Government Bicycle Lies

I use "tryparkingit.com" to log my commute miles. In a previous post, here, I talked about some of the other choices. Many of those are superior, but I LIKE tryparkingit. It's sort of like a classic Jaguar in that you KNOW it's unreliable and prone to unexpected breakdown, but you love it anyway.

Tryparkingit.com is a creature of "NCTCOG," a quasi-government entity. However, their site does get a little sporty with the truth on occasion, as this post describes.

First off, they pump up the "trips reduced" as shown in Item A. In actuality, as of that date, I'd logged 192 bicycle commutes on their site. I'm not exactly sure how they got the 214, other than the site used to give you credit for any day you didn't go to work - like due to vacation, holiday, or sickness. Now, they only give you extra credit if you skip work due to a "compressed work week," whatever that is.

Next, compare the two mileages in Item B. They don't match! What's more, my actual logged mileage on that date was 6108 miles which doesn't match EITHER of the summary numbers. What happens here is that they give you "extra credit" if you bring your lunch to work. I'm not sure how bringing my lunch to work on my bike makes me greener than eating at the cafeteria, but this IS government thinking at work.

Next, look at Item C and notice the gas savings. In this case, tryparkingit is pessimistic. The only way I'd get 21mpg in the Land Rover would be going down a hill with a stiff tailwind. 14 is more like it, which for the 6108 miles, comes out to more like 436 gallons saved before the "extra credit" stuff, or 584 gallons using government math.

NOW you get into real phony baloney with Item D. Tryparkingit uses AAA costs. Well, these only work if you GET RID of the vehicle since the durn things still cost money just to park in the driveway otherwise due to insurance and depreciation. The Land Rover's pretty much depreciated which reduces my savings, but my insurance costs are high per mile since I don't put that many miles on it. In reality, I figure I've saved about $2000, which just about matches the cost of "Buddy" and the various bike gewgaws I've purchased during that time.

Finally, you get to the last lie, in Item E. It's a similar sort of number to the gas savings. Lucky for me I weigh more than the average number, and ride faster as well. In my case, reality comes out closer to 350000 calories before you add the "extra credit." Good thing I've lost a couple of pounds lately or it'd mean that I'd have to ride to the moon and back to reach my ideal weight instead of merely around the world a couple of times.

There are other oddities on the site that don't show up in the picture. For example, PM Summer at Cycle*Dallas got irritated, here, by the way tryparkingit combined alternative commute modes - combining cycling with blade skating (yes, I know it's really in-line skating). When I complained about it to them, reproduced here, they asked me to be a transportation coordinator (without responding to my actual complaint). They also don't mention that the site is not heavily used. This year, on "Bike to Work Day," I represented 6.5% of logged bicycle commuting for the entire metroplex, all by myself. I'm not sure how they concluded that I rode my bike to work instead of blade skating in, but I figure they made a guess. And, perhaps you can explain to me how riding my bike to work after 10AM would reduce ozone formation by one molecule compared to riding it to work before 10AM.

Still, despite its warts, the site has easy Excel export and THAT lets me make all kinds of cool charts & graphs. And, isn't that one thing engineers live for? That plus I'm optimistic that they'll help me amortize "Buddy" down to that 10 cent per mile target cost a little quicker.

See, Big Oak, there was more to this tryparkingit than you might have thought, when you read the prior "results" post; here. So now get back to work and give us a little more about that luscious Tricross of yours. Wiggly lights are interesting, but more Tricross posts are needed to keep balance and harmony in the universe.