17 miles round trip but I only commute 8 days out of every 14. I usually take my motorcycle which I paid cash for and average
67.4 MPG but have seen as high as 79.5. Insurance is 65 cents a day for prepaid yearly full coverage. So that's 80.7 cents in gas per day at the current $3.199/gal and 65 cents for insurance per day, netting $1.46 per day for commuting, rounded up. If I manage to get 80 MPG, that'll drop it to $1.32 per day. Everything excludes wear and tear, but my bike is pretty low maintenance now that I got the valves fixed -- just some chain lube/cleaning and a 1.5qt oil change here and there.
Damn, now that I do the math, it's costing me nearly as much in insurance per day as it does for gas just to commute. All that being said, I usually don't just go back and forth to work since the CBR250 is a hoot to ride, so the variable cost of gas increases when you factor in non-commute riding.
I used to bike into work when I lived further away, but I worked during daylight hours then and had suburbs and multi-use paths to take. Now I work 3rd shift and live in a different area, I see enough idiots on my motorcycle when I look like a landing strip with all the reflection I have. I wouldn't want to risk some of these roads on a bicycle.
I'm trying to get my girlfriend to ride her bike or get a scooter for work (she works normal hours and goes an entirely different direction than me to work with safer roads). She only works just over a mile from the house, but drives all the time. And now that she just blew $20k on a new car that probably won't see above 2500 miles in its first year, I think the whole bike/scooter thing is out the window unless I buy a scooter for her.
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