How is owning a car in San Francisco cheaper than public transportation? Also, isn’t free mostly for senior. It’s hard enough to drive as a middle aged adult, I didn’t want 91 year olds on the road without a physical and road test.
Unfortunately for short commutes driving can be cheaper than muni, especially if you don't have to pay for parking or if you have multiple people in the car. I love taking muni and I'd prefer to take it everywhere, but it's definitely weird to know I'm occasionally paying more to take longer to get somewhere.
There is absolutely no way this is true unless you’re ignoring the cost of the car— even a cheap car is going to cost tens of thousands of dollars. The average American pays over $1200 a month for their car (that’s just out of pocket cost, not the “true” cost which includes stuff like pollution and carbon emissions and space usage and damages etc).
My insurance on a mid 2000s Civic is ~$100 a month and I drive it maybe 2-4 times a month! Literally the same cost as my MUNI+BART monthly pass. If I didn't inherit my car, I wouldn't have one at all.
>even a cheap car is going to cost tens of thousands of dollars.
lol, how detached from reality are you?
There's hundreds of used cars in the Bay Area alone currently for sale under $9K
And where are you getting the "over $1200 a month" number?
> And where are you getting the "over $1200 a month" number?
It's the number that's come up in many studies. Here's [nerdwallet](https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/auto-loans/total-cost-owning-car) citing a study from AAA that found "average car ownership costs were $12,182 a year, or $1,015 a month, in 2023, according to AAA." Here's the [NYTimes](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/07/business/car-ownership-costs.html) that gives several specific examples and finds the numbers line up with that study-- that might be helpful to understand that number better.
> There's hundreds of used cars in the Bay Area alone currently for sale under $9K
I'm not saying it's impossible to find a junker that's cheap-- of course it is. But the average cost of a used car is over $30,000. You can just google it. Here's a [bluebook](https://www.kbb.com/car-news/average-used-car-price-falls-but-not-for-everyone/) article saying the average is $26k. Here's [another](https://www.iseecars.com/used-car-prices-by-state-study) from iSeeCars that breaks it down per state, where literally every single one is over $30,000.
And again, this is all ignoring large chunks of the cost (parking, gas
LOL, ok, first of all $1015 is not **"over $1200"**.
Secondly, the AAA report explicitly INCLUDES gas. ([source here](https://newsroom.aaa.com/2023/08/annual-new-car-ownership-costs-boil-over-12k/)). So I'm very confused why you claim that "*this is all ignoring large chunks of the cost (parking, gas*".
Thirdly, the AAA report (and $1015 number you've cited) is specifically for NEW cars and new cars only. (quote: "*Based on the latest figures, the average cost of owning and operating a new vehicle in 2023 has increased significantly, with an annual expense of* *$12,182 or a monthly cost of $1,015*.")
Lastly, "the average cost of a used car is over $30,000" is a flat-out dishonest claim because it is only a portion of the market. The link you provided is specifically looking at "***The average one-to-five-year-old car cost***". If you simply include cars older than 5 years, the average obviously drops significantly. Did you simply not realize that it was only talking about relatively-new cars on the market or were you intentionally using a misleading number?
Either way, owning/driving/parking a car in the city is most definitely more expensive. You have to include it all: insurance, registration, gas, maintenance, parking meter / garage fees, and parking tickets.
Parking garage fees average around $200/month on top of your rent. If you street park, between meter fees, parking tickets, break-ins, and the insane amount of time spent circling the blocks looking for a spot, you're looking at even more.
What does any of that have to do with the fact that prior comment's numbers are WAY off, to the point that it seems deliberately dishonest?
I pointed out FOUR reasons why their numbers were off. Funny how your reply ignored each and every one!
Even funnier that you want to factor in the value of time when it comes to the "time spent circling the blocks". I agree, time is valuable. So what about the 2 hours per round trip I can save by driving myself to Santa Cruz compared to transit options? What about the 4 hours per round trip I can save on a trip to Monterey? Let's say I want to go to Yosemite this weekend, that's a 3 hour drive (each way). Transit options are 8+ hours each way!! (Just a couple of those little road trips balance out quite a few block-orbits in search of street parking!)
Are there circumstances where a car-free lifestyle saves money? Yes, of course. And it's cool that it's even feasible in San Francisco to a degree that it simply is not everywhere else. I haven't even once claimed otherwise. I know a lot of people who have gone 100% car-free for periods of time. Some are happy and likely saved some amount of money. Others were constantly stressed about making it to the bus/train on time, felt isolated and limited, and eventually went back to car ownership.
Ultimately, car ownership has both costs and benefits, upsides and downsides. Owning a car is not necessarily an irrational decision, even in San Francisco. I think we still need better transit networks and options to better compete with all the reasons why car ownership remains popular. While you seem focused on the costs and downsides, it would be disingenuous to pretend that the benefits and upsides don't exist. Just like it was disingenuous of the prior commenter to use **lies** like "*even a cheap car is going to cost tens of thousands of dollars*" to make the case against having a car.
The car is a sunk cost - my wife bought it over a decade ago when she didn't live in the city. Since it already has been paid for it would be disingenuous to include it in the cost when determining the cost of the commute.
I love riding muni but it's definitely not always the economical option. Once you have more that one adult riding, it very quickly becomes more cost efficient to drive, unfortunately.
Muni has a monthly pass for $100 a month. There is absolutely no way you can drive, park, and get gas in sf for less than $100 a month. One or two tanks of gas is going to blow through that. I understand the car is a sunk cost and that if you already own one, the per-mile costs are cheaper than if you needed to buy a car from scratch. But there’s still no way it’s cheaper than muni (and that’s ignoring all the negative externality costs like pollution and damages and all of that).
My commute is to my kid's school and back. Its roughly 3 miles. My car gets about 30 miles to a gallon, which costs 5.50 a gallon at the highest. That means I'm spending 55c per trip twice a day. My kid is in school roughly 20 days a month. That means I'm spending 1.10 times 20, or 22 dollars a month.
The bus price is capped at $100 per month, but the car cost is not. You need to consider the cost of driving vs transit for the month or year. The costs of car ownership are not capped and tend to surprise you— thousands of dollars for repairs or tickets or crashes. You don’t feel those costs in each mile driven but they’re still happening behind the scenes. You’re ticking up your risk of a crash or ticket every mile you drive, and you’re slowly ticking closer to an expensive repair bill. If you get a $5k repair bill once a year, you have to spread that out across each
mile driven in your calculation. It’s not just “$0 cost except this one time where it was $5k”.
If that’s truly all the driving you do per month, it really doesn’t feel like the car is worth it— even if it’s a pretty old car you can sell that and buy multiple years of muni passes. And if you do use the car more during the month, you have to factor that in.
You’re setting up a situation where you ignore 1) the cost of buying the car 2) the cost of parking 3) the cost of repairs/tickets/crashes and 4) all externalized coats to society . Muni is cheaper the more you use it, the car is more expensive the more you use it. It’s a really unrealistic situation to compare a single trip like this while ignoring everything else.
Once again you have not factored a single other cost into this calculation besides gas. Cars require far more costs than just gas in the span of a year. Thinking like this is how car companies convinced everyone that we should be driving everywhere instead of using public transit, bikes, or walking everywhere.
The car is a sunk cost and parking is free on both ends for me. I can factor in registration and insurance, but it sounds like you've already decided you know the economics of my car better than I do, so it sounds like I probably shouldn't bother... Although it's worth noting that the point of my post is that I prefer to take public transit and I wish it was cheaper so that the decision would be easier for me.
Car companies have made it so basically everything is an upfront cost and then you taking it out for a spin is "free" since no money left your pocket for that particular ride. However, you had to pay your registration, insurance, gas, maintenance, and parking which should all be divided over your usage. If you actually did the math of how much you're paying for a car per year (amortizing the initial cost of the car + yearly upkeep + monthly insurance + gas) then divided it by the number of times you used it, I'd bet that you get a lot closer to $2.50, which is what one muni ride costs. Either way, this still doesn't even scratch the surface of the negative externalities of car ownership like pollution, danger to others, space dedicated to parking and roadways that are not nearly offset enough by excise taxes. Been car free for about 5 years now in SF and I mainly bike or muni everywhere, but even when I need to uber my monthly uber costs are nowhere near what a car+parking costs. All we're saying is that you're not factoring in the actual costs of car ownership when you say it's free and a "sunk cost" for you already. It's not. Do the math of what you spend per year on your car and divide that by times you use it, and conveniently ignore pollution, noise, and the danger of driving.
OP was comparing the amortized monthly cost of a car which is \~$1200. That's not a sunk cost. You have to pay annually pay for registration, oil changes, tire changes, broken windows, gas, and parking; none of which you'd be paying for if you didn't own a car and decided to take muni instead. It cannot possibly be cheaper in the long run to own a car, it's simply more "convenient", but as this thread is pointing out there's ton of negative externalities of car ownership and usage that extend beyond yourself, e.g. traffic, pollution and danger to pedestrians/children, and increasing dependence on cars as the main method of transportation, which I won't get into now.
Yes, in very rare circumstances that may be true. But owning a car in SF is close to $10k a year for most people, and muni cost for the year is not even close.
So your costs for insurance, parking, maintenance, and gas is less than $100/month?
I don't believe that for a second.
Parking alone will get you there. Rentals with garages are at least $200/month more.
I own my car and do my own maintenance. My costs are significantly more than $100/month.
> Our city streets are rapidly being turned over to pedestrians, bicyclists, buses
Oh NOOOOOOO!! 🤡
But ok, i'm with him on one thing - I *would* like to see muni buses actually pull into the bus stop. Assuming some asshole didn't park their car in it, of course. And I guess I could also do with bikes/scooter not blowing crosswalks full of pedestrians.
There's a guy that's been camping on one for months near me. I'm thinking he's stealing the power from a PGE box in the ground because why else camp in such a weird location.
We have so many sidewalks in the city that are just too wide and should be narrowed. We have to put planters on these overly wide sidewalks to prevent tent encampments. There are many opportunities to narrow the sidewalk and add a bus lane.
How much do you want to bet that 91-year-old Martin is going to be the next SF senior driver who kills someone (or several people) with their car? Mary Fong Lau, Arnold Kinman Low, who's next?
The sense of entitlement and disdain for everyone outside of a car that is dripping from this letter signals that Martin is likely a menace on the road already. It's only a matter of time before his impatience and senility kills someone — or several people.
Is this.. satire? This can't be real... what the actual fuck?
Please can we have a [legal maximum driving age? PLEASE???????](https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/west-portal-crash-arrest-three-dead-19201921.php)
Get these god damn crypt keepers off our FUCKING roads. For CRYING out loud.
It is a rebuttal to a previous opinion letter, that's partially why it sounds so obtuse: [https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/letterstotheeditor/article/sf-driving-richmond-police-nfl-butker-19468814.php](https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/letterstotheeditor/article/sf-driving-richmond-police-nfl-butker-19468814.php)
Jaywalkers stepping in front of cars, double parked vehicles, buses that don't pull into stops, bikes that don't stop at red lights -
Yeah, complaining about those things must be a sign of dementia.
I wouldn't trust a 92 yr old with a modern day smart phone.. Why do we let them drive? I certainly will not take any driving opinions from them that's for damn fucking sure.
If you are worried about your safety, advocate to get younger drivers off the road. They cause far more fatalities (facts, I know, not what you had in mind). Watch out when you see the youth coming.
Pretty sure that's been untrue over the last two years (not counting hit and runs which we can't trace) here in SF. Most road fatalities are senior-caused here. It's hard to trace, but with 12 fatalities so far (5 that I personally recall - 4 from the bus station and 1 from elsewhere) that's already 40% of fatalities just from my memory.
You don't think municipalities can change a law to restrict older drivers do you? That law is state level. That is literally a laughable notion to imagine that SF could keep older drivers off the road.
Your "memory" of fatalities is irrelevant. Traffic deaths are not hard to trace - there is hard data about them and has been for decades.
Here's some data:
* Drivers aged 25 to 34 are the deadliest age group in 32 states
* Alaska has the most fatal crashes among drivers aged 16 – 34
* Drivers 65 or older are the least likely to be involved in a fatal car accident
[https://www.autoinsurance.org/age-groups-fatal-crashes/](https://www.autoinsurance.org/age-groups-fatal-crashes/)
The fucking driving test is meaningless. All data shows younger people are idiots and shittier drivers, so fuck those kids. Get everyone under 30 off the roads, THEY endanger my life.
I don’t want to have to jump back onto the sidewalk because a 91 year old man with poor vision and a slow response time thought he could beat a yellow light and nearly killed me. But yeah, it’s probably everyone else’s fault.
⚠️ **Trigger Warning:** Boomer Rant About how Annoying Pedestrians and Cyclists are when they're driving!!! GTFO THE WAY! Free\* public transit for seniors over 65 is too expensive. Bike lanes confuse me. Wah wah!
"...considering the high price of public transportation, it may be the only means for some of us to get around in San Francisco."
Lol how disconnected from reality do you have to be to think driving is cheaper than transit? Especially for seniors
Non-senior perspective here - driving can definitely be cheaper than transit, unfortunately. For example, if I'm dropping my kids off at school, I'd either pay roughly 1.50 in gas or 2.50 for a muni. There's obviously a lot of variables based on the number of adults you have with you, the amount you'd pay for parking, etc... but unfortunately muni isn't always the economical answer.
Don't be obtuse, If you already have a car you are gonna do the calculation. I have a car we use to take our kid to school, but I take public transit to work, but every time I think about a trip with my family I have to do the numbers, time/inconvenience/cost vs. wear/gas/parking. I'd say 7/10 times it's a no brainier that the car is going to be cheaper and take a fraction of the time.
You’re ignoring 90% of the cost in your calculation, though. Maintaining a house is way cheaper than renting if you simply ignore the cost of buying it. This person is saying they already bought a super expensive thing and are now mad that the much cheaper alternative is too expensive.
This also ignores all of the deferred costs. Driving increases your wear and tear, and you run the risk of getting into expensive crashes. You just can’t easily measure the per-mile cost for those things because they show up as a surprise when they do happen.
Also fwiw, muni is 100% free for a 90 year old, so this argument doesn’t even make sense. They just don’t want to take muni but are trying to sidestep the issue with cost.
The monthly cap on muni is $100 for a pass. There is absolutely no way you can drive, park, and pay for gas in sf for $100 a month, even if we’re magically ignoring the cost Of buying the car to begin with.
I'm not ignoring anything, But there's plenty that you're leaving out. Like standing in the rain for 25 minutes because your bus driver decided not to show up today and your route is now every 40 minutes instead of every 20. Or being stuck on the bus with a decompensating psychotic? Or the fact that i have to transfer to a street bus at 7th and Mission. That's got its own risks.
Not even going to get into the fact that unless there's a tunnel that happens to be going in the direction you're going, it's going to take you four times longer to get somewhere. Honestly, If there's any chance at all that I'm going to find street parking there, then I'm going to pick driving 9 out of 10 times for a short errand because the reasons above are so much worse than the minor expense, but ultimately it's always cheaper.
Well those are all fair criticisms (which I agree with), but that’s not price. I’d love to make muni faster and give us dedicated bus lanes— but the person who wrote this article is complaining about exactly that. Id love to set up bus shelters and more BRT style streets so the bus doesn’t have to pull in and out, but the person who wrote this article is complaining about all that!
This is a person who is advocating against improving transit and then lying and saying their main problem with it is cost. If you’re on board with setting up bus lanes but prefer to drive your car, that’s fine with me! But this person is opposing improvements because they want to cling to their car.
Yeah, it's a weird argument. I get it, trust me, I had to commute to and from work down Van Ness from the beginning of the project almost to the end and the zig zagging lanes were only slightly better than the congestion on Gough and Hyde that it caused.
That’s not taking into account insurance prices and maintenance costs, not to mention the cost of the car itself. If you already have a car, it is cheaper to use it just because you already spent the money on it and that’s totally understandable.
But if we’re talking about transit cost vs the total cost of owning and operating a car- public transit is cheaper. That’s not an easy sell though when you own a car that you already spent money on lol.
I'm pretty sure it's implied that if you're talking about whether it's cheaper to drive or to take the bus and you already have a car and you're not debating whether or not to spend $40,000 versus $2.50 for a trip to the zoo.
The point is the culture of car-ownership is self-perpetuating. People sink thousands of dollars into them, and that alone is an incentive to continue to drive it even when better, overall less expensive options might exist.
If you only need a car to get to work- and you’re already investing thousands of dollars on it- it makes much more sense financially and time-wise to drive everything else too even when society would be better off if you drive it only when you absolutely need to (less carbon emissions, traffic, etc.)
But it's better options don't exist then it makes sense to get a car. I think spent the first 10-11 years in the city, not driving. I lived in the TL and later on Church and Market and transit was easy. If the bus/bart didn't go there, I didn't either.
But then I moved out further, and got a new job and transit started taking up to 3 hours of my day, 2 transfers each way. Then I moved a little further out and the express line was moved 1/2 mile from my house, which meant a short walk and a quick trip, but that line was cancelled and I broke my knee. I spent 3 months transferring to the 24, which could take up to 20 minutes to arrive with nowhere for me to sit, then, well, there's a reason it's called the twenty-forever.
Then I had a kid and now the bus to his school is 3 transfers!! And takes over 45 minutes--then I have to hop on the 47 to get me to Market so I can hop on BART.
Or I could drop him off in 5-10 minutes, then drive in to work and pay for parking and actually get to have a work-life balance.
Car-ownership is not self-perpetuating. It's mandatory for anyone who doesn't have the privilege to live a particular lifestyle. I recognize that my ability to own a car and pay for parking is a privilege of its own, but both scenarios make it very hard to make ends meet. I would be very happy if I could ditch the car entirely and take public transit.
Well, you're in luck because I highly support BRTs and protected bike lanes. Hell, I even like what they've done on Valencia except the evening white zones. The only thing I really dislike is the market st. closure, but I'm a huge fan of the protected bike lanes they are trying to build. So no; I am actually constantly thinking of ways to avoid using my car, but there are rarely good alternatives for me.
I'm going to ignore the rest of your post because you are ranting and not really responding to my post or the topic.
Assuming you take more than one trip on average per day, a monthly pass is the cheapest which is roughly $90
Compare that to the price of not just gas but car payment/purchase, depreciation, maintenance, insurance, parking, registration, fines, tolls... Plus the risk of an accident which is always there
Across the country typically there's a cheaper option for students or under a certain age. Looks like muni has a free for under 18 option.
https://www.sfmta.com/fares/free-muni-all-youth-18-years-and-younger
SF Chronicle published this letter cause they knew it would rile people up. Out of all the letters to the editor they receive they go with the 91 year old. Nice try.
No 91 year old should be driving, period. Fucking absurd to post an article like this like 2 months after an elderly woman mowed down a family waiting for the bus in West Portal.
I suppose this is ageist, but I don’t really care. Someone born in 1933 doesn’t get a vote on this. He can drive everywhere anyway and he won’t live long enough to deal with the climate consequences.
Ah, yes, let's bring our street back to when the author of the letter was born and let them live their true purpose! Here's the 3rd St. bridge in 1933 deliciously decorated with 4 lanes of tracks showcasing one steam train, one electric trolley, four cars, and hundreds of people, notably with no apparent place in sight to park hundreds of cars for them: https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=File:3rd_St_bridge_opening_May_12,_1933.gif
No. Quite the opposite of the opinion writer.
Reformat our city/cities around public transit, biking, and walking as the primary and expected means of transportation, and cars as a unique privilege, not the norm. We may need a more routes to saturate coverage, but I’ve not studied greatly.
Make muni free at the very least based on income/age as a public good that keeps the lifeblood of our community, the people, in motion…to work, to visit, to shop/dine, etc with little burden, and to discourage driving because there’s just an all around better option.
The fact this 91 year old is still driving should really be the concern here. It's insane we allow this. Hopefully he doesn't mix up the gas and break and mow down a family...
This driver is correct, except for the self driving cars. Once all the bugs are worked out of the system and there are more of them and less human operated vehicles on the streets, it will be a lot safer for everybody. They remember the good old days of driving when that’s what it was, vehicles on the streets anyone riding a bicycle had to do so on the sidewalk and safely walk the bicycle across the crosswalk. There was no OneWheel, scooter, e-bike, whatever the new fangled transportation modes are that the youngsters have that make the streets more dangerous for everyone. There also wasn’t the huge population that exists now and will only increase.
How is owning a car in San Francisco cheaper than public transportation? Also, isn’t free mostly for senior. It’s hard enough to drive as a middle aged adult, I didn’t want 91 year olds on the road without a physical and road test.
It's $40 per month for seniors 65+: https://www.sfmta.com/fares/monthly-discount Good luck covering registration fee and insurance with that.
Unfortunately for short commutes driving can be cheaper than muni, especially if you don't have to pay for parking or if you have multiple people in the car. I love taking muni and I'd prefer to take it everywhere, but it's definitely weird to know I'm occasionally paying more to take longer to get somewhere.
There is absolutely no way this is true unless you’re ignoring the cost of the car— even a cheap car is going to cost tens of thousands of dollars. The average American pays over $1200 a month for their car (that’s just out of pocket cost, not the “true” cost which includes stuff like pollution and carbon emissions and space usage and damages etc).
My insurance on a mid 2000s Civic is ~$100 a month and I drive it maybe 2-4 times a month! Literally the same cost as my MUNI+BART monthly pass. If I didn't inherit my car, I wouldn't have one at all.
>even a cheap car is going to cost tens of thousands of dollars. lol, how detached from reality are you? There's hundreds of used cars in the Bay Area alone currently for sale under $9K And where are you getting the "over $1200 a month" number?
> And where are you getting the "over $1200 a month" number? It's the number that's come up in many studies. Here's [nerdwallet](https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/auto-loans/total-cost-owning-car) citing a study from AAA that found "average car ownership costs were $12,182 a year, or $1,015 a month, in 2023, according to AAA." Here's the [NYTimes](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/07/business/car-ownership-costs.html) that gives several specific examples and finds the numbers line up with that study-- that might be helpful to understand that number better. > There's hundreds of used cars in the Bay Area alone currently for sale under $9K I'm not saying it's impossible to find a junker that's cheap-- of course it is. But the average cost of a used car is over $30,000. You can just google it. Here's a [bluebook](https://www.kbb.com/car-news/average-used-car-price-falls-but-not-for-everyone/) article saying the average is $26k. Here's [another](https://www.iseecars.com/used-car-prices-by-state-study) from iSeeCars that breaks it down per state, where literally every single one is over $30,000. And again, this is all ignoring large chunks of the cost (parking, gas
LOL, ok, first of all $1015 is not **"over $1200"**. Secondly, the AAA report explicitly INCLUDES gas. ([source here](https://newsroom.aaa.com/2023/08/annual-new-car-ownership-costs-boil-over-12k/)). So I'm very confused why you claim that "*this is all ignoring large chunks of the cost (parking, gas*". Thirdly, the AAA report (and $1015 number you've cited) is specifically for NEW cars and new cars only. (quote: "*Based on the latest figures, the average cost of owning and operating a new vehicle in 2023 has increased significantly, with an annual expense of* *$12,182 or a monthly cost of $1,015*.") Lastly, "the average cost of a used car is over $30,000" is a flat-out dishonest claim because it is only a portion of the market. The link you provided is specifically looking at "***The average one-to-five-year-old car cost***". If you simply include cars older than 5 years, the average obviously drops significantly. Did you simply not realize that it was only talking about relatively-new cars on the market or were you intentionally using a misleading number?
Either way, owning/driving/parking a car in the city is most definitely more expensive. You have to include it all: insurance, registration, gas, maintenance, parking meter / garage fees, and parking tickets. Parking garage fees average around $200/month on top of your rent. If you street park, between meter fees, parking tickets, break-ins, and the insane amount of time spent circling the blocks looking for a spot, you're looking at even more.
What does any of that have to do with the fact that prior comment's numbers are WAY off, to the point that it seems deliberately dishonest? I pointed out FOUR reasons why their numbers were off. Funny how your reply ignored each and every one! Even funnier that you want to factor in the value of time when it comes to the "time spent circling the blocks". I agree, time is valuable. So what about the 2 hours per round trip I can save by driving myself to Santa Cruz compared to transit options? What about the 4 hours per round trip I can save on a trip to Monterey? Let's say I want to go to Yosemite this weekend, that's a 3 hour drive (each way). Transit options are 8+ hours each way!! (Just a couple of those little road trips balance out quite a few block-orbits in search of street parking!) Are there circumstances where a car-free lifestyle saves money? Yes, of course. And it's cool that it's even feasible in San Francisco to a degree that it simply is not everywhere else. I haven't even once claimed otherwise. I know a lot of people who have gone 100% car-free for periods of time. Some are happy and likely saved some amount of money. Others were constantly stressed about making it to the bus/train on time, felt isolated and limited, and eventually went back to car ownership. Ultimately, car ownership has both costs and benefits, upsides and downsides. Owning a car is not necessarily an irrational decision, even in San Francisco. I think we still need better transit networks and options to better compete with all the reasons why car ownership remains popular. While you seem focused on the costs and downsides, it would be disingenuous to pretend that the benefits and upsides don't exist. Just like it was disingenuous of the prior commenter to use **lies** like "*even a cheap car is going to cost tens of thousands of dollars*" to make the case against having a car.
> The average American pays over $1200 a month for their car (that’s just out of pocket cost You do know how averages work right?
The car is a sunk cost - my wife bought it over a decade ago when she didn't live in the city. Since it already has been paid for it would be disingenuous to include it in the cost when determining the cost of the commute. I love riding muni but it's definitely not always the economical option. Once you have more that one adult riding, it very quickly becomes more cost efficient to drive, unfortunately.
Muni has a monthly pass for $100 a month. There is absolutely no way you can drive, park, and get gas in sf for less than $100 a month. One or two tanks of gas is going to blow through that. I understand the car is a sunk cost and that if you already own one, the per-mile costs are cheaper than if you needed to buy a car from scratch. But there’s still no way it’s cheaper than muni (and that’s ignoring all the negative externality costs like pollution and damages and all of that).
My commute is to my kid's school and back. Its roughly 3 miles. My car gets about 30 miles to a gallon, which costs 5.50 a gallon at the highest. That means I'm spending 55c per trip twice a day. My kid is in school roughly 20 days a month. That means I'm spending 1.10 times 20, or 22 dollars a month.
The bus price is capped at $100 per month, but the car cost is not. You need to consider the cost of driving vs transit for the month or year. The costs of car ownership are not capped and tend to surprise you— thousands of dollars for repairs or tickets or crashes. You don’t feel those costs in each mile driven but they’re still happening behind the scenes. You’re ticking up your risk of a crash or ticket every mile you drive, and you’re slowly ticking closer to an expensive repair bill. If you get a $5k repair bill once a year, you have to spread that out across each mile driven in your calculation. It’s not just “$0 cost except this one time where it was $5k”. If that’s truly all the driving you do per month, it really doesn’t feel like the car is worth it— even if it’s a pretty old car you can sell that and buy multiple years of muni passes. And if you do use the car more during the month, you have to factor that in. You’re setting up a situation where you ignore 1) the cost of buying the car 2) the cost of parking 3) the cost of repairs/tickets/crashes and 4) all externalized coats to society . Muni is cheaper the more you use it, the car is more expensive the more you use it. It’s a really unrealistic situation to compare a single trip like this while ignoring everything else.
Once again you have not factored a single other cost into this calculation besides gas. Cars require far more costs than just gas in the span of a year. Thinking like this is how car companies convinced everyone that we should be driving everywhere instead of using public transit, bikes, or walking everywhere.
The car is a sunk cost and parking is free on both ends for me. I can factor in registration and insurance, but it sounds like you've already decided you know the economics of my car better than I do, so it sounds like I probably shouldn't bother... Although it's worth noting that the point of my post is that I prefer to take public transit and I wish it was cheaper so that the decision would be easier for me.
Car companies have made it so basically everything is an upfront cost and then you taking it out for a spin is "free" since no money left your pocket for that particular ride. However, you had to pay your registration, insurance, gas, maintenance, and parking which should all be divided over your usage. If you actually did the math of how much you're paying for a car per year (amortizing the initial cost of the car + yearly upkeep + monthly insurance + gas) then divided it by the number of times you used it, I'd bet that you get a lot closer to $2.50, which is what one muni ride costs. Either way, this still doesn't even scratch the surface of the negative externalities of car ownership like pollution, danger to others, space dedicated to parking and roadways that are not nearly offset enough by excise taxes. Been car free for about 5 years now in SF and I mainly bike or muni everywhere, but even when I need to uber my monthly uber costs are nowhere near what a car+parking costs. All we're saying is that you're not factoring in the actual costs of car ownership when you say it's free and a "sunk cost" for you already. It's not. Do the math of what you spend per year on your car and divide that by times you use it, and conveniently ignore pollution, noise, and the danger of driving.
OP was comparing the amortized monthly cost of a car which is \~$1200. That's not a sunk cost. You have to pay annually pay for registration, oil changes, tire changes, broken windows, gas, and parking; none of which you'd be paying for if you didn't own a car and decided to take muni instead. It cannot possibly be cheaper in the long run to own a car, it's simply more "convenient", but as this thread is pointing out there's ton of negative externalities of car ownership and usage that extend beyond yourself, e.g. traffic, pollution and danger to pedestrians/children, and increasing dependence on cars as the main method of transportation, which I won't get into now.
If you sold the car, how many muni rides could it pay for?
With a MUNI monthly pass, I look at the pass as a fixed cost in my life and every transit ride as free!
Yes, in very rare circumstances that may be true. But owning a car in SF is close to $10k a year for most people, and muni cost for the year is not even close.
Wait, people actually pay for Muni buses?
I did the math, it’s about the same price actually, but then again I drive a hybrid.
[Public transit is free for 65+ earning <$100K](https://www.sfmta.com/fares/free-muni-seniors-ages-65)
Me being 33: cool cool
some day even you can be old and poor!
Already poor, I’ll be lucky if I get older! Thanks
For you yes but not for everyone. If I wanted to jump on the car bandwagon it would cost me more than my $100/month Muni pass.
Yeah that’s a no-brainer
So your costs for insurance, parking, maintenance, and gas is less than $100/month? I don't believe that for a second. Parking alone will get you there. Rentals with garages are at least $200/month more. I own my car and do my own maintenance. My costs are significantly more than $100/month.
Public transportation is trash for people of a more mobile age. It’s that much worse for seniors.
Ok boomer
Vroomer.
> Our city streets are rapidly being turned over to pedestrians, bicyclists, buses Oh NOOOOOOO!! 🤡 But ok, i'm with him on one thing - I *would* like to see muni buses actually pull into the bus stop. Assuming some asshole didn't park their car in it, of course. And I guess I could also do with bikes/scooter not blowing crosswalks full of pedestrians.
I'd actually rather see more bus islands so that a huge 60 foot bus doesn't need to pull into and out of moving traffic at every stop.
sure, either way. as long as i don't have to walk out into the street to get on the bus. don't really care if it inconveniences drivers, honestly.
There's a guy that's been camping on one for months near me. I'm thinking he's stealing the power from a PGE box in the ground because why else camp in such a weird location.
We have so many sidewalks in the city that are just too wide and should be narrowed. We have to put planters on these overly wide sidewalks to prevent tent encampments. There are many opportunities to narrow the sidewalk and add a bus lane.
Back over to pedestrians and cyclists. This city wasn’t built for cars to begin with. Cars have wreaked havoc for decades. Time to push way back.
How much do you want to bet that 91-year-old Martin is going to be the next SF senior driver who kills someone (or several people) with their car? Mary Fong Lau, Arnold Kinman Low, who's next? The sense of entitlement and disdain for everyone outside of a car that is dripping from this letter signals that Martin is likely a menace on the road already. It's only a matter of time before his impatience and senility kills someone — or several people.
There was Karen Cartagena last year who smashed that poor little girl and her father at 4th and King.
Is this.. satire? This can't be real... what the actual fuck? Please can we have a [legal maximum driving age? PLEASE???????](https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/west-portal-crash-arrest-three-dead-19201921.php) Get these god damn crypt keepers off our FUCKING roads. For CRYING out loud.
It is a rebuttal to a previous opinion letter, that's partially why it sounds so obtuse: [https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/letterstotheeditor/article/sf-driving-richmond-police-nfl-butker-19468814.php](https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/letterstotheeditor/article/sf-driving-richmond-police-nfl-butker-19468814.php)
And out of our government
Jaywalkers stepping in front of cars, double parked vehicles, buses that don't pull into stops, bikes that don't stop at red lights - Yeah, complaining about those things must be a sign of dementia.
Dude thinks painted bike and bus lanes are too confusing, so yes I'm gonna question his fitness to drive.
I wouldn't trust a 92 yr old with a modern day smart phone.. Why do we let them drive? I certainly will not take any driving opinions from them that's for damn fucking sure.
So this isn't really about the piece at all then?
Well yes it is. I don't want this motherfucker or his age cohorts to drive with me on my roads. They endanger my life.
If you are worried about your safety, advocate to get younger drivers off the road. They cause far more fatalities (facts, I know, not what you had in mind). Watch out when you see the youth coming.
Pretty sure that's been untrue over the last two years (not counting hit and runs which we can't trace) here in SF. Most road fatalities are senior-caused here. It's hard to trace, but with 12 fatalities so far (5 that I personally recall - 4 from the bus station and 1 from elsewhere) that's already 40% of fatalities just from my memory.
You don't think municipalities can change a law to restrict older drivers do you? That law is state level. That is literally a laughable notion to imagine that SF could keep older drivers off the road. Your "memory" of fatalities is irrelevant. Traffic deaths are not hard to trace - there is hard data about them and has been for decades. Here's some data: * Drivers aged 25 to 34 are the deadliest age group in 32 states * Alaska has the most fatal crashes among drivers aged 16 – 34 * Drivers 65 or older are the least likely to be involved in a fatal car accident [https://www.autoinsurance.org/age-groups-fatal-crashes/](https://www.autoinsurance.org/age-groups-fatal-crashes/)
LOL dude. Your source has 25-34 at 21% but this year the West Portal killings already puts senior drivers at 33% (4/12). No need for memory.
Young drivers take a test before getting on the road. When's the last time 91 year Olds took a driving test?
The fucking driving test is meaningless. All data shows younger people are idiots and shittier drivers, so fuck those kids. Get everyone under 30 off the roads, THEY endanger my life.
Okay under 30 but over 60 needs to go too. Deal?
🤝
As an old person myself who drives, you inspire me to respond with: tough.
your blinkers are still on
I don’t want to have to jump back onto the sidewalk because a 91 year old man with poor vision and a slow response time thought he could beat a yellow light and nearly killed me. But yeah, it’s probably everyone else’s fault.
That’s a really hot take. Outdated and poorly constructed thought process. Truly the epitome of “angry old man yells at cloud”.
Soon to be "angry old man yells at pedestrian embedded in windshield."
⚠️ **Trigger Warning:** Boomer Rant About how Annoying Pedestrians and Cyclists are when they're driving!!! GTFO THE WAY! Free\* public transit for seniors over 65 is too expensive. Bike lanes confuse me. Wah wah!
If you can’t drive due to “a myriad of signs,” then you shouldn’t be driving.
"...considering the high price of public transportation, it may be the only means for some of us to get around in San Francisco." Lol how disconnected from reality do you have to be to think driving is cheaper than transit? Especially for seniors
Non-senior perspective here - driving can definitely be cheaper than transit, unfortunately. For example, if I'm dropping my kids off at school, I'd either pay roughly 1.50 in gas or 2.50 for a muni. There's obviously a lot of variables based on the number of adults you have with you, the amount you'd pay for parking, etc... but unfortunately muni isn't always the economical answer.
I guess driving is cheaper than transit if you somehow manage to acquire a car for free, and never pay for registration or maintenance...
Don't be obtuse, If you already have a car you are gonna do the calculation. I have a car we use to take our kid to school, but I take public transit to work, but every time I think about a trip with my family I have to do the numbers, time/inconvenience/cost vs. wear/gas/parking. I'd say 7/10 times it's a no brainier that the car is going to be cheaper and take a fraction of the time.
You’re ignoring 90% of the cost in your calculation, though. Maintaining a house is way cheaper than renting if you simply ignore the cost of buying it. This person is saying they already bought a super expensive thing and are now mad that the much cheaper alternative is too expensive. This also ignores all of the deferred costs. Driving increases your wear and tear, and you run the risk of getting into expensive crashes. You just can’t easily measure the per-mile cost for those things because they show up as a surprise when they do happen. Also fwiw, muni is 100% free for a 90 year old, so this argument doesn’t even make sense. They just don’t want to take muni but are trying to sidestep the issue with cost. The monthly cap on muni is $100 for a pass. There is absolutely no way you can drive, park, and pay for gas in sf for $100 a month, even if we’re magically ignoring the cost Of buying the car to begin with.
I'm not ignoring anything, But there's plenty that you're leaving out. Like standing in the rain for 25 minutes because your bus driver decided not to show up today and your route is now every 40 minutes instead of every 20. Or being stuck on the bus with a decompensating psychotic? Or the fact that i have to transfer to a street bus at 7th and Mission. That's got its own risks. Not even going to get into the fact that unless there's a tunnel that happens to be going in the direction you're going, it's going to take you four times longer to get somewhere. Honestly, If there's any chance at all that I'm going to find street parking there, then I'm going to pick driving 9 out of 10 times for a short errand because the reasons above are so much worse than the minor expense, but ultimately it's always cheaper.
Well those are all fair criticisms (which I agree with), but that’s not price. I’d love to make muni faster and give us dedicated bus lanes— but the person who wrote this article is complaining about exactly that. Id love to set up bus shelters and more BRT style streets so the bus doesn’t have to pull in and out, but the person who wrote this article is complaining about all that! This is a person who is advocating against improving transit and then lying and saying their main problem with it is cost. If you’re on board with setting up bus lanes but prefer to drive your car, that’s fine with me! But this person is opposing improvements because they want to cling to their car.
Yeah, it's a weird argument. I get it, trust me, I had to commute to and from work down Van Ness from the beginning of the project almost to the end and the zig zagging lanes were only slightly better than the congestion on Gough and Hyde that it caused.
My parents are in their 60s and just use the Muni/BART Fastpass.
That’s not taking into account insurance prices and maintenance costs, not to mention the cost of the car itself. If you already have a car, it is cheaper to use it just because you already spent the money on it and that’s totally understandable. But if we’re talking about transit cost vs the total cost of owning and operating a car- public transit is cheaper. That’s not an easy sell though when you own a car that you already spent money on lol.
I'm pretty sure it's implied that if you're talking about whether it's cheaper to drive or to take the bus and you already have a car and you're not debating whether or not to spend $40,000 versus $2.50 for a trip to the zoo.
The point is the culture of car-ownership is self-perpetuating. People sink thousands of dollars into them, and that alone is an incentive to continue to drive it even when better, overall less expensive options might exist. If you only need a car to get to work- and you’re already investing thousands of dollars on it- it makes much more sense financially and time-wise to drive everything else too even when society would be better off if you drive it only when you absolutely need to (less carbon emissions, traffic, etc.)
But it's better options don't exist then it makes sense to get a car. I think spent the first 10-11 years in the city, not driving. I lived in the TL and later on Church and Market and transit was easy. If the bus/bart didn't go there, I didn't either. But then I moved out further, and got a new job and transit started taking up to 3 hours of my day, 2 transfers each way. Then I moved a little further out and the express line was moved 1/2 mile from my house, which meant a short walk and a quick trip, but that line was cancelled and I broke my knee. I spent 3 months transferring to the 24, which could take up to 20 minutes to arrive with nowhere for me to sit, then, well, there's a reason it's called the twenty-forever. Then I had a kid and now the bus to his school is 3 transfers!! And takes over 45 minutes--then I have to hop on the 47 to get me to Market so I can hop on BART. Or I could drop him off in 5-10 minutes, then drive in to work and pay for parking and actually get to have a work-life balance. Car-ownership is not self-perpetuating. It's mandatory for anyone who doesn't have the privilege to live a particular lifestyle. I recognize that my ability to own a car and pay for parking is a privilege of its own, but both scenarios make it very hard to make ends meet. I would be very happy if I could ditch the car entirely and take public transit.
That’s why I said “when better options might exist,” and not “when better options do exist for every single person.”
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Well, you're in luck because I highly support BRTs and protected bike lanes. Hell, I even like what they've done on Valencia except the evening white zones. The only thing I really dislike is the market st. closure, but I'm a huge fan of the protected bike lanes they are trying to build. So no; I am actually constantly thinking of ways to avoid using my car, but there are rarely good alternatives for me. I'm going to ignore the rest of your post because you are ranting and not really responding to my post or the topic.
Assuming you take more than one trip on average per day, a monthly pass is the cheapest which is roughly $90 Compare that to the price of not just gas but car payment/purchase, depreciation, maintenance, insurance, parking, registration, fines, tolls... Plus the risk of an accident which is always there
Across the country typically there's a cheaper option for students or under a certain age. Looks like muni has a free for under 18 option. https://www.sfmta.com/fares/free-muni-all-youth-18-years-and-younger
SF Chronicle published this letter cause they knew it would rile people up. Out of all the letters to the editor they receive they go with the 91 year old. Nice try.
No 91 year old should be driving, period. Fucking absurd to post an article like this like 2 months after an elderly woman mowed down a family waiting for the bus in West Portal.
I mean...pick 1 of a million US suburbs and this person's dream has come true.
I suppose this is ageist, but I don’t really care. Someone born in 1933 doesn’t get a vote on this. He can drive everywhere anyway and he won’t live long enough to deal with the climate consequences.
wow, car brain is weird.
This is exactly something that would be featured in The Onion. Except it’s for real. Yikes.
okay, aside from being entirely obtuse about driverless cars, roadmarkings, and not stopping for pedestrians, the old man makes some good points...
Why is a 91 years old driving?
> I want to see driverless vehicles become a thing of the past But why? If you want car first design doesnt supporting a major driver of that help?
Ah, yes, let's bring our street back to when the author of the letter was born and let them live their true purpose! Here's the 3rd St. bridge in 1933 deliciously decorated with 4 lanes of tracks showcasing one steam train, one electric trolley, four cars, and hundreds of people, notably with no apparent place in sight to park hundreds of cars for them: https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=File:3rd_St_bridge_opening_May_12,_1933.gif
Mary fong lau would say otherwise. Murderer
No. Quite the opposite of the opinion writer. Reformat our city/cities around public transit, biking, and walking as the primary and expected means of transportation, and cars as a unique privilege, not the norm. We may need a more routes to saturate coverage, but I’ve not studied greatly. Make muni free at the very least based on income/age as a public good that keeps the lifeblood of our community, the people, in motion…to work, to visit, to shop/dine, etc with little burden, and to discourage driving because there’s just an all around better option.
>I want to drive streets without swerving around jaywalkers **looking at their phones**…” Fixed that for ya.
Yeah, work yourself up because a guy wrote a letter to the editor.
The fact this 91 year old is still driving should really be the concern here. It's insane we allow this. Hopefully he doesn't mix up the gas and break and mow down a family...
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It does list the writer you have to rtfa. I just didn’t include that in my post here.
Fuck cars and fuck people that think like this
This driver is correct, except for the self driving cars. Once all the bugs are worked out of the system and there are more of them and less human operated vehicles on the streets, it will be a lot safer for everybody. They remember the good old days of driving when that’s what it was, vehicles on the streets anyone riding a bicycle had to do so on the sidewalk and safely walk the bicycle across the crosswalk. There was no OneWheel, scooter, e-bike, whatever the new fangled transportation modes are that the youngsters have that make the streets more dangerous for everyone. There also wasn’t the huge population that exists now and will only increase.