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Carless in Denver: An experiment over a week and a half

9NEWS reporter Steve Staeger decided to ditch his car for a week and a half for other modes of transportation. Here's how it went.

CENTENNIAL — Is it worth ditching your car to get around Denver? It’s a simple question with a rather complicated answer.

I’m sure I won’t be able to fully answer that question with this experiment: giving up my car for two weeks and using other forms of transportation to move around town. But I figured, heck, why not?

To make the experiment more authentic, I crashed my car into a cement pillar in a parking garage. (Okay, maybe I didn’t do that part on purpose – but the timing worked out perfectly.) It now requires about two weeks of body work.

HOW THIS IS GOING TO WORK

There really is only one rule for this experiment: I have to find alternatives to get around town. I could choose public transit, ride-sharing, bumming rides off friends, riding my bike or riding one of those nifty new scooters. Or I could just walk.

My options for getting around are naturally slimmer because of where I live. About a year ago, I became a suburbanite – moving from a few blocks from the 9NEWS station to Centennial near Arapahoe and I-25. I am, however, about a mile from a light rail station. And there’s a bus that runs up and down Arapahoe Road in my area that can quickly get me to that station.

THE FINANCIALS

During this week, I’ll be tracking my progress in several areas. The first is a financial comparison. How much does it cost me to get around town each day, compared to my daily cost with a car? Here’s how my car cost breaks down:

Lease payment = $310/month ($10.33/day average)

Insurance = $641.50/six months (approximately $3.52/day)

Gas = I commute about 26 miles round-trip per day. I have an app on my phone that tracks fuel economy, which typically tells me I pay about $0.13 per mile. So… $3.38 each day.

Estimated daily cost of a car: $17.23/day

I’ll keep a spreadsheet of my daily costs to see if I beat the daily car cost or if I end up paying more.

THE HEALTH BENEFITS

I’ll use my watch to track the natural exercise I get by commuting. We’ll see if my step counts increase by choosing an alternate route. I’m also guessing I’ll see some benefit from riding my bike a bit more.

THE TIMING/OTHER OBSTACLES ALONG THE WAY

I’ll compare time of commute with the time it would typically take to drive somewhere. This blog will also serve as a way for me to report the other stumbling blocks I see along the way.

DAY 1

Cost: $5.20

Steps: 7,638

Time comparison: 15 minutes by car, 1 hour by bus

I didn’t plan it, but in a way, it worked out perfectly. Last week, while backing out of parking spot in a garage in Denver, I backed my Jeep into a concrete pillar. It did some pretty nasty damage.

The insurance company referred me to the closest approved body shop to my house, a shop in Parker, near the corner of Cottonwood and Parker Road. I dropped my car off there today.

It’s my day off, by the way.

The trip to the body shop took me 12 minutes in my car, according to Google Maps. The trip home….was a bit longer.

One thing I’ve learned through the first day of this process is that planning is key. I knew I needed groceries to start the week, so I figured out there was a store right on the way to the bus stop. I brought a couple of reusable shopping bags with me so I could stop along the way.

On my walk from the body shop to the store, I discovered an all too familiar theme for pedestrians these days: an incomplete grid of sidewalks in the metro area.

Credit: KUSA

In this case, there was no sidewalk along the west side of Parker Road as I walked north to the grocery store. It’s quite clear a lot of people do what I did and just walk through the grass, as evidenced by a path worn in the dirt.

When I looked at the route later on Google, it appears there’s a brand new sidewalk on the east side of Parker Road, but I wouldn’t have had time to cross and check for it… I had shopping to do and a bus to catch.

With groceries in-hand, I headed off to catch the bus. Little did I know, finding the bus stop would be the biggest adventure of my day.

Google Maps and RTD’s own app indicated the stop was north of the intersection of Parker Road and Cottonwood, so I crossed the street to find a brand new, beautifully manicured sidewalk. But that sidewalk soon ended…about a quarter of a mile away from the bus stop.

As a matter of fact, there’s no sidewalk leading to this bus stop on the side of Parker Road. I had to walk a quarter of a mile along the shoulder of the roadway, which boasts a pretty fast speed limit. When I didn’t feel comfortable on the road, I walked along the grassy shoulder, full of trash from the roadway and uneven dirt.

When I finally approached the stop, there was a truck from a media company there working on the shelter of the bus stop. It surprised me, because absent that, this stop seemed an awful lot like an afterthought… a stop in the middle of nowhere.

When the bus (Route 483) arrived, right on time by the way, I asked the driver if many people use this bus stop, which seems to be in the middle of nowhere. She told me she occasionally picks people up there, then went on to talk about the challenge that comes with trying to pull the bus back into traffic on Parker Road when other vehicles are traveling well above 50 miles per hour.

Once aboard the bus, the rest was a breeze. I transferred to the 66 bus near Regis High School and was home in about 45 minutes.

I learned a couple of lessons on day one.

  1. I didn’t understand RTD’s fare structure for buses. I paid on my phone for a local Day Pass ($5.20). I really should have paid $2.60 for a one-way local ticket with a transfer, especially since I rode the bus one-way.
  2. I’m going to need to do a heck of a lot of planning ahead.

Ta ta for now.

DAY 2

Cost: $5.20

Steps: 10,633

Time comparison: 50 minutes by car, 2 hours 15 minutes by transit

This was my second day off and I had a haircut appointment in Congress Park. I also needed to stop at the grocery store again and pick up something for dinner tonight. Like yesterday, I was going to try to combine them all into one trip.

This time, I took a bit of my morning to plan today’s commute. I spent about 20 minutes comparing grocery stores and routes to get where I needed to go.

I learned my lesson yesterday on RTD fares, so today, I decided to pay for my bus commute and asked for a transfer. This should get me from the 66 bus on Arapahoe Road to the light rail station. I took the E line to Colorado Boulevard then transfered again to the 40 bus north on Colorado Boulevard.

I got where I needed to go on time. I’m also getting good at juggling a couple of bags of groceries as I move around town.

One lesson I learned today…keep an eye on commute times. I realized as I was almost home that I could beat the bus to my house by foot. So I opted to walk the final mile. It was a great way to get some extra steps in.

One other observation…bus stops in the city are a lot easier to locate than bus stops in the burbs.

See you tomorrow.

DAY 3

Cost: $28.05

Steps: 13,396

Time comparison: +40 mins

This was the day I was dreading – the first of my early commutes. After looking at train and bus schedules, I realized that it’s impossible to get to the station by 3:30 a.m. (my Wednesday & Thursday arrival time) and 3 a.m. (my Saturday & Sunday arrival time) by public transit. Most buses and trains aren’t running between the hours of 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. I’m not a skilled enough cyclist to ride my bike 12+ miles to work that early in the morning. I was going to have to take ride share.

So I knew my costs would be high today.

What surprised me almost immediately at 3 a.m. was how available rides were in the middle of the night. When I looked at my app, the closest driver was about 6 minutes away from me.

I had a very pleasant conversation with my Lyft driver this morning. He told me more and more drivers are hanging out in the suburbs earlier in the morning, anticipating longer rides to the airport. That makes sense.

Once my shift was over around noon, I was able to quickly find a Bird Scooter near the station. I decided to take it to the Louisiana Pearl station to hop on the train. On my ride to the station, I realized a dangerous flaw in Denver’s rules for scooters: They must remain on the sidewalks and not in the streets.

Credit: Denver Business Journal
Bird scooter.

The shape of Denver’s sidewalks – especially in areas like the Speer neighborhood and Washington Park West – are pretty awful. I hit so many bumps, I felt lucky I made it through my ride without chipping a tooth. At one point I nearly bottomed out the scooter on a bump.

After a 20 minute train ride, I realized I had to pick up dry cleaning – which happens to be on the walk back from the train station. So instead of taking the bus, I decided to huff it. I must have looked pretty interesting hauling heavy dry cleaning on my backpack for about 1.5 miles.

Good times!

DAY 4

Cost: $36.31

Steps: 13,926

Time difference: +15

Time got the best of me today – and I paid for it.

For the second day in a row, I had no choice but to take a ride-share to get to work since I arrive so early. That wasn’t the costly part.

During my work day, station managers asked if I would swing by the new Amazon store at Park Meadows Mall since it’s relatively close to where I live. They wanted pictures and video to air in the newscasts.

No problem, I figured. I could easily take the train to County Line on my way home and grab public transit back.

The one thing I didn’t account for: I had planned to make dinner that day and the recipe called for me to get it started early.

By the time I got to the mall and did what I needed to do, I realized that it would take me more than an hour to get home – what would typically be a 7-minute drive.

So I decided to add another ride share to the day – from the mall back home. It added about $10 – but in the end it was worth it.

A good but expensive day today.

Onward and upward.

DAY 5

Cost: $5.20

Steps: 10,622

Time difference: +1 hr

I’d been looking forward to this day for awhile. This is the commute I know.

I work for Next on Fridays, so I work a relatively regular shift (9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.). Today I took the bus to the light rail station, then I walked from the station to work – about a mile and a quarter. I always find a little walk or bike ride gets me ready for a good day at work.

On the way home, I walked back to the station and took the train back toward home. My girlfriend picked me up at the station.

All in all, a relatively easy and cheap day. All I did was buy a day pass to ride RTD.

If I worked this schedule regularly, this would be remarkably affordable.

Too bad I don’t.

Credit: KUSA

DAY 6

Cost: $23.92

Steps: 7,669

Time difference: +30 mins

Back in the saddle again. As much as an extrovert as I am, I must say, I’m growing tired of the early morning ride-sharing rides. My ride to work on those early days tends to be a good excuse for me to listen to a podcast or listen to music. But, alas, I’ll live.

On the way back from work, I found a Lime Scooter right outside the station. This was a quick way to get to the light rail station. It barely cost me $2, so that made me happy. I walked back home from the light rail station and called it a day for leaving the house. It wasn’t too bad.

DAY 7

Cost: $15.60

Steps: 11,765

Time difference: +30 mins

Alright, I have a confession to make. I was sick enough of that costly early morning ride to work, I decided to borrow a car – my girlfriend’s car. I snagged it for my early morning commute and for the ride back to the station.

I felt so guilty about it, in fact, that later that evening, when I traditionally play bar trivia near work with a group of friends, I made myself walk to the light rail station. I had to run for a portion of that walk because I left a little late. Then I grabbed a scooter from the train station to the bar and a scooter on my way back to the station later that night. I did grab a ride share for that quick ride home from the light rail station that night.

So it was a pretty affordable day. I do feel guilty for borrowing a car, but I realized this is a rather realistic thing.

DAY 8

Cost: $0.00

Steps: 8,008

Time difference: 0 minutes

One thing I’ve realized about this commuting without a car thing is that I take a lot of unnecessary trips.

So today, I had a lot of stuff to do around the house and I stayed in. It was relaxing.

DAY 9

Cost: $0.00

Steps: 8,841

Time difference: 0 minutes

I didn’t take any form of public transit today. I had a few things to do around the house, so I did them. That required a trip to Lowe’s. Luckily Lowe’s is about a half a mile away, so I could walk it.

Another relaxing day with no particular place to go.

DAY 10

Cost: $31.71

Steps: 9,603

Time difference: +20

Back to work means back to ride sharing. So another pretty pricey trip to work. To put it into perspective, it costs more to take a ride share one way from my house to work than it does to own and operate my car for an entire day. Food for thought.

On the way home from work, I grabbed my bike out of the parking garage at work and rode it to the light rail station. I have to say, it may be the first time I’ve ever ridden my bike in a full suit. That taught me I ought to plan ahead and bring clothes when I ride a bike.

DAY 11: The final day

Cost: $52.81

Steps: 6,032

Time difference: None – all ride sharing

I started this day not knowing it would be the last of my little experiment. I took ride-sharing once again.

Nearing the end of my day at work, I got a call from the body shop that my collision work was complete. As soon as I did, I started planning how I was going to get from KUSA in Denver to that body shop in Parker.

After learning it would take me more than two hours to do it by public transit, I opted to take a ride-share directly from work to Parker. I knew it was going to be expensive, but it would also save me an hour and a half.

So I have my car back. Time to return home, add up the numbers and figure out the results of this week and a half experiment.

CONCLUSION

This was an interesting two weeks. It tested my planning skills. It also stretched my wallet – just a little bit.

At the end of 11 days, I had spent $14.47 more than I would have if I had my car. That’s not much, considering that I took an expensive Lyft ride to Parker on the last day. But I also borrowed a car one day and limited my trips, both of which would have added to the total.

Healthwise, I came close to my goal of 10,000 steps each day, much more than I typically do if I drive everywhere. I was impressed with my willingness to walk a mile or more along the way. The added exercise of walking or riding to work also got my blood pumping which made me more ready to attack my day at work.

The main downside to giving up my car would be the time spent commuting by public transit. Most days I took public transit, it added 20-30 minutes to my commute each way.

I would not try this longer term without a better plan for public transit fares. I know there are more inexpensive options out there – like a monthly pass or a MyRide Card – both of which would have likely saved me money. It took me about a week to completely understand fares and avoid paying too much to ride.

In the end, I likely wouldn’t commit to this. The lack of public transit in the early morning hours would make this unaffordable for me with my current schedule. That said, if someone were to plan for this a bit more – by living closer to work or moving essentials closer to home – this is very doable.

Have you given up your car? How much have you saved? What are your tricks? Email steve@9news.com.

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