Grand River Transit

[ijmorlan]

You forgot depreciation

Also, I think this conversation relates heavily to buses.  You said it yourself, you drive because it's cheaper than taking the bus (which is probably still true) and you, like most people, heavily underestimate the actual cost of driving.

If we can't even get Canard to do the math right, what hope is there for the rest of us... I propose making public transport free.

I fear to jump in on this discussion, but I think Canard is looking at the marginal cost of using the car for driving to work, which is quite different from the total cost of the car. If we assume that he needs to keep the car for purposes unrelated to driving to work, then this is a perfectly reasonable way of evaluating the cost of driving to work. One can only eliminate depreciation, insurance, etc., by eliminating the car entirely. I can't say if anybody is making any other estimation errors but marginal vs. total cost is a pretty big difference that is very relevant.

Re: making public transport free, this idea should be taken much more seriously than it is. I don't know of any jurisdictions in which local roads are tolled so I don't see why local transit service necessarily needs to have a fee attached to it.