Bikes and Scooters

Bike Parking/Showers/Lockers Although Portland has an extensive network of bike lanes and bike paths and a climate that is ideal for bike riding (at least part of the year), many bike-riding employees will elect not to ride to work unless their office has two things: secure bike parking and shower/locker facilities. Nobody wants to leave work only to find that his or her bike has been stolen during the day. Bike riders nearly always have effective bike locks, but they still need something to lock them to. A bike rack is inoffensive and unobtrusive and makes a quiet statement about a company’s commitment to the environment. Make the bike parking visible, accessible, and consider covering it. Your bike-riding employees—and customers—will thank you. Lockers or showers are another valuable amenity for bike riders or those who exercise during their lunch hour. When available these facilities get frequent use. Bike riders will often use them in the morning and runners will be there during the lunch hour. Where showers and lockers aren’t feasible on site, there may be a place nearby that will allow access to these facilities.

Electric Scooters The Vectrix scooter, which plugs into a standard wall outlet, provides reliable transportation for just a few cents per “fill up” of electricity.  Environmentally, the Vectrix is unmatched, because it runs on batteries, there are no tailpipe emissions, no soot, carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases of any type.  Of course, it still relies on electricity generated by local power suppliers, which means that some of the power probably originally came from fossil fuel-burning power plants.

Even so, according to a calculator on the Vectrix website, http://www.vectrix.com  the electric scooter’s impact on the environment is a fraction of the impact of gasoline-powered vehicles.  That impact is expressed as a carbon footprint, or a measure of greenhouse gas emissions over a period of time, per kilometer of travel.  The carbon footprint of the Vectrix scooter is 35.5 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilometer, compared to 277 kilograms for a Ford Taurus, and 436 kilograms for a Chevy Suburban.

COST of an Electric Scooter:
Scooter Operating Cost: Two cents per mile to operate, based on current electrical rates. 
Scooter Purchase Cost: 2008 North American MSRP — $9395

The Return on Investment:
If you take the GREEN advantages out of the equation, let’s look at the math as it relates to saving in your pocket.

According to EPA and DOE calculations, the Total Fuel Consumption is based on an average annual passenger car mileage of 12,500 miles and an average annual light truck mileage of 14,000 miles. Fuel consumption is based on fleet wide average in-use fuel economy of 21.5 miles per gallon (mpg) for passenger cars and 17.2 mpg for light trucks, as reported in the 19th edition of the "Transportation Energy Data Book," prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy. An electric scooter costs $.02 per mile compared to a car that costs closer to $.18 per mile. ($4 Gallon for a car that gets 35 Miles per gallon = $.18.6 per mile, and this does not even take into account maintenance, wear and tear on tires, etc.)

So, the scooter is 9 times more efficient and you save at least $.16 per mile. The scooter entirely pays for itself after 58,718 miles. Over time, at the average of 12,500 miles per year rate, the scooter pays for itself in 4.7 Years. Certain states like California offer $1,500 tax credits on the purchase so that delivers a net purchase cost of $7,895, a payback in 49,343 miles or 3.9 years. Naturally, driving conditions and factors like the delta between the higher costs of maintaining a car vs. a scooter impact these ROI payback numbers. All of these calculations above, also assume that you may already own a car, so if you are in market to buy one or do not currently own one, then the ROI is simply exceptional, because you start to save on day one, since very few cars are under $10K.

 

 

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