Commuting - Inner city, Suburban, or what?

My commute is from the suburbs to the center of downtown Atlanta. Therefore, I often mix cycling with mass transit, such as when I put my bike on the train.

Forgive me, I'm sure there's "nothing new under the sun," but I would like to ask you folks something: do you commute long distances from the suburbs to the inner city, or from close in towards downtown, or do you work in outlying areas so that you don't go near downtown, or what? How do you work cycling into your commute picture and what is that picture like?

:confused:

I live in the suburbs of St. Louis, MO. I'm about 6 miles from work which is a medical school in an urban setting several miles from the official downtown on the Mississippi riverfront.

So I'm traveling from suburbs to urbs. Most of the trip is through neigborhoods, then through a light industrial area, finished off by a short stretch through Forest Park and onto the medical campus.
I tried other routes to avoid the industrial area and its train tracks, but found myself going through heavier traffic and into rougher neigborhoods. I'd rather be delayed by the train instead of being run over or mugged.

When the weather is bad or I'm lazy, I walk about 0.8 of a mile and catch a bus that stops near my office. On extremely rare occasions I'll catch a ride with my son when he drives to the community college. I still have to walk almost a mile to get to work.

I myself have not operated a car for the purpose of getting to work but a handful of times in the last 2 years. In time I might go completely car free. Maybe.

'burbs to industrial to downtown (San Jose) to acres and acres of empty buildings. I have it all.

It'll be extremely difficult to do the whole 20-mile trek both ways each and every day. So I end up doing a bike-commute 2-3 times a week. Recently, more like 1-2 times a week, unfortunately, given a hectic work/family schedule. I'll also vary my path based on rides I can hitch with my family. I also occasionally take SJ's Light Rail system, especially in wintertime.

After six years of it, I've found that it is possible to weave bike-commuting into any lifestyle. It's a commitment for sure, but one I cannot see myself not doing.

I basically live above downtown Seattle. The ride in to work is only 4.23km and all downhill, so it doesn't really count. Sprinting uphill towards home at night counts though, and is very rewarding/fun. I have to go for 'recreational' rides to get any miles in (poor me, heh), and I definitely have to play it humble towards the car commuters at work, since 8km/day is not all that significant. I did finally help convince one other guy to ride to work from an inner suburb, 10k one-way, so now we have 4 cyclists out of 14 employees at our office. None of those are long-distance commuters, though.

Burbs to Urban here.
Starting in south San Jose, head north up Monterey Hwy (very busy), cut over to 7th St to the university through a light industrial area. The university is downtown at mile 7. I scoot over to 11th or 13th St and ride on relatively quiet residential streets for the next 4 miles. I cross over a main freeway to another light industrial area to my office at 11.5 miles.
Early morning start time, before 6:00 to beat the traffic. At this time there is very little wind or a light tailwind on a very flat commute. My afternoon ride home almost always has a tailwind from 5 - 15 mph. I feel like I'm cheating.
I ride about half of the time but I managed 3000 miles for each of the last two years.
Ride on!:)

I ride 13 miles from the suburbs to downtown Philadelphia. I transit middle-class working neighborhoods like mine, industrial districts, inner-city areas; I pass schools, oil refineries, cemetaries, neighborhood parks, the city trash dump, public housing projects, porn shops, stip malls, and miles and miles of rowhouses. The route is all street; no bike/multiuse paths. But some of the route has a diamond lane, for which I compete with buses, and there's actually a bike lane for a mile or so on one part of the route. The bulk of my commute is on 4-lane arterials.

It's actually a pretty good route, and I'm quite comfortable with it. Too many stop signs and lights, though (54 controlled intersections, last I counted).

RichC

15mi/25km each way, suburb to office park in the fringe of an urban core. Most of the route is reasonably safe and bicycle-friendly.

Fargo/Moorhead is barely 100,00 in population - a small urban area in the midst of an agricultural landscape. Currently a frozen tundra. The commute is not difficult out of town or for that matter in town. Would not consider it a bike friendly environment however.

The Gold Coast was originally a series of small towns that eventually grew into a "city", so there isn't really any "city centre" as such here (although Surfers Paradise likes to think it is). My commute is around 47km round trip, mainly with suburbia on one side, and the south Pacific on the other.

My 10 mile commute takes me from the burbs of Kirkland to the burbs of Woodinville. The thing that breaks up the heavy traffic is the 4 miles of the Burke Gilman Trail I can ride without the traffic.

This area is pretty bicycle friendly with bike lanes on most roads and bike trails, but very heavy traffic. I guess I have it better than most of you in the larger cities when it comes to traffic.

Ride safe, Pat

Some days my commute is from my bedroom to the studio next room over. Much as I'd love to bike it, it seems a bit extreme to ride ten feet. On the days I teach, I ride about four miles or so each way. I do much more riding running errands (picking up groceries, movies, the odd bottle of ink, etc., etc.) than I actually do "commuting", so I guess I'm a great fraud as a bike commuter. (Used to commute 20 miles round trip a day, tho). It's all pretty much urban riding, tho I pull down the better bike on nice days and haul out to the countryside or river or something.

My commute is approximately 40 miles round-trip. Mostly, it is congested, city traffic. I drive half way in, and ride a combo of city trails and busy, downtown streets. This isn't a particularly pleasant ride for me, although it is quicker and more economical (don't have to pay to park) than dealing with city rush hour traffic in an auto.

Mary Ann

I work in downtown Sacramento at the State Capitol. Sacto's got a fairly small downtown and it's not particularly hardcore urban. I ride in from Curtis Park, an older neighborhood southeast of downtown. Most of the ride is through residential areas until the last 10 blocks around the Capitol.

It's not far. Maybe 9 miles roundtrip, depending on the route. I like to mix it up.

My commute is 42 miles round trip, I usaully ride the bus home most days but twice a week I do the whole enchilada. I ride from the outskirts of the city of Mesa, through downtown out the other side of town, Past downtown Tempe and on to the other side of the city of Tempe. Tempe and Mesa are both part of the Pheonix metro area. Most of the cities here run together these days. The bus drivers always look at me funny when I get off because I am the one who gets on the bus at an early stop in the route and then ride it all the way to the end of the line! I am usually the only one left on the bus (which has standing room only much of the way)!

My 7 mile one way trip takes me from Suburbia to semi-rural and back to suburbia.

I live between Portsmouth and Southampton which are steadily growing into one mass via the towns in between, but there is still some fields keeping them apart

Got two different commutes. One is only 5 miles, one way, from the suburbs to an industrial park. The other goes right by the first and on out into the country, to an industrial park in the next town for a toatl of 17 miles, one way.. Not a bike lane to be found, but some very nice paved shoulders, one complete with a rumble strip just outside the white line. Got altenatives for both routes, with more mileage and some really nice country lanes.

Originally posted by Da Tinker
one complete with a rumble strip just outside the white line.

I've heard some not very nice things about rumble strips over there. How do you find them?

My 20 mile round trip commute starts on one end(suburbs) of town, through the city(some rough areas) along the river(faster traffic but a marked bike lane overgrown with weeds) and through an industrial park. I feel pretty safe in the city except for crossing the bridge on the way home the traffic is really bad.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11014

Here are some pictures of my commute. Most of it is well paved, and the areas that have much traffic have lanes wide enough for buses and bikes together. I dont ride in the winter (1 Dec - 1 Apr) because the Jacques Cartier bridge sidewalk is closed. There is a ground level crossing at the St Lawrence Seaway locks which is open from the end of Apr till the end of Sep, but it may involve waiting 45 mins for the ships to go through.

Originally posted by Chris L
I've heard some not very nice things about rumble strips over there. How do you find them?

The examples in my area are things of beauty. It looks like they take a cutter head with several blades side by side to make up something like a large dado cutter (for the woodworkers among you). Lowering this contraption into the blacktop of the shoulder cuts a scallop about 2 cm deep and 20-30 cm wide. By cutting these little hell holes every few inches the demons from the highway department give us cycling mortals a taste of what the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix and Flanders must be like. You quickly find out if you have any loose fillings in your teeth because they will be shaken loose. Every time I am forced to ride over these cursed things (which is not often, thank goodness) I fantasize about using the fiendish machine on the individual who came up with this idea.

My commute is 30 miles +/- round trip. I start out in Urban residential neighborhoods, then cross the river to downtown Portland, then over the hill to the suburb of Beaverton.

The suburban part is by far the worst for cycling, fortunately there is a route w/ bike lanes that will get me to work, but if I go run errands or wander off course it is pretty ugly.

Portland is a cyclist's dream. Even on rainy mornings I see at least a dozen other cyclists. Last night coming home from a friend's house I saw 6 other folks out riding at 11 pm.

Hmm. Well since I telecommute or I am out of town for work, my biking to work is maybe 1 to 2 times a week. I live in the City of Seattle (Greenwood area ) and commute in along the Greenwood/Dexter route ( Dexter derby! ) to my office downtown. The trip is about 6.42 miles or thereabouts one-way.

I commute 8-9 miles (depending on route) each way. I live outside the city limits and work within the city, which is a medium sized city in Maine. This means it is tiny compared to the rest of the cities around the world.

My commute starts out in the suburb of Nashville (Hermitage) to the country (Percy Priest Lake), and then back into the subrub (Antioch). It is 10.5 miles one way and takes between 35 and 45 minutes, depending on the traffic and the traffic lights.

for the last 2 years in Munich: i live in the city center (urban) and ride 11km x 2 to my office in the suburbs on the very edge of town - so half of my commute is through urban areas (a lot along the bike trail along the river) and then i ride through the suburbs (although suburbs in Germany are more dense than in the US)

for 3 years in Portland i lived in the urban area (NW 21/23 & Glisan) and had a 2mile x 2 commute through urban areas.

For 2 years in Houston i had a 4milex2 commute from near-downtown to downtown.

i despise suburbs and hope to never live in one again in my life - and i prefer to work downtown but if the job is good then i can tolerate working in the suburbs (as i do now)

BTW, I forgot to say that I am lucky enough to have a shower at work!

Originally posted by pletcgm
BTW, I forgot to say that I am lucky enough to have a shower at work!
Maybe it's others that are lucky you have a shower. ;)

Village to city through the suburbs, crossing one river estuary and one smaller river.

I commute from a northwest suburb of Minneapolis and work on the edge of downtown Minneapolis. My commute is 8-13 miles one way depending on my route. I travel through residentual, parkway and some warehouse district areas using mostly secondary roads and a few trails. The Twin City metro is fairly bike friendly with many bike route signs, paved shoulders, marked bike lanes, and many paved trails (allot of them they plow in the winter time). I feel very fortunite. I've been doing it for 22 years, it's a part of me and it gets better every year.