Girl riding bike with her younger brother on sidewalk riding a scooter. Both smiling and having a blast.

10 Years Riding the Bus = $84,000 Saved

Girl riding bike with her younger brother on sidewalk riding a scooter. Both smiling and having a blast.

 

Sitting on the couch last night was chatting with the spousal equivalent (“SE”) about how NextDoor is awful. Cue a recent bus rider shaming post that really bothered me:

NextDoor somehow is worse than both Facebook and Twitter. Please @ me.
NextDoor somehow is worse than both Facebook and Twitter. Please @ me.

We talked a bit and then realized SE has been riding the bus to work, or biking, for the last 10 years. Wow, time flies. Somehow, neither lice nor French whore encounters have been a problem. #praise

There are a number of reasons that transit SE likes to support and use transit:

  • Traffic congestion reduction (buses move far more people than the typically single occupant cars common in the US)
  • Cost savings
  • Reduced environmental impact
  • Social unity / exposure
  • Etc

On the cost savings front we estimated that over the last 10 years we saw approximately $84,000 of savings for our family.

  • $200 per month parking x 10 years = $24,000 (Comparison from co-workers)
  • $6000 per year vehicle cost x 10 = $60,000 (About 1/3 less than the average cost per year from AAA since Cali is hella expensive but we’re cheap. Results may vary.)

SE bus cost is covered by employer so if paying the $72 monthly out of pocket would reduce the savings by $8,640 for a total 10 year savings of roughly $75,360.

We took the savings and went on a fat family trip to Vegas and Hawaii which was awesome. Just kidding. We put most of it into index fund investments to grow and throw off dividends until the end of our days.

Wanted to share our public transit savings story in case you’re also interested in saving the better part of $100k every 10 years and putting it to work for you instead of sending it out the exhaust pipe.


Welcome Dockless Bikeshare Riders!

Hi! It’s Bike San Diego.  We’re the friendly local advocacy group fighting for safe streets to bicycle on – whether you’re going to work, school, the gym, or the park.  If you haven’t bicycled around the neighborhoods of San Diego in the past we’d like to welcome you the the fun and enjoyment that is riding a bike.  Congrats on taking the first step!  You’ve made a wise choice and one that is great for the environment, your health, building community, and driving our regional economy.  That’s the good news.

The bad news, as you may have already noticed, is that San Diego has very little support for people looking to bicycle – including in our most “walkable” neighborhoods.  Take a ride through North Park, or Pacific Beach, Little Italy, La Jolla, or pretty much any community.  Notice any bike lanes? Probably not.  You may find some sharrows but likely won’t find any sort of accommodation for safely and comfortably biking in our city.  High speed roads, speeding drivers, and a lack of dedicated bicycle lanes can make it intimidating to bicycle here, even for short trips.

But fear not! There is a large (and growing) community of people that support better bicycle infrastructure here and want to see more people reaping the benefits of biking.  This community is called Bike San Diego – BikeSD for short – and we’d like to welcome you with open arms to join us.  You can join our email list.  You can become a member and support us financially to continue our work.  You can attend a quarterly member meet-up and connect in-person with other San Diegans passionate about a healthier, happier city.  Heck – go for the bonus round and do all three!

As anyone who has spent time on our roadways in the past month, you’ve probably noticed a large increase in the number of bicyclists on our roads.  As three new dockless bikeshare companies have commenced operations in the City of San Diego (LimeBike, Mobike and Ofo), many thousands of new riders have embraced the bicycle as a fun and efficient mode of transportation.  LimeBike reported 55,000+ rides in just the first two weeks of operation.  While local media has focused on the learning curve for users and bikeshare companies, we think more attention should be paid to the tremendous increase in bicyclists on our roadways – and how to accommodate them safely.

This surge in riders has given the City of San Diego an incredible opportunity to reach its ambitious Climate Action Plan bicycle mode share goals.  The best way to do that is through a network of safe, connected bike lane infrastructure for bicyclists of all abilities.  Yet the City has recently announced a multi-year delay to the Downtown Mobility Plan, suggested slashing funding for bicycle improvements, and admitted that there is little support for bike projects among city staffers (this has been quite apparent among the city’s traffic engineers).  Like any new bicyclist, these bikeshare riders are likely encountering unsafe conditions, which can result in them opting for the Uber/Lyft app instead of the Limebike/Ofo/MoBike apps.  Let’s not squander this opportunity.

Welcome Dockless Bikeshare Riders and join BikeSD in the fight for safe streets.  Enjoy riding in San Diego and help make it more approachable, safer, and comfortable now and for the future.


Ocean Beach route on Strava

BikeSD Biking Around Town - Sunset Cliffs

San Diego is a beautiful place to live and there are many great places to go for a bicycle ride.  I often ride with my kids and have used an excellent Burley trailer for the past few years but they are getting to large for that so I recently purchased a Taglong attachment for my bike to allow my young kids to bike with me.

A Tagalong basically turns a regular bicycle into a tandem bicycle for one adult and one child.  The kids have loved being able to peddle when we bike together, and they can see much more since they're sitting up higher.  Here's a photo of what the Tagalong looks like hooked up to my bicycle in front of the Ocean Beach Pier.

I've mostly been biking around my neighborhood in North Park with the kids but had been wanting to go somewhere more scenic and with a longer route to enjoy.  Since we often visit the beach in Ocean Beach it seemed like Sunset Cliffs would be a great choice - mostly flat, great views, and easy to bike to from the Ocean Beach Pier.

We headed south from the Pier and meandered along Ocean Front Street which is an alley-like street that weaves along the coast and then jumped onto Sunset Cliffs Boulevard at Point Loma Avenue, which is where the Sunset Cliffs Coastal Trail starts.  We continued on Sunset Cliffs to where it ends at Ladera Street and then returned on the same route.  Along the way I stopped to take a few photos to give a sense of the route and views.

Sunset Cliffs is very popular for biking, walking, and jogging.  Due to erosion of the cliffs there is not a consistent running path or bicycle path - there are some portions that have a dedicated space and others that do not.  It would be great to see a wider running and bicycle path in this area, perhaps a future improvement that would be well used given the popularity of the area.

I recorded our ride on my phone using the Strava app and you can join BikeSD members and supporters on Strava to share routes and connect with others.  Join us at: https://www.strava.com/clubs/bikesd

Below is an image of our route and some statistics from Strava, a total of 4.82 miles we rode in 28 minutes.  If you're looking for a fun, relaxed ride with awesome views check out Sunset Cliffs sometime.  And enjoy your ride!

 


Join Us This Saturday (2/17) for a Bayshore Bikeway Group Ride and Ribbon Cutting!

This Saturday, 2/17, BikeSD will be joining SANDAG, elected leaders, and the public to celebrate the opening of an improved section of the Bayshore Bikeway in National City.  It's great to see another portion of the Bayshore Bikeway get upgraded and we look forward to the completion of the full Bikeway, which was started in the 1970s.  BikeSD will be present and sharing a table with our friends from the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition.  We'll have our wonderful water bottles and terrific t-shirts for sale as well as flyers and stickers to give away and information for the public to get involved with BikeSD.

The ribbon cutting event starts at 9 AM at 1400 Tidelands Avenue, National City, CA 91950.  The actual act of cutting will be at 9:30 AM with remarks and cheering.  Come and enjoy the festivities with food and great local businesses like Hub + Spoke Cycleworks.  After the ribbon cutting we'll be going on a group ride along the Bayshore Bikeway to Coronado with a stop at Trident Coffee in the recently opened Bikeway Village in Imperial Beach. We'll return on the Coronado Ferry which heads from Coronado to Downtown San Diego every half hour so we'll likely be on the 12:30 or 1:30 ferry.  We'll start the group ride at 10:30 AM so please be there by 10:30 so we can all leave together.

Join us for conversation, enjoying the beautiful Pacific Ocean and San Diego Bay, and celebrating a step forward in creating a robust bike network across the City of San Diego and across the region.  Below is a map of the route we'll take and after returning to Downtown San Diego we'll disperse or grab lunch, as people prefer.  It will be a great start to the weekend and the ride is very flat and almost entirely on a dedicated bicycle path.  Please join us and spread the word.

Join us for a ride after the ribbon cutting! Click image for dynamic map.

Here's the official flyer for the event as well.

Join us on 2/17 to celebrate an improved section of the Bayshore Bikeway!

See you Saturday morning and make sure to arrive by 10:30 AM to join us on the bicycle ride!


Xtracycle Cargo Bike - Yours to Enjoy - BikeSD Member Bonus

A great BikeSD supporter recently donated an XtraCycle Free Radical bicycle extension / conversion kit to BikeSD and thanks to some additional donations of a bicycle, labor, and parts from MJ's Cyclery we now have an awesome cargo bike for members to use!  Big thanks to the donor and MJ's for making this happen!


To explain a bit more, the XtraCycle Free Radical is an attachment that takes an ordinary bicycle and extends the frame, adding capacity for carrying more people, groceries, tools, beach toys, etc.  Please see below photos to get an idea of what the bicycle looks like and what you might use it for.  The bicycle frame used is a GT Outpost Trail mountain bike with 27 gear options (3 in front, 7 in back) and is a really nice choice if you are putting a lot of weight on the back since mountain bikes have nice low gears to help getting up steep inclines.

We're still trying to figure out what we'll be using the bike for but first and foremost we want to offer it for use free of charge to any BikeSD members.  If you're thinking about buying an XtraCycle or a cargo bicycle and would like to test one out first, please borrow ours and give it a spin for the weekend.  Want to try out taking your kids to school by bicycle?  You can borrow the bike and take them out for espresso then drop them at the school gates in style.  Grandma coming to visit and you don't have a spare bike? Borrow this one and you can ride together all over town.

If you'd like to borrow this great bicycle and give it a spin please drop us as email at talk@bikesd.org with the date(s) and time you'd like to use it and the location that's best for you.  We'll do our best to accommodate and look forward to seeing this great bike around town.

Notes: when using this bicycle please make sure to lock it up at all times (lock provided with bicycle) and use lights when operating.