car is fastest, no contest.
By car, via interstate: 30-45 minutes, barring an accident/construction delay.
By car, via bikeable/alt highway: an hour, barring an accident/detour from interstate.
By bike: 2-3 hours.

This is one-way data.

Car commute is more than twice as fast: 7 minutes car vs 12-18 minutes bicycle (usually 15 min)depending on traffic signals. I live near a freeway on ramp & worked near an off ramp. Olympia does not have significant traffic on the freeway during my commute hours.

Well:

If I drive on the weekend (which I do if there is something emergent I forgot) it takes 15 min. + 30 s. to park in the 15 min. loading zone.

Most times that I drive on a weekday it takes 15 min. + 15-20 min. to find/pay/walk from parking.

The bike ride is a pretty consistent 45 minutes, although If I goof off downtown or get distracted by something shiny on the bike path it'll baloon to an hour.

However: the last dozen times I've driven (over the last year) I have run into traffic/accidents/construction/state fairs/ conventions etc... and it ended up being over an hour door to door.

I don't know if that stuff happens every day to the drivers where I work, but what are the odds that the dozen days out of 260 that I drive are the only ones that have traffic snarls?

Reading through the responses I am surprised by one thing: the lack of respondents saying that transit is the fastest. When I lived in suburban Toronto, the subway was always fastest between say 7 am and 9 pm, after that it was the car. Granted I was coming from a location close to the subway, and going to various downtown locations. However, my current residence in downtown Toronto, the subway beats car for any long trips, particularly at rush hour. I've taken transit to meetings/classes all over the city and it generally takes me about 50 min to take subway/bus/streetcar, regardless of destination.

Does no-one have a similar transit experience?

EDIT: This also counts for going to the airport - in fact I've made the airport by TTC in about 35 min relatively consistently and I can only match that in the middle of the night by car (maybe about 25 min by car from my location). I've even taken transit to the airport in Calgary - also relatively efficient from my location at about 50 min vs. 30 to 35 min by car (assuming no traffic).

3.5 miles from home to work
Bike: 15-20 minutes depending on light cycle. 25 minutes if bridge goes up.
Walk: Never tried it before, but I can usually walk 4 miles in an hour.
Car: When I had one, it would take 30 minutes. Parking took half of that time.
Bus: 35 minutes, which includes walk to bus stop, wait for bus, get off bus, and walk to office.

Bike wins.

I have four options-

1) Drive. It takes about 30 minutes. I'm lucky in that I have a freeway near my house that almost goes directly to work. It would also cost $20 a day by the time I paid for fuel, tolls and parking. If I stayed off the freeway, there would be almost nothing between riding and driving.

2) Ride. That takes about 50 minutes, and costs almost nothing.

3) Walk to the station, then train. Also around 50 minutes, but costs $10 a day in fares.

4) Drive to the station, then train. Around 40 minutes, and about $6 a day in fares (I drive to a further station thats in a cheaper fare zone).

Riding also means I don't have to worry about exercise, so it's well and truly worth it for me, even if it's a little longer than driving.

I actually find driver behaviour goes the other way in this city, it's just the whole bully factor. I remember one particular commute when four people tried to pick a fight with me in the space of 10 minutes. That said, my ability to change direction faster and cut through gridlock means that a bicycle is an effective means of avoiding trouble.

Here in Asheville, NC: I've found that, MAYBE with the exception of doing a point a/b across the entire town, bike beats transit every time. (This includes wait time.) The bus system here just ain't all that convenient.

car: 9 minutes
bus: ???
bike: 30-40 min depending on route

but the enjoyment factor on the bike is much more

I chose other, only because my commute varies pretty greatly.

In the era BC (before construction), my driving commute to work took maybe 20-30 minutes depending on traffic (12.5-13 miles). Now, DC (during construction), it takes the better part of a full hour no matter the time of day. Construction will continue through January-February.

If I take the partial bike commute (drive 3 miles to sports complex, then ride to work the remaining 10 miles), it takes nearly 10-15 minutes to drive (GASP!) and about 30 minutes to ride the rest of the way (25 minutes on my road bike). If I go the whole way by bike, it takes about the same amount of time, but is far less safe depending on the time of day and light conditions.

I ride my bike whenever possible these days; I have some better cold/wet weather gear, and it's really quite lovely. I've grown to not like driving much, despite an obsessive love for cars.

3.5 mile commute, 15 to 20 minutes by bike. Nice, flat, either a 4 lane road when I ride in at 5:00am or side roads when I ride home at 2:00pm.

When I do take the bus mid winter after a snow storm I have to wake up about 30 minutes earlier and I get there about the same time. Wll I did, because I haven't used the bus since I switched to starting at 5:30. The busses here don't run that early - I can ONLY get to work at 6:00 if I take the bus.

Walking takes about 1 hr, maybe 1.5. I have done it once or twice due to punctures/ice in the drive train/snow.

Car option is unavailable.

I also voted cycle ,as thats what i do , when the traffic is at its worst its about the same time, barring an accident that blocks off our harbour bridge or some other incident then the bike wins hands down.

When you commute to, from or both between home & work is it shorter in time, lenght or both? Or is it the same?

My commute is the about the same in distance, but longer by bike then by car. How ever I'd much rather commute by bike. I think you all understand why. If you'd like an explaination, by all means ask.

Shorter by car, 15ish min compared to 30ish by bike. Assuming no horrible weather or a bus full of dead children on the highway stalling things.

Distance is close to the same.

I have about 5 options for getting to work....


All are about the same distance was, as far as time wise, they probably rank like so:

Fastest
1) Bike
2) Taxi
far below this--
3) Train
4) Car (parking)
5) Bus.
Slowest

Almost equal in both time and distance. It's 4 miles by the most direct route; even in a car it's difficult to average more than 17 mph because of traffic and stoplights.

20 miles by pick-em-up truck via mostly freeway, takes about 20-30 minutes, though when there is an accident or a snow storm it can take over an hour.

25 miles by bike via country roads, takes anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours, depending upon the lights, the wind and how I feel.

In the winter, or sometimes when I need a rest day, I split between the truck and the bike, driving to one of two Cuyahoga Valley National Park trailheads, parking and riding the remaining 13 or 6.5 miles.

Public transportation really isn't an option for me.

14 miles by bike or car.

30 minutes in the car, most of the time chewed up getting to the highway, office is only five minutes off the freeway.

a little less than one hour by bike.

4 miles, you could almost walk that in a reasonable amount of time as well. Do you sometimes for some cross training?

This thread again

Fastest
1.car
2.train
3.bike
4.bus
Slowest

The car is twice as fast except if there's bad weather, constrution, overturned vehicles, dead babies, toxic waste spills, hijacked aircraft, alien invasions or zombies on the freeway. So far there haven't been any zombies (that I know of) so that one is pure speculation but I'm guessing things would pretty well grind to a halt.

I follow the same route to work that I would drive. I take a MUP on the way home that adds about a half mile. Generally it takes me 45 minutes in and an hour home by bike where as it takes 30 minutes in and 45 home by car.

Its pretty much the same 25 mile round trip.

according to the zombie survival guide, and world war Z, bicycle is by _far_ the best form of land transportation in case of zombie armageddon, second only to sailboat in overall transport.

I work in downtown Cincinnati, so it varies more by time of day--it is longer by bike in the morning, by about ten minutes (a 20 min. ride in the am vs. a 10 min. drive), and much shorter during rush hour (a 30 min. ride vs. a 45 min-to-an-hour drive).

Worth it? You bet.

11 km, about 30 minutes by bike and 25 minutes by car

6.75 miles either way. 10 minutes longer by bike in the morning, 5 minutes longer by bike in the afternoon.