Sorry about that. It got screwed up in editing. The Op never mentioned where he lives and I meant to list the Puget sound area as the kind of place where there are land routes or a ferry. I figured that since you lived there you could imagine the possibilities.

Obviously it would be hard to go around the direct crossing and come out ahead, but hypothetically one may live or work away from the ferry on either leg, in the direction of the land route. Ie. live on Bainbridge Island, and work at Sea-Tac (though that distance is probably too long for a bike commute.

By example, here in NYC, one may live up near the GW bridge and work across the river near the ferry, or even between the bridge and ferry. So it's very possible that the routes are roughly equal in distance, and a decent cyclist can easily beat the ferry/bus combination.