Riding Transit Saves You $9,330 a Year
June 20th, 2010 by Zachary Shahan
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Save thousands of dollars a year by riding transit. See a list of the cities with the highest average savings from riding transit below.
On average, you can save $778 a month or $9,330 a year riding transit. Transit riders in New York City, however, save $1,159 a month ($13,906 a year) on average (the most).
Additionally, riding transit is one of the best things you can do to make the air and water cleaner and to stop rapid, catastrophic climate change.
“U.S. public transit ridership saves 4.2 billion gallons of gasoline annually,” American Public Transportation Association President William Millar says.
“Taking transit… is something we all can do in response to the BP oil disaster,” says Ann Mesnikoff, the Sierra Club’s Green Transportation Campaign Director. “Public transportation is key to ending our dependence on oil and reducing our global warming pollution.”
Here’s the list of the 20 cities where you save the most money riding transit.
Top Twenty Cities – Transit Savings Report
| Rank | City | Monthly Savings | Annual Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York | $1,159 | $13,906 |
| 2 | Boston | $1,040 | $12,481 |
| 3 | San Francisco | $1,026 | $12,309 |
| 4 | Chicago | $955 | $11,463 |
| 5 | Seattle | $946 | $11,346 |
| 6 | Philadelphia | $934 | $11,203 |
| 7 | Honolulu | $902 | $10,824 |
| 8 | Los Angeles | $847 | $10,163 |
| 9 | San Diego | $834 | $10,009 |
| 10 | Minneapolis | $828 | $9,938 |
| 11 | Portland | $811 | $9,736 |
| 12 | Denver | $811 | $9,727 |
| 13 | Cleveland | $808 | $9,701 |
| 14 | Baltimore | $789 | $9,465 |
| 15 | Washington, DC | $759 | $9,107 |
| 16 | Miami | $756 | $9,067 |
| 17 | Dallas | $736 | $8,834 |
| 18 | Las Vegas | $726 | $8,712 |
| 19 | Atlanta | $725 | $8,694 |
| 20 | Pittsburgh | $685 | $8,218 |
*Based on gasoline prices as reported by AAA on 6/16/10.
Transit savings are “based on the June 16, 2010 national average gas price and the national unreserved monthly parking rate.”
Image Credit: theqspeaks via flickr/CC license
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About the Author
Zachary Shahan is the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular cleantech-focused website in the world, and Planetsave, a world-leading green and science news site. He has been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and he has been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, and wind energy since 2009. Aside from his work on CleanTechnica and Planetsave, he's the founder and director of Solar Love, EV Obsession, and Bikocity. To connect with Zach on some of your favorite social networks, go to ZacharyShahan.com and click on the relevant buttons.
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