13

Except your food expenditures are a sunk cost, and you can't replace them with fuel expenditures. This is literally comparing apples and gasoline.

Not really, I don't like cycling in the city (not secure enough about not being plastered by a truck, especially considering how little fuck UK drivers seem to give) so I walk to work for almost 2 years now.

I started because I wanted to lose like 8-10lbs during a time when I couldn't exercise regularly at the gym which were lost within about 6 weeks.

I walk fast at about 6KM(my gait isn't very long because I wear either jeans or dress pants and I am of average height, but still I'm doing 130-135 steps per minute) an hour according to Google Fit/Apple Health, and I walk between 11-15KM a day (~2-2.5 hours I take a longer route through Hyde Park if the weather is nice and I'm not in a rush getting to or from work).

This daily walk alone increased my daily rough caloric requirement to about 2800-3000 calories, that's 600-800 (k)calories over my daily default if i don't do any physical activity other than getting up and commuting to work on the tube. If i don't increase my caloric intake i would lose between 0.5 and 1 KG a week so in this case and in every other case the "food expenditure" isn't a sunk cost, now you might say that my caloric intake doesn't have much impact on the grand scheme and you would be correct, if I need to eat another slice of pizza or another muffin it doesn't affect anything in the long run, if anything it probably means we might "waste" a bit less food. But given the current cost of each food calorie that you intake if everyone all of a sudden goes up to 3000 Kcal daily requirement it will have an effect on the environment and the economy.

What you should take from it is not that walking is bad for the environment but is that the global food production is highly inefficient ATM, food is cheap especially in the US but it comes at a pretty big price also.

Re: Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

#45

Post by whoByFire »

I'm really surprised at the comparison of motorbikes to cars. I don't own a motorbike, but my impression was that compared to cars the fuel costs are trivial. This data suggests a cost reduction of only ~25%. Was it dumb of me to expect a cost reduction of >75%?

Re: Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

#46

Post by analog31 »

Interesting. I think the article would benefit from a graph of the raw data, i.e., calories per mile, in addition to dollars per mile. I actually wouldn't mind paying more for food, in return for the pleasure of walking or biking. At the same time, walking and biking are not an option for a lot of trips, depending on distance and cargo. Since my daily bike commute is 8 miles round trip, it's a pretty inexpensive pleasure.

Re: Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

#47

Post by thaumasiotes »

incongruity wrote: post #34
thaumasiotes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your food expenditures vary with the amount of work you do, no different than your car's fuel expenditures. They are most certainly not a sunk cost for this purpose.

But the argument could be made that the average American runs a calorie surplus so some percentage of the food/fuel cost could be deducted, for Americans, at least, no?

No, not unless you take full control of their diet (they'd probably object to that). People respond to extra work by eating more.

> But the argument could be made that the average American runs a calorie surplus

It really can't; running a calorie surplus would result in constant weight gain. What you actually see is extreme weight stability.

Re: Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

#49

Post by martin_henk »

astazangasta wrote: post #14

How about the cost of manufacturing a car, which has a cost in fuel? Also, most of the cost of food is labor for its preparation. You're paying for a lot more than just calories. Food is not made to be energy dense like gasoline, it's made to be tasty and nutritious.

Exactly... If you would include the manufacturing/r&d/transport, walking probably would be the most efficient way if looking at just one mile

Re: Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

#50

Post by Nullabillity »

seiferteric wrote: post #32
thaumasiotes wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cycling is up to 5x more efficient than walking "Up to" doesn't mean much. Biking is explicitly considered in the original piece: > Surprisingly, from a pure energy perspective (using the methodology mentioned above), biking, walking, and running are the three most expensive types of transportation listed

Does it consider the health benefits and therefore reduced medical costs we would have if more people walked/biked?

Those people will probably more than make up for those costs later in life.
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