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Some thoughts on what it costs you to own (or not own) a car. Forget about the very real social and environmental costs - these are just personal economic costs $$$$! The $7800/year to own and operate a car quoted by Better Environmentally Sound Transportation (BEST from Vancouver) fits our Transport 2000 figures. Sometimes it's helpful to itemize the total for disbelievers. First the Canadian Automobile Association says it costs 50c per mile to run a car. If we drive 15,000 miles (per car) each year this amounts to $7500 per year. Most suburban and rural commuters to Halifax core will drive much more than this. Alternatively, my personal rough breakdown of costs gives: Leasing or depreciation @$250/month = $3000 Insurance (esp. if under 25 dependent or accident prone) $1500 Repairs & Labour + 15% GST (e.g. Fuel Pump $500, Brakes $350, Water pump $250, Set of Tires $300, Minor Rust Repair and Painting $500-1000, exhaust $150 Minor Uninsured Accidents $500-$1500 etc.) = $1000 (average) Gasoline (15,000 miles, 25 miles/gal., $3./gal) = $1800 Total $7300 (not including miscellaneous: Rust Check, licences, MVI, bridge tolls, parking meters etc) Transportation (mostly auto) takes a larger part of an average Canadian family's budget than food! (StatsCan has a breakdown of a family budget - they should know the Code Number). Don't forget that 60% of driving takes place within one's own hometown, but the municipality gets NO share of provincial gas taxes. It has only the "property tax" base to pay for roads, and this is NOT user pay like gas taxes. You pay even if you don't own a car. Car drivers are heavily subsidized in metro. (You could take the costs for metro road building and repair, traffic police, snow plowing, traffic signals etc. and divide it by the # of cars and light trucks to get this figure) . John Pearce, Transport 2000 Atlantic. Box 268, Dartmouth B2Y 3Y3 Ph: 469-3474 Fax 469-3637 jk.pearce@ns.sympatico.ca -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- The preceding message was posted on Sustainable Maritimes (sust-mar) -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- Overloaded with email? Sust-mar has a DIGEST version. If you'd prefer to receive a compilation of sust-mar messages twice monthly instead of daily, send email to <majordomo@chebucto.ns.ca> As the text of your message type "subscribe sust-mar-digest" And on the next line, type "unsubscribe sust-mar" Voila! Daily messages will stop, and twice-monthly will start.
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