A reference to the Abogo calculator from the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) in Kaid Benfield’s post today sent me there. Abogo is based on CNT’s Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, which I was familiar with, so I’m surprised I’d not noticed Abogo, but now I have.

At right is the calculator result for where I live. Hard to read the legend, but the dark green is less than $1000 per month. Of course I spend a good deal less, $100 for a transit pass plus about $20 a month for bicycle maintenance, but the numbers seem reasonable for others who live in downtown/midtown.

For curiosity sake, I ran another location, one of the schools at which I work in Citrus Heights. Yow! What a difference. The orange color is $1200 to $1300 per month. $466 per month in higher transportation costs is a lot, 1.6 times higher, but even more shocking is the carbon impact, 3.7 times more for the suburban location that the urban location.

Take a look for yourself at the location where you live, and if appropriate, the location where you work and where you might like to live. I suspect you’ll be surprised.

“Abogo shows you how transportation impacts the affordability and sustainability of where you live. With Abogo, you can discover the costs of where you live now, or where you might want to live. Abogo measures the money an average household from your region living in your neighborhood would spend getting around, including car ownership, car use, and transit use. It also tells you what the CO2 generated by this car use would be. With this information, you can measure the true cost and impact of where you live.”