Commuting - CNN hosts race: Car vs. Train vs. Bike

CNN has a story up on their site (http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/05/22/am.race.to.work.cnn)where three people race to work, one taking the train, one driving, and one biking.

I won't spoil who the winner is.

Wow... that was quite interesting.

Top Gear (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvlCwvrzsRg) recently held the same type of race across London, but added Jeremy Clarkson in a boat on the Thames. It's more entertaining. :)

Didn't watch CNN story. Did watch Top Gear race and I loved it. Those guys are great.

Wtf?!

I wonder what the background was.

Where were they commuting from, what time of day. I've been stuck in beltway traffic and that would play a huge role in how long it would take.

Yeah, the danger in these competitions is the exact parameters (start point, stop point, time of day, distance etc) play a huge part in who wins. If start and stop are near metro stations, that would almost certainly win. If the route follows a freeway that runs ok in the morning, easy for the car. The bike has the biggest advantage on short-medium trips that cut across major car thoroughfares, during heavy traffic.

It might be interesting to draw a map of a city with some defined end point, and colour in the city with different colours indicating the fastest method of transport to get there at some given time of day. There'd be a ring around the point of bike colour, lines out along the train lines of train colour, and the rest of car colour.

Steve

I want to know what tunnel the cyclist was using.

The result, though, is actually not that surprising to me.

We had one of these in Albany last week during Bike Week. Bikes beat the Smart Car by 6 minutes, and the bus by 30. Even the neon yellow tallbike and the Coker unicycle beat the Smart Car.

I made third overall, btw (first in wimmins).

Cute story--it was good they didn't take themselves too seriously since it was far from scientific.

Transportation Alternatives (http://www.transalt.org/) does this here every year - the bike always wins - which is a given in NYC.

Yeah. I don't know that they've done one of these in Boston but it generally takes a lot longer to get anywhere by car or public transit than it does by bike here. Maybe he was just a slow cyclist? :D

:lol:

Not bad. :) The important thing is that they all arrived relatively close to each other which emphasizes their point: Options. :D

exactly

Yeah. I don't know that they've done one of these in Boston but it generally takes a lot longer to get anywhere by car or public transit than it does by bike here. Maybe he was just a slow cyclist? :D

Like any city, it totally depends on where you are going and at what time (except in Boston, where the T is always the slowest :) ). Short to medium trips near downtown at rush hour are won by bikes, but if you want to go elsewhere then a car more often than not wins (now, finding a place to put it when you get there is another problem altogether :D ), which is why there are so many bloody cars in this town. Going from Brighton to East Somerville (as I often do to visit friends), which is only about 5 miles), is always faster by car barring a bridge collapse or a parade. This doesn't stop me from riding most places, but it is what stops most people from riding anywhere.

What a crappy news story- totally useless! They didn't even mention the parameters mentioned above (time of day, location of train station, etc), nor safety issues or stress of driving or cost of power bars or nothin!

I live in the DC area, and have timed my different ways to work before - 21 miles to Arlington, VA.

Car (w/carpooling/HOV) - 50 minutes
Car (cheating on HOV) 50 minutes, but risk a $500 ticket)
Car (non-HOV) 1:10-1:30
Car to Metro - 1:00
Car to bus to Metro - 1:10
Bus to Metro - 1:20
Bike - 1:15-1:20

So, bike isn't that much longer than the others, and is sometimes faster than the car by itself or other non-car options.

On my completely rural commute, it's like this:
Car to work: 35 minutes
Bike to work: 1 hour
Car to home: 35 minutes
Bike to home: 50 minutes (it's downhill)

But, considering all the other differences between the two forms of transportation, my question is: who cares?

I don't think that the story took place on a business day. The streets and trains were nearly deserted.

I don't think that the story took place on a business day. The streets and trains were nearly deserted.
+1 Exactly. The roads in DC looked empty as did the seats on the train.

But, considering all the other differences between the two forms of transportation, my question is: who cares?

A lot of people who dismiss the idea of bike commuting say that it takes too long. They're probably not going to try it themselves, either, but if they see bike commuters who get there quickly enough, they might change their minds.

Of course, many of these people will also believe what they see on TV over what their cyclist coworkers tell them. But, that may be because the TV cameras get to follow the biker on the trip, getting an "in-person" view of the experience.


+1 Exactly. The roads in DC looked empty as did the seats on the train.

+2 No kidding, that was definitely not rush hour.

Was that even a weekday??? Please!!!

+2 No kidding, that was definitely not rush hour.

+1 One of 'em said that they arrived after 9am, 9:15am, I think.


My 8.5mi (by bike) commute from Fayetteville/NC-54 to Durham VAMC (near Duke MC):

CAR: ~20min drive (+ eat breakfast while driving) + 5-10min from garage to office = 25-30min

BIKE: 40-45min ride, door to door + 10min eating breakfast while prepping gear + 10-15min wash/change clothes = 60-70min

So bike is longer, but I get good exercise and respect of peers!

that was at the level of quality that i expect from CNN.

What a crappy news story- totally useless! They didn't even mention the parameters mentioned above (time of day, location of train station, etc), nor safety issues or stress of driving or cost of power bars or nothin!

Remember, This story was aimed at the general public who, for now, sees all in "car terms".

Ya gotta spoon feed the idea of biking as a valid transport method to the public....slowly.

I live in a very car centric town, but the traffic can be rough. It takes me about 15-20 minutes to get to work by bike (unless I really hustle) or at least 7 minutes by car. And the car route is just over a mile, while the bike route is nearly 3. By car it takes at least 4 minutes to get home from the grocery store. By bike it takes 4.5 to 5 minutes, and is more consistent because I don't have to wait for traffic as much. From the bank it takes 5 to 6 minutes by car, and 7 or 8 by bike. LBS to home: 14 minutes by car, 19 by bike. Keep in mind this isn't in a large city like NYC, this is a fairly typical spread-out Southern city with 100,000 people. And my times aren't at rush hour, either. What I'm getting at is, remove the train from the picture and this "race" seems to be somewhat in line with my experience. The car is slightly faster in most cases but, to me, not worth it. ;)

Had a friend of mine participate in one of these held in Nashville this year. They do it every year. He commutes 50 miles everyday on a 46x16 single speed old Ross steelframe in heavy urban traffic. And is a formerly 'sponsored' road-TT guy. It wasn't even close. It was a 8 mile race. He beat everyone by 6 mins. He rode his aluminum frame/carbon fork road bike w/campy comps. They interviewed him for about 2 mins on the news, which is a phenomenal amount of airtime during a local broadcast. He's got a copy of it on his myspace page...I'll try to get him to 'youtube' it. We laughed about the fact that he almost didn't break a sweat. He's really a humble guy w/a heart for cycling in general and commuting in particular.

A simplistic and one dimensional report. Many car & train commuters also will spend 45 minutes at the Gym and another 25 minutes coming and going. If they are not at the gym, they risk health issues.

The bike commuter can stay fit without the treadmill and the extra time involved.

Michael

Actually they re-ran this story on TV just today, but with extra footage. One totally key omission that they failed to mention on the online version was that the bike guy had technical problems with his camera and the backpack helmet cam. He said they had to keep stopping to fix it and he guessed that it probably added about 30 minutes to his commute time!

I saw something on the BBC show, "Top Gear" it was a rush hour race through central london between a speed boat, car and bicycle. The bicycle beat the speed boat by 20 minutes, the speed boat beet the car. The hosts hated that the bike won and tried to do joke lies about it. This is all the web site says-

Episode 5



The hosts organize a race across the traffic-filled streets of central London during rush-hour. Jeremy drives the insanely fast new Caparo T1 and Simon Cowell returns to try yet another go around the track.

Premieres Monday, March 24th at 8 pm ET/PT.

Their little comparison was short on details, but from the few details the woman let slip we know they were travelling from the relatively close-in suburb of Bethesda MD to the CNN bureau in downtown DC. Part of this route is my daily commute so I would guess the distance is roughly 15 miles. Since the woman on the train observes that it is after 9AM, we can assume post rush hour which certianly helps reduce traffic on major arterials and hassles on the Metro.

(The tunnel the biker rides through is on the Capitol Crescent Trail and goes under Wisconsin Ave and 2 buildings). I must say I am not sure that the bike rider took the shortest route since we see him riding under the Whitehurst Freeway in Georgetown. That means that he came down the far western edge of the city to then cut across the city for a location almost dead center in DC. This route does afford the nicest ride on a bike trail separated from cars, but probably adds extra miles. He could have ridden down Connecticut Ave as the car driver did or taken Rock Creek parkway or even have ridden east on the Capital Crescent Trail then into Silver Spring and down Georgia Ave -- all of which would cut some miles. Those routes also mean contending with cars and other traffic issues.

So its good they point out options, but more detail would have been helpful for people to make real comparisons. Its great to get people thinking about bike commuting, but we need to do it on good information.

CNN has a story up on their site (http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/05/22/am.race.to.work.cnn)where three people race to work, one taking the train, one driving, and one biking.

I won't spoil who the winner is.

I noticed that they commuted about 9am. Something tells me that had they done with the idea of arriving at 8am as do most commuters, that traffic might thwarted the motorist, and changing the time by a few minutes could have put the metro rider completely out of the running as they wait for the train. I feel that the results can be easily manipulated, save for cost.

I came across another bike to work vid on CNN today

http://money.cnn.com/video/#/video/news/2008/05/16/news.chernoff.bike.work.cnnmoney

Bethesda Train Station to CNN headquarters (one of their 3 offices in DC, I assume this is the right one):

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=&saddr=bethesda+metro+station&daddr=820+1st+St+NE,+Washington,+DC&sll=38.991142,-77.038314&sspn=0.223083,0.458679&ie=UTF8&z=12

The bottom line is that you have options, but how much did it cost? The bicyclist - $0

Yeah,cyclist was a goof. Bethesda to Georgetown,sure,use the CCT. But to downtown,Wisc->Mass->to downtown. That dude would never survive as a messenger.

Car driver was def lucky it was a weekend. Conn is one of the major arteries and can get jammed up real easy. And there's no freakin way he'd a gone through Dupont Circle without getting jammed up. Not during the week.

Metro lady had to have timed it to where the train was about to pull in. And note that she stayed on the red line. If she'd needed to switch lines,it would've added alot to the time.

Didn't look like there was hardly any traffic. Is 9:15 kind of a late commute time there? It certainly is out here in the midwest. 8:30 and you've got traffic, 8:45 and it's dead.

It was cute, but it might have been more interesting had they picked a dozen trips (start/stop points) and a few times of day and done all of the permutations. But hey, it's the US News media. Doing a complete report would just confuse the viewers.

I did a virtual bus vs bike race on Bike to Work Day. Half way across the county I live in. It took me 2:34 to get from Healdsburg to the Transit mall in Petaluma, some 32 miles. The scheduled buses at that time in the morning would have taken 2:37 with one required transfer and no delays enroute. A car on the 101 freeway would have done it in under an hour. If I had skipped all eight Energizer stations on the route I could have cut 20+ minutes off of the time.

I think they set this up so the car would win, and the bike would lose. Can you imagine how much fuel would be saved if everybody rode their bike just to work? The next time you are out riding around and you stop at a traffic light. Look at how many cars are sitting with the engines running. That is just one stoplight in one town! I do believe there is a conspiracy when it comes to transportation. Why are we still using fossil fuel? I am not an engineer, but when I look at water I see HYDROGEN AND OXYGEN.....?

Long Beach, 4 mile commute to Cal State Long Beach Campus

CAR + SKATEBOARD: 8 minutes to reach campus, park off-campus, 10 min to skate from car to class: 18
BIKE: 18 minutes to reach campus; 4 minutes to park and lock up: 22 min.

Totally worth it.

My 15'ish mile commute from Southern Brooklyn to Midtown Manhattan:

Train: 3 min walk + 45-60'ish min (single express train straight to my office building) = usually under 60 minutes
Bike: 50-60'ish min + 10 min shower and change = slightly over 60 minutes
Drive: forgetaboutit

here's (http://www.myfoxny.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=6651658&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1) NYC's version from this morning.....surprise surprise.....

Top Gear (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvlCwvrzsRg) recently held the same type of race across London, but added Jeremy Clarkson in a boat on the Thames. It's more entertaining. :)

I remember that! It was CLASS!!!

Thats part of my commute. Bethesda to downtown arlington is about 12miles.But its not a direct route to downtown d.c. Connecticut is much more direct, but a parking lot most of the time. Sometimes it has freak days in which the traffic actually flows. Once you are deep into d.c. the traffic actually gets better not worse.

The cyclist took the car free route which is the best.

I did almost that precise commute when I interned in D.C. It's too easy to stand in as the typical urban car commute or even the typical D.C. car commute. It's close in, you don't have to touch a freeway and your train shot is a snap with no changes. I wasn't a bicyclist back then but I imagine the train would kill on that commute most days. A car is going to win only if Connecticut Ave. is moving, which did happen sometimes, though this was years ago. Coming from a city with virtually no mass transit I tried to drive in at first, but once I got used to the train the car never left Maryland. The D.C. Metro is a marvel.

My mid-sized-city commute these days is 18 minutes by bike, 20 minutes by car and 24 by bus. The car would win if the parking ramp were closer to my office.

I like the fact that they all started at the same place. However to make it more interesting they should have started at 7am when they would have hit normal commuting traffic. Keep in mind the driver said that traffic was lighter then he was used to and the train rider said it wasn't that busy. I have raced a friend and her family from my work to lunch before. We all left the front door at the same time and I beat them the 3-4 mile trip. Granted she did have 4 kids to load up in the huge Expedition. But from door to door I beat em by like 1 min.