tjspiel

Before I commuted on a bike regularly and before the first light rail line was operational I took the bus. I had my choice of an express bus or a "limited stop" bus. They were both fairly reliable but probably took a good 10 minutes longer than biking, - at least in the summer.

The light rail is relatively fast and dependable but the closest station to me is about a mile from my house. It's a good backup to riding when a major snow storm makes riding too impractical.

One thing I do miss about taking public transit is that I'd have a lot of busy work done by the time I got into the office, - dealing with emails, going over documents, honing presentations, etc.

noglider 

@Steely Dan, I know what you mean. It's especially true when your distance is three to seven miles. The bike beats transit. Long ago, I had a three mile commute from Boston to Cambridge. Easy. On snowy or icy days, I didn't want to die, so I took the trolley and the subway. I had to take a big V shaped route, put up with crowds, and spend more time. Ride whenever you can.

Now my 13 mile commute is different. It's straight on either bike or train, and there's no way I can ride faster than the train. I can, however, make the trip in the same time. So I can take either mode without concern over time. I take the subway about thrice a week and ride the bike twice a week. I can relax and read on the subway, and that's fine.

Walter S

On average my one way commute of 20 miles by bicycle can be done in 45 minutes (and 15 miles) by car. On my bicycle it will be 1:20. So the car is a little faster. But the bicycle ride is so much more predictable. Traffic jams matter so much less. I might be three minutes later to work. In the car it might be two hours.

Miele Man

In Toronto I could easily get from Greenwood and Oconnor to Markham and Eglington in under 25 minutes. I could get from Braodview and Dundas to just past Finch and Dufferin MUCH Faster than by transit.

Bicycle transit gives you the choice of routes, lack of crowding and a seat from door to door.

Where I am now it's only buses and most of the routes are "Great Circle ROutes" that take forever. I ONLY use my bicycle here as it's so much faster. I even use the bicycle for inter-city travel because it's faster to get to the nearby sities by bicycle than it is by bus when you consider the time taken to get to the terminal, wait for the bus, the trip and the time to gert from the destination terminal to the actual destination - plus it's a very nice ride through the countryside. I'm 65 in 2016.

Cheers

GovernorSilver

My boss started biking to work because he got fed up with the DC Metro's fare hikes - and our workplace moving a bit further away from his home. He was one of my inspirations to learn how to ride a bike, then start bike commuting myself.

Here in DC we're so used to complaining about our Metro system (eg. the Unsuck DC Metro blog) that we tend to assume other cities like Chicago and NYC have better public transit. Might be a "grass is greener on the other side" thing. I am fortunate to live close to a Metro train station. It takes me 20 min. more to commute by bike vs. by Metro. The Metro bus experience varies by route - the buses that get to use the HOV (min. 2 person/vehicle) can provide faster transport than regular cars, which are mostly driven without passengers, and of course some routes have greater frequency than others (bus every 10 min. vs. every 60 min.).

I've had Metro commuting days that left me looking forward to my next bike commute day for sure. When I ride the train to work, I have to transfer from one of the most reliable lines to the most troubled one (Red Line) , which has had more delays due to equipment/track malfunctions as well as the infamous "crash while texting" accident.

Steely Dan

that would be my guess, because when i've visited DC i've always been impressed with how awesome the metro seems to be in comparison to the el.

but when you use a transit system on a regular basis, you become more aware of all of its flaws.

my biggest gripe with chicago's el isn't the system itself, it's the wild inconsistency with which it's operated. on a good day, it could be 30 minutes to take the train to work. on a bad day, it could be 45 minutes. on a really bad day (like last thursday) it could be damn near an hour. it's hard to schedule a morning where you have a kid to drop off at school and a place of employment that wants you there at a certain time when you have this 30 minute black hole of time that there is just no way to account for in any predictable fashion. it's a complete dice-roll and it's annoying.

GovernorSilver

Gotcha.

I've been late to work because of an unexpected Metro event maybe a handful of times a year - usually a Red Line malfunction of some sort or a sick customer (all it takes is one "sick" person to cause an entire train to unload all its passengers). The Metro folks try to post alerts on delays like that on the WMATA website and the official DC Rider IOS app, as well as advisories on planned work that will impact service. I gradually developed the habit of checking the WMATA site on my iPhone before transferring to Red Line - if there's a delay on the Red Line I get off at a different station and walk 15 min. to the office.

Sometimes I wish the Metro could run 24 hrs like NYC's subway but their finances won't allow it.

gaucho777 

+1. I commute between Berkeley and Oakland, which is intersected the main arteries to the SF Bay Bridge. It's about 7.5 miles each way and takes me ~25 minutes by bike. During rush hour, especially on Friday evenings, it's easily a 45-minute or longer commute by car.

metro2005

I have the same experience. Doesnt really matter where i go but as long as its within a 15 mile radius i can bike as fast or faster then when i use public transport.
Waiting for the train or bus to show up usually messes up the total travel time. If i go to work with the subway the waiting takes about as long as the journey itself takes.

During rush hour i can even bike the 15 miles faster to work then driving my car

SHBR

Public transportation is like flipping a coin, depends mostly on your luck. The buses are the most unpredictable, I've somehow managed to miss three buses that were following each other, and waited almost 40 minutes for the next one. The longest I have ever waited for a subway train is 15 minutes, and that was because of a malfunction, the major lines run at 2 minute intervals or less. Commuting by bicycle is more consistent in terms of time, however it is not always the quickest most efficient way to travel. A major mechanical problem or an accident can easily offset any time advantage. I usually give myself 30 minutes extra to allow for any such mishap, often resulting in 30 minutes of time to kill at my destination.

crankythunder

I live in Lansing Michigan and use the CATA Bus system quite a bit.

It works really good although usually it takes longer then bicycling.

I have a truck so I use that when going anyplace of distance from home.

If I have to go any distance from work, I take the CATA bus.


As a transportation engineer, I sympathize with the posters seeing three buses in a row but there is little that can be done to prevent that.

When the bus leaves the station, the one that gets caught with the rush hour is slowed down by the sudden influx of passengers.

That allows bus #2 & #3 to catch up because they have less passenger drops and their driving by empty bus stops already cleaned by the first bus. Unfortunately, skipping stops so that they can be serviced by the second or third bus does not work well for public opinion and also that there are few bus stops that do not need riders left off. If bus passengers came in a constant flow we could account for that but the randomness of riders is difficult to engineer.

Regards,
Crankster.