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I don’t have to do this every morning (thank god) but I have been doing it about once a week lately. The transit route described here is kinda the ’standard’ route – you can get creative with all the different transit agencies in between Sacramento and Palo Alto, but as far as I am able to find, no ‘creative’ route is able to beat out the ’standard’ route. Note that I’m purposefully excluding a ‘bike + transit’ option for the purposes of this DeathMatch.

All times AM, all money in USD (duh).

The Route, via Transit

• Walk, house -> bus stop: 3 min
• SacRT, bus: 6:35 -> 6:50, $2.50
• Amtrak, capitol corridor, Sacramento -> Richmond: 7:00 -> 8:25, $13.60 (10-ride pass)
• Bart, Richmond -> Mlibrae: 8:42 -> 9:51, $5.31
• Caltrain, Milbrae -> Palo Alto: 9:55 -> 10:25, $4.25
• Stanford Shuttle: 10:30 -> 10:40, free
• Walk, shuttle stop -> class: 3min

Direct Monetary Cost

2.50 + 13.60 + 5.31 + 4.25 = $25.66

Time Analysis

Percent Efficiency Assumptions

• Transfers/walking: %0, including 2 min window on each side cause it takes a while to get situated on bus/train
• Bus/shuttle: %30
• Bart: %50
• Caltrain: %70
• Amtrak: %90

Effective 100% Efficiency Time

(sacrt) + (amtrak) + (bart) + (caltrain) + (stanford shuttle) =
(15 – 2*2) * 0.3 + (85 – 2*2) * 0.9 + (69 – 2*2) * 0.5 + (30 – 2*2) * 0.7 + (10 – 2*2) * 0.3 =
11 * 0.3 + 81 * 0.9 + 65 * 0.5 + 26 * 0.7 + 6 * 0.3 =
128.7 min ~= 2 hrs 9 min

Wasted Time

Total Travel Time – 100% effective efficiency time =
(4 hrs 13 min) – (2 hrs 9 min) = 2 hrs 4 min

The Route, Driving

• Walk to car, 3 min
• Drive @ rush hour, Sacramento -> Stanford: 2 hrs 50 mins, 124 miles (src: google maps)
• Park car and walk to class: 15 min, $11

Direct Monetary Cost

Assumptions

• 30 mph
• $3.00 per gallon for gas
• bridge toll: $4.00
• ignoring all other car costs – they’re not ‘direct’ (ie. you don’t pay them right then)

Calculation

124 / 30 * 3.00 + 11.00 + 4.00 = $27.40

Wasted Time

3 min + (2 hrs 50 min) + 15 min = 3 hrs 8 min

Conclusions

Taking the trip via transit rather than driving saves $1.74 (oh boy!) and 1 hour, 4 minutes of time. If we were to add in the full costs of owning an automobile (AAA estimate: ~52.2 cents/mile) then the monetary cost for driving rises to $79.73, thus implying a monetary savings of $54.07 for taking the trip via transit, rather than driving. Bam! Headshot.

Commute Mode DeathMatch Leaderboard

• Transit: 1 (headshot)
• Driving: 0

Coming soon: ‘biking + transit’ jumps into the rumble!