5. Hitch a ride on a school district bus route
4. On skateboard, tag from bumper to bumper of the vehicles heading the way you need to go
3. Get an Amish scooter and build up your leg push muscles
2. Take the bus
1. Carpool
Two to three years later, I'm still beating the same drum trying to lobby others to join me in carpooling to work. With about seven of us living within a mile or two of each other, it appears to be a prime opportunity to conserve resources through ride sharing. I did up a quick cost analysis spreadsheet.
At $3.75 per gallon with a vehicle that's averaging 20 miles per gallon, the commute is costing those who live around five miles from the office roughly $2.00 per day round trip. A commute under three miles only costs around $1.01.
| Miles one-way | Cost per Day | Savings/Day | Savings/Month | Savings/Year | |||
| Employee 1 | 5.3 | $1.99 | $1.04 | $20.75 | $249.00 | ||
| Employee 2 | 5.1 | $1.91 | $0.96 | $19.25 | $231.00 | ||
| Employee 3 | 4.7 | $1.76 | $0.81 | $16.25 | $195.00 | ||
| Employee 4 | 2.7 | $1.01 | |||||
| One-way | 17.8 | 7.6 | |||||
| Round Trip | 35.6 | 15.2 | |||||
| Miles/Gallon | 20 | Gallons per trip | $0.76 | ||||
| $/Gallon | 3.75 | Cost per trip | $2.85 | ||||
| Cost per Employee | $0.95 |
Within three miles, the savings trade off doesn't seem substantial enough to warrant carpooling. But for those who commute approximately five miles it seems worthwhile. Through ride sharing the cost per employee would dip to under a dollar per day with about an extra dollar of savings. In a year the savings would accumulate close to $200 in savings.
