As indicated by all the people you see on bikes today, SFians love being recognized for not driving. A recent report will fulfill that desire, as it lists San Francisco as one of the top US cities in which gas is merely sipped, not guzzled.
The Center for Neighborhood Technology, an urban sustainability think-tank, made a nifty tool that’ll help you figure out what an average household across the country will spend on transportation costs. Give it a shot to decide if it’s reflecting what costs are in your area.
Intrigued by this tool, Forbes reporter Christopher Helman says he called up CNT to figure out which cities feel the pinch of rising gas prices most acutely, ostensibly for this pageview-generating listicle.
“It’s not enough to look at where gas prices are highest…what matters most is how many miles you drive” says Helman, explaining that CNT’s methodology for figuring out what cities guzzle the most and least gas “utilizes data gathered by federal and state surveys that comes straight from the odometers of thousands of cars nationwide.”
It leaves out “miles driven (and gas burned) by trucks and buses and travelers just passing through on the highway,” so keep that in mind as you pat yourself on the back for living in what they say is the Number Five least gas guzzly city in the nation.
CNT and therefore Forbes says the average SF household drives 15,500 miles per year, consuming 762 gallons of gas and spending (based on $4/gallon, we wish!) $3,050 on gas a year.
The only other Bay Area city on the list was San Jose, clocking at the 10th least gas consuming with 16,000 miles driven a year, 787 gallons of gas per household, and $3150 spent on gas.
In a ranking expected to do nothing for our inferiority complex with New York, it’s ranked the absolute least gas guzzly, with an annual mileage of 9,800, 480 gallons pr household, and a fuel expense of $1,920.
Quick! Console yourself with Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, N.C., ranked the most gas consumptive, at 21,800 annual miles driven, 1074 gallons of gas, and $4,296 spent a year on gas alone.
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