Save Thousands, Save Conscience, Improve Vitality — Ride Mass Transit!

Vitalize Without a Spa

Last spring I stayed in NYC for a week. My stay in the city revitalized me better than any spa might have. This urban visit was the same as my experience of a visit to San Francisco for a few weeks in which my mental, emotional, and physical health improved. My urban stays brought out my healthful “glow’ and it stayed with me for quit a while. The secret was simply that I walked blocks and blocks in the open air. I traveled easily on available mass transit. I enjoyed the faces of diversity, short conversations with others, and an increasing sense of and relationship within humanity, as I sat in buses, trams, and subways for short jaunts around these cities.

Blossom-Lined Pedestrian Path

The other factor uplifting my spirits was the escape of life within the isolation and armor of a car. A deeper immersion into culture and the soft brushing of others as we passed in currents of travel softened me. Without the heavy weight of metal traveling around me everyday, with less expenditure of gas, my state of mind and body raised a vibration. How high it feels to be in movement, not stasis.

A sense of self that was suffocated and stifled by living in a car too many hours of the month — lifted. Environmental friendly transportation users enjoy health benefits. [How could it not be!]

Liberation from dependency on gas is liberation.

Leave Your Car Behind and Save Money

Pedestrian Pathway

But aside from that, Riding Mass Transit Saves Money. Recent report from the American Public Transportation Association’s (APTA) shows that the average U.S. citizen would save $9,797 a year, or $816 a month, just from switching to public transit for their daily commute. Again, that is $9, 797 a year!

According to the American Public Transportation Association’s (APTA) November Transit Savings Report:

APTA releases this monthly Transit Savings Report to examine how an individual in a two-person household can save money by taking public transportation and living with one less car.

The national average for a monthly unreserved parking space in a downtown business district is $155.22, according to the 2011 Colliers International Parking Rate Study. Over the course of a year, parking costs for a vehicle can amount to an average of $1,863.

The top 20 cities with the highest transit ridership are ranked in order of their transit savings based on the purchase of a monthly public transit pass and factoring in local gas prices for November 18, 2011 and the local monthly unreserved parking rate.*

For more information on the methodology, check out the APTA press release.

Photos:

  1. New Silver Line Station in Boston via Philocrites
  2. Pedestrians in Vancouver via tuchodi
  3. Well-Designed Bicycle/Pedestrian Pathway via Richard Drdul

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