Darwinism in action. Survival of the fittest. More ways than one? :innocent:

To take the CTA in Chicago would cost me $4/day. I paid about $1750 for my dream commuter. I need to ride about 437 days to pay it off. Assuming two weeks vacation, there are 250 commuting days a year (50 weeks times 5). Accounting for winter (when I ride less though I still ride) and other factors, I easily commute 175 days per year (probably closer to 200 but let's keep it conservative).

I will pay off my bike in 2.5 years.

ews, that's a very quick return on your investment. I see the big difference between the city and the suburbs. In the city, driving is highly impractical and therefore ruled out. So you're comparing cycling with mass transit. As we pointed out, car ownership is dominated by fixed costs, and they don't go away unless you get rid of the car, which isn't practical. Most of us can ride a great many trips but still can't get rid of our cars.

We have a 2002 VW Passat wagon and a 1998 Honda Civic hatchback. If we got rid of the VW, we wouldn't have a car for road trips, so I guess we would rent. We can't get rid of the Civic, because that's my wife's car, and she drives to NYC where parking is tough. Having a short car is a big advantage. Plus it gets better mileage.

I often have to drive people from our commuting train station to our house. It's one mile, up a steep hill. What can I do? Taxis are unreliable in the suburbs.

I lived a mile from the N train in Queens for 5 years. It's a 15 minute walk... ;)