Taking stock after the first month

Urban Commuter - Owain's Blog

In my first blog, I explained that the primary reasons I decided to get involved with Cycle to Work were to escape the congestion and to save some money. Since I've now completed the fourth week of cycling to work, it's has occurred to me that now would be a good opportunity to asses whether it has been a success or not.

Freedom from the car

Without a doubt, cycling to work has been a positive experience as it has freed me from the frustration, anger and sheer monotony of the car commute. This is obviously a very subjective and personal assessment of the impact, but for me it is an important feature of the Cycle to Work scheme; if you want, you could class this as a mental health benefit. Not only am I relieved of the ordeal of the car commute, but I actually enjoy the cycle commute in itself.

A more tangible measure would be to compare journey times. Typically, the car commute takes about 45 minutes but due to the congestion, it can vary significantly - sometimes as much as 10 to 15 minutes extra. It's more consistent during school holidays, for example. At other times, such as the weeks running up to Christmas, it becomes even more volatile.

When I've cycled to work, my total journey time is very consistent at about 50 minutes. The only factor that can influence the time is a strong head wind and that adds 5 minutes at most. As a result of this consistency, I don't have to leave early to compensate for congestions. Nor do I feel the pressure of potentially being late for work given adverse traffic conditions.

Financial impact

It rained every day this week, including the weekend, so I didn't get the opportunity to cycle. But I did take the opportunity to measure fuel consumption over an entire week. Including the AA recommended allowance of 7 pence per mile for wear and tear, I've calculated that the cost per mile for my commute to be 24 pence. It therefore costs £ 5.52 per day to commute by car.

My only cost when cycling is the cost of the train, which works out at £ 3.90. Considering the train only carries me and my bike approximately 8 miles (4 miles each way), that works out at almost 50 pence per mile and it serves to illustrate the relative high cost of public transport - double the cost of using the car in my set of circumstances. Still, I am making an admittedly modest saving of £ 1.62 each time I cycle to work.

In the past 4 weeks, I cycled 7 times out of a total number of 18 commutes. (I worked from home on two occasions.) I therefore saved a total of £ 11.34; not exactly a fortune, I admit. Still, as Tesco says, every little helps.

Other benefits

I wouldn't have thought it possible, but after just 7 cycle commutes, I am noticeably fitter. I don't think I've lost any weight, not least because I never weighed myself before I started out, but I can certainly feel the difference.

I don't know how you measure your carbon footprint, but there's no doubt that by not driving I have reduced it and I take comfort from that fact.

Conclusion

The reality of my situation is that public transport is just too expensive to displace car use on its own. If not for my cycling, the cost of public transport for my entire commute would easily exceed the cost by car. It's fair to say I'm a little disappointed with the financial savings. I take the view that if the government is serious about tackling climate change, it really does need to address the cost of public transport. The overall experience has been positive and a saving, no matter how modest is still a saving. Another way of looking at it is that £ 11.34 is equivalent to a pay rise of 11 pence per hour.

I really can't think of any negatives to cycling to work - at least none that can't be avoided by simply not cycling on that particular day. (I'm referring to the weather, of course.)

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