I walk when I’m going somewhere within a mile or so, and when the weather conditions are fairly optimal (ie: not raining, not freezing, not super hot when I’m headed to a professional meeting, etc).

I bus around the inner-city area if I’m headed for a mile or more in a direction, or if the weather is poor, or if I’m in a bigger hurry than walking (or feeling lazy about walking).

I drive when I need to go further, when the bus schedules aren’t as convenient (late night), when I need to transport cargo (not going to haul recyclables to the drop off bin on the bus or by foot) or when I’m going somewhere with additional passengers (family, kids, friends, etc) and the car is either more convenient for them, or makes more financial/ecological sense with multiple passengers.

I’ve never really measured how all of this stuff breaks down by total miles traveled, but I’m guessing it’s probably pretty close to 1/3 walk 1/3 bus 1/3 drive. I should measure my miles-traveled for a full week of regular activity and add it all up to see. I think the results would be pretty interesting if other folks might be willing to do the same thing.

So… following my initial curiosity, I decided to measure out a week’s worth of travel and see if my guess was accurate. I decided to wait until Memorial Day Weekend was over, as we had guests from out of town, and our travel routes were a bit out of the norm. But I think this past week, June 1st through the 7th ended up being a pretty accurate barometer for my average weekly transit requirements. My findings were as follows:

Tue June 1 – Summary : Went to work, three daytime meetings, went home.
4.7 Total Miles Traveled
2.7 by Bus 57%
2.0 by Foot 43%

Wed June 2 – Summary : Went to work, two daytime meetings, went home.
5.0 Total Miles Traveled
3.9 by Bus 78%
1.1 by Foot 22%

Thur June 3 – Summary : Went to work, three daytime meetings, went home.
5.0 Total Miles Traveled
3.1 by Bus 62%
1.9 by Foot 38%

Fri June 4 – Summary : Went to work, one daytime meeting, went home, walked to downtown Arts Festival, evening grocery store run.
13.5 Total Miles Traveled
5.7 by Bus 42%
2.6 by Foot 19%
5.2 by Car 39%

Sat June 5 – Summary : Rainy. Worked at home and hung out with family.
0.0 Total Miles Traveled

Sun June 6 – Summary : Went to visit friends on North side of town.
33.6 Total Miles Traveled
33.6 by Car 100%

Mon Jun 7 – Summary : Went to work, two daytime meetings, went home.
5.0 Total Miles Traveled
4.0 by Bus 80%
1.0 by Foot 20%

TOTAL FOR ONE WEEK

66.8 Total Miles Traveled
38.8 by Car 58%
19.4 by Bus 29%
8.6 by Foot 13%

* Note #1 – This information is my personal data only. I did not track my wife Anne who used the car a few times and walked to destinations in the past week.
* Note #2 – This information is for outdoor travel only. I did not wear a pedometer to track indoor walking at home, work, grocery store, etc.

I was pretty close in guesstimating the bus-travel portion being 33% of my weekly trips, but the automobile and foot travel ended up being way off. I found this really interesting because I only used the car for two trips throughout the span of a week, one of which was a 5-mile round-trip to the grocery store with 2 passengers and the other was the 33-mile round trip to visit friends with 4 passengers. Hardly wasteful usage of an automobile, but still a significant shift in my measurements as a result of something that few people think twice about. Driving 15-miles to a destination is a pretty commonplace activity for many people in Columbus, and yet it threw a huge curveball into my measurements, as there were many regular workdays in the past week where the car never left the driveway.

All in all, it was an interesting experiment, and hopefully one not too flawed, as I attempted to not try to alter my behaviors knowing that I was measuring what I was doing. Perhaps a different week might result in an extra driving trip to Target or to a restaurant, and during the winter I know I’m inclined to walk less often to work in the cold and I was able to take advantage of some warm weather this past week. I’d love to see this data tracked over the course of a full year but I don’t think I have the patience (or the OCD) to see that through.

Anyway, I’d be interested to see anyone else’s results if this inspires anyone else to track their transit for a week. It was fairly easy to do using the “driving/walking directions” function of google maps and just remembering to jot down where I had been at the end of each day.

Anyone care to try it out and share your results?