Friday, June 23, 2006

Time is Money

I've been thinking a lot about trade-offs in life, including the old phrase, "time is money."

In Orlando, most of the expressways are toll roads. (Unfortunately, the one I use the least is the free one.) This creates a dilemma whenever I need to get to church or friends' houses on the other side of town. On one hand, I could just fork over the cash (although it doesn't feel like cash, because I pre-pay my tolls with an E-Pass) and get somewhere much more quickly and efficiently. On the other hand, I could avoid the tolls, yet use up more in gas money and spend more time getting places.

What do I usually do? I go in spurts. When I first moved here, I took the tolls everywhere, whenever possible. But then I found some "shortcuts" to various places, and started to rethink my philosophy. For about a month, I took almost only surface streets (non-expressway), with the exception of my daily commute to work (which is much more painful when using surface streets). And then the past week or so, I'm back to using the tolls.

In all actuality, I think the tolls are the way to go...and as gas prices rise, the numbers back this theory more and more. If I'm leaving my friends' house downtown, I could take the tolls and be home in 18 minutes, having set me back $1.00 plus gas. Otherwise, I'm home 10-15 minutes later, having dealt with the stress of traffic, the additional wear and tear on my vehicle from stop lights, and spent more on gas. Is it really worth it? My conclusion is no, unless I want a change of scenery.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Easy solution: live next to where you work. No driving! That or move to Europe and take mass transit.