This entry was written and archived on April 25, 2011. Location at the time of writing: New York City
There’s a marginal cost to driving, namely the price of gasoline. When one substitutes driving with biking, that marginal cost is spared, but the saving is barely tangible. Why? That’s because when we turn on the engine and drive, we don’t envision a price meter slowly increasing, as observed on taxis, even though that’s essentially what’s happening as the gas is being used. Instead, we just envision the costs of driving all at once when we go to the gas station. When the predominant mode of transportation takes on public forms (bus, Subway), the perception of the costs is much tangible, because we either pay with real money the moment we get on them, or see the remaining balance left on the Metrocard decreasing every time we swipe it.
It’s easy for me to say that “today, I rode my bike to and from the hospital, and that saved me $4.50 of fares.” It will be difficult for me to say in a hypothetical situation back home that “I rode to and from the school, and that saved me $1 of gasoline.” While the latter statement would be indeed true, the perception of costs just isn’t the same because even if I had driven, I wouldn’t have physically paid a dollar, or seen some balance decrease by a dollar. But at the end, the cost was the same. It’s important to take note of the cost, even if it is not tangibly felt every moment.
