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Originally Posted by
MMACH 5
I take the bus almost every morning. I live 26 miles from my office. That's two hours by bus and train. It's one hour, fifteen minutes by car. Most afternoons, it's about the same, but sometimes I opt to ride my bike the whole way.
I keep all of my bus schedules on my phone, so that I know if I will catch my bus or train. Sometimes, I have to hoof it up the road and intercept them at a later stop.
Originally Posted by
PaulRivers
But that's an excellent example of what I'm saying at almost twice as long for the bus and train. And I feel like you might have left off the additional time:
- Walking to the stop
- Waiting for the bus
- Driving to the bus station (maybe but it is in my case)
- Walking from the stop to work (may or may not apply as it depends on how far you'd walk if you came by car)
It's 10 minutes for me to get to the bus station, parked, and standing at the stop. I gotta get there another 5-10 minutes early as a buffer, so there's 15 minutes total. I have to drive 5 minutes the wrong way towards the nearest station so that's about 10 minutes of drive time so we're up to 25 extra minutes...not all of these apply to everyone but my bus at least goes straight downtown.
The last place I worked wasn't downtown so it was like 20 minutes to drive vs 01:50 on a bus. (So I drove).
When I commute by bike, I have two basic options:
- cycle 14 miles to work in about 1:15-1:30, leaving on my own schedule
- ride to the train station about two miles from home, take the train to a stop about 4 miles from work, and cycle in for about one half hour.
Just prior to reading the above post (on Tuesday, 9/25), I deliberated about my options. I’m not on the timeclock but I like to get in as early as possible. That early morning time is very important to me to get a jumpstart on the day, before the business and interruptions as the others arrive around 8:00 AM.
The train shortcut forces me to leave on a schedule (leave house no later than 5:15 AM), or dawdle and do the full ride at my convenience (trying to leave by about 5 AM for the same arrival time). Since I ride for fitness, the full ride is more beneficial but at that time of the morning, a shortened ride beckons.
That morning I considered the drawbacks of the train shortcut, similar to those listed by [MENTION=131376]PaulRivers[/MENTION] (a hardy Minnesotan year-round cyclist, I believe). It’s an intermittent, interrupted journey: cycle two miles to the train station, early enough not to miss, wait for the train, ride the train, get off, walk through the station (with bathroon stop and drink of water), then cycle the four miles to work and arrive about 6:30 AM.
It just seems that it’s too disjointed with wasted time, and not much physical excercise, whereas the 14 mile ride is a smooth uninterrupted (and pleasant) route, but I usually arrive about 7-7:30 AM. As noted above even that short early AM time is important to me.
BTW, a third option with/or without the bike is get to the train station by bike(leave home by about 6:30 AM), or subway (leave about 6 AM) for the 6:50 train on a different rail line that goes directly to my workplace by about 7:15 AM at the earliest with about a 200 yard distance to work.
I once posted a graph to compare my three modalities of commuting:
Originally Posted by
wphamilton
You're implying that the "bike commuting" population may be self-selected more due to the local environment than for particular health/fitness reasons. That's a good, valid point in my opinion.
Well said. I have frequently posted:
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
…And I cycle a nice distance of at least 14 miles through one of America’s most charming, interesting, and historic metropolises on residential and light commercial roads (and partially on a bikepath in a park) in the reverse commuter direction early in the morning, during all four (pleasant to tolerable) seasons.
For training purposes, I can expand my routes to encompass popular high-level cycling outer suburbs
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
And I have equally pleasant driving and mass transit alternatives…Sometime ago I tried to schematically diagram the comparisons between my three transportation modes:
Overall Satisfaction:
BIKE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>TRAIN>>>CAR
Intensity of Focus:
BIKE>>>CAR>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>TRAIN
Convenience:
CAR>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>BIKE>>TRAIN
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
I often tout Boston as the epitome of LCF/LCL [Living Car Free / Car Light] in America, not to brag, but illustrate the possibilities…
Location, location, location
Last edited by Jim from Boston; 09-27-18 at 06:31 AM.