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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

#81

Post by tartuffe78 »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #59
honkhonkpants wrote: post #41

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 wal…

How many Ethiopian restaurants, improv theaters, and dueling piano bars did you pass? A lot of niche interests can't sustain themselves at all with only a small fraction of a small population.

Anecdotal from the Midwest:

Ethiopian restaurant - 12.6 miles

Improv Theatre - 64.9 miles

Dueling Pianos - 65.1 miles

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

#82

Post by cafard »

Is this an autonomous car, deadheading? If not, you should consider the resting calorie consumption of the passenger. On a highway, that is indeed negligible; but a crosstown trip in Washington, DC, used to take me about six minutes per mile.

The article on travel efficiency shows that a walking person requires about 210 calories per hour at 4 km, about 2.5 miles/hour, call it 85 calories/mile. For an American consuming 2500 calories/day, a given hour requires about 104 calories: divide that by 2.5, reckon 41 calories in the time it takes to walk a mile. Now the cost of walking over resting is about 42 calories, and we have walking down about where he has biking.

Please correct me, for it's likely that I have missed something here.

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

#83

Post by spotman »

This is a good thought exercise, but kind of comes across like a random equation looking for an explanation rather than interesting observation in search of an explanation.

I can't imagine the person driving doesn't spend as much or more than the person walking on food.

If we are saying that this small amount of money VS drinking oil is where the line is crossed, then are we not all comfortably well past this zone anyways?

So another way of saying this is listening to music is most efficient if you listen to a pre recorded song or you whisper only.

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

#84

Post by thaumasiotes »

allendoerfer wrote: post #80
thaumasiotes wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While the statistics are nice to look at, I have read the article you mentioned, too (was on HN a while ago) and instantly thought that metabolism unfortunately renders the whole calculation useless and wrong. Why did you think this? Can you articulate a change that metabolism would make to the calculation?

It adapts, like my parent comment has said. Most of our energy is spend on keeping the system running, not running with our feet. If we start to run, we burn more energy, because our metabolism has not adapted yet, once it adapts (see his example with Africa), there is very little change. Obviously this is simplified.

Are you claiming that running requires no more energy than sitting? If not, what are you trying to say?

The energy that you need to spend on overhead doesn't go down because you start running.

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

#85

Post by allendoerfer »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #84
allendoerfer wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It adapts, like my parent comment has said. Most of our energy is spend on keeping the system running, not running with our feet. If we start to run, we burn more energy, because our metabolism has not adapted yet, once it adapts (see his example with Africa), there is very little change. Obviously this is simplified.

Are you claiming that running requires no more energy than sitting? If not, what are you trying to say? The energy that you need to spend on overhead doesn't go down because you start running.

I am claiming that there is no linear relationship between the amount of running and burned calories.

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

#86

Post by thaumasiotes »

allendoerfer wrote: post #85
thaumasiotes wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you claiming that running requires no more energy than sitting? If not, what are you trying to say? The energy that you need to spend on overhead doesn't go down because you start running.

I am claiming that there is no linear relationship between the amount of running and burned calories.

So what? If you propose to have someone do some amount of running that they wouldn't otherwise have done, they must pay for that running in one of two ways:

1: Eat more. This has a linear relationship to the amount of additional running.

2: Do less. By doing less, you can redirect calories that would have been burned anyway to the task of running. You cannot, by definition, redirect calories that are budgeted for the basal metabolic rate.

By paying for the extra running "in kind", by not doing activities you would otherwise have done, it is easy to show a nonlinear relationship between "total running done" and "total calories expended". But that's spurious, it has nothing to do with the energy cost of running. There is a linear relationship between "total running done" and "total calories expended on running", and that is what matters when calculating the cost of running.

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

#87

Post by jogjayr »

Nullabillity wrote: post #51
jogjayr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then you also have to account for the reduced earning potential due to dying younger :P

Not really. If you die at 70 rather than 90 then your total earnings were probably pretty much the same.

Not necessarily. If returns from your retirement savings exceed your outgoings then you're maintaining net positive income till the day you die. Granted as things stand, this case would not represent the majority of people.

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

#88

Post by dTal »

cafard wrote: post #82

Is this an autonomous car, deadheading? If not, you should consider the resting calorie consumption of the passenger. On a highway, that is indeed negligible; but a crosstown trip in Washington, DC, used to take me about six minutes per mile. The article on travel efficiency shows that a walking person requires about 210 calories per hour at 4 km, about 2.5 miles/hour, call it 85 calories/mile. For an American consum…

Good catch! Not to mention that the calorie consumption of someone driving a car is likely significantly more than someone idly daydreaming, both from the physical activity of steering, braking, shifting etc and possibly also from the focus required.

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

#89

Post by honkhonkpants »

aaron695 wrote: post #77
honkhonkpants wrote: post #41

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 wal…

This is pure trolling and has nothing to do with the article. It purely was looking at the cost in fuel of go a mile compare to other transport. Be it across a current city, desert or large dessert.

I'm not trolling. This kind of analysis is frequently trotted out to argue against transit, cycling infrastructure, and even sidewalks. Take for example this (totally moronic) post at the Freakonomics blog:

http://freakonomics.com/2012/11/07/can-mass-transit-save-the...

It's an anti-transit argument based entirely on energy per passenger-mile traveled, which is only relevant if you think a passenger-mile is a good thing which should be maximized.

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

#90

Post by allendoerfer »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #86
allendoerfer wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am claiming that there is no linear relationship between the amount of running and burned calories.

So what? If you propose to have someone do some amount of running that they wouldn't otherwise have done, they must pay for that running in one of two ways: 1: Eat more. This has a linear relationship to the amount of additional running. 2: Do less. By doing less, you can redirect calories that would have been burned anyway to the task of running. You cannot, by definition, redirect calories that are budgeted for the…

Unless one does this every day, the metabolism adapts and one now does not need to eat more (or significantly less "more").

The correlation is not that simple as you make it sound.

Edit: To anticipate your next answer: If you run more on top of that, yes, you have to add additional calories somehow and the process starts again. The point is that a car does not have this mechanism at all so it does not make that much sense to compare them like equals.

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