The Value of Fifteen Minutes

What is fifteen minutes in your car worth every day?

A recent comment to the blog suggested that a neighborhood they were considering in Newberry was a "better deal" and they did not mind the fifteen minute drive.

So, I decided to do a little calculating (being a nerdy engineer, I just have to do that sometimes):

Fifteen minutes a day (each way) is 2.5 hours a week in the car, or assuming that you travel to Gainesville five days a week, 125 hours a year. That is more time than you probably get off work for vacation.

What is the value of your time? Let's assume an extremely modest salary of $20 an hour = $10 per day, $50 a week, and $2600 per year. If you are married and you both go to Gainesville every day in separate cars, that is $5200 per day in lost "time". (By the way, the distance from Maronda Homes in Newberry to Shands Hospital in Gainesville is 16.8 miles with an estimated travel time of 32 minutes according to MapQuest, so these calculations are conservative). We won't take into account the time involved with children, the extra cost of childcare during the commute, or teenagers with cars, but you get the picture.

Now, let's figure the cost of gas, and I won't assume you are driving a big SUV. Let's say you have a have a modest Saturn Vue getting around 20 mpg. We will use a distance of 15 miles, which is assuming you would be working on the west side of town. Each trip to town (just to work!) is a total of 30 miles, or 1.5 gallons of gas assuming there are not too many stoplights. That would be, for one person, 7.5 gallons of gas per week, 390 gallons of gas a year. At a cost of $2 per gallon, that adds up to $900 per year for one person, and $1800 for a couple with separate cars. (Or, if gas goes back up to $4 a gallon, $1800 for one person or $3600 for two people). I would certainly be looking into carpooling!

So, while living "in town" is not for everyone, I would think carefully about what you "save" buying a less expensive home that increases your commute time and distance. The cost of commuting can be quite significant, especially with volatile gas prices. That is one of the reasons why the greenest homes are often urban infill, closer to the places that we want to go often. The carbon footprint of urban houses are typically much lower than suburban ones. If you want to check your carbon footprint, try this website.