I've never been on inline skates, so this is a skewed take on the subject.
I commuted by skateboard for 15+ years. I would ride about a mile from the house to the bus stop. When I got downtown, I'd skate another four miles to the office.
It is much easier to hop a bus or train with a skateboard than a bike. However, after bicycle commuting for the last two years, I've only ridden my board to work once. All I could think about while I was pushing it down the street was, "This is SO much less efficient then riding a bike."

FROOT BOOTS!!! Sorry, couldn't help myself.

I paced an in-line skater on the BWI trail once and he was doing 15mph, not a bad pace and it would put many cyclists to shame. The major problem with in-line skates is in many places they are considered play vehicles so you can’t use them on the road. But I found a legal brief that was successfully used to counter a ticket. So if you are going to commute on skates and they are play vehicle in your state I would go looking for that brief or ask me to go looking for it.

"It'd be nice if you could pull me into town"

I skated to a pub yesterday.

3 miles. Fun and legitimate transportation.

I haven't had functional inline skates in almost ten years, but I have seen people on skates with the right skillz and equipment handle all the averse conditions mentioned. Except maybe snow, but I'm sure someone has tried it.

Bigger-wheel race skates are ridiculously fast.

To call them toys rather than transportation smells like something I hear motorists say of us.

Good point. Anything human powered is more desirable than a car to me.

For kicks I used to skate into Boston from one of the suburbs (Chestnut Hill) on old Rollerblade Lightnings. That involved a lot of curb-jumping, pothole avoidance, and just plain street craziness. No rear brake either; I wore out a lot of wheels power-sliding and toe-dragging. Hardest/scariest part was negotiating a traffic rotary with no sidewalk. Commuting in the city was easy compared to that.

I've just GOT to ad my 4 cents worth here!

When I lived in Sacramento, I skated EVERYWHERE!
Granted, I skated on what are now called "quads".
As for skates being TOYS, you must be joking!
The pair in the picture cost me $325 in 1981! And I still have them! (this is a recent picture)
But that's my downhill pair. On which I have hit a top speed of 62 mph.
I know, some of you are saying to yourself..BS!
Well, you don't know me very well then!
I regularly went over 50 on my favorite descents.
And skating quads in the rain on downhills is like skiing.
I can also ride a bike with my skates on (they have lappers AND copers!)
I can also scale chainlink fences, run right up stairs and jump off of them.
I can also skate backwards at 30 mph, which means that I can use the toe-stops the way they were meant to be used, going backwards.
IMO, skates are the ultimate urban transportation. And bus drivers usually let us on the bus if we removed just one skate. Sure, we also got 86ed from many places, but that was always half the fun!
I even worked (in skates) as a "courtesy clerk" at an Albertson's.
My stint there was summed up by one mom who's kids I was entertaining with my skating as I pushed their cart to their car..."ya know, every elementary schoolkids mom knows about you".
I think that was the General Managers intent!

SKATES RULE, BICYCLES..er, ..um are COOL, too.

Get some quads and shred the Cal campus!

Anything is probably possible. But we are talking mad skillz here. And you'll be going through wheels like crazy...

But more power to skaters! As long as it's human-powered, it's damn cool.

Not to disrespect quads, I shredded on them up until inline skates came along, but inlines are so much faster. We used to power-slide the old clay wheels when we played hockey. I even played against a guy who used them for inline hockey but he was easily the slowest and least maneuverable player out there.

I don't have mad skillz but I have hung out on some night skates in Boston. Now those guys and gals were truly crazy. Like rail-grinding, frame-breaking, sparks-flying, straight-down-stairs, car-jumping crazy.

It's good to hear from some skaters on here. I didn't learn to ride a bike until last year (at 19 years old), so I grew up inline skating--nothing serious, just for recreation. I bought a cheap pair of Rollerblades from Goodwill a few months ago, and rolling evokes a certain feeling in me, like I'm sure biking does for those people who grew up riding bikes.

And, actually, I'm still debating which sport to pursue more seriously (in the form of monetary investment and time). In case you can't tell, I'm the kind of person that likes to research and think about anything I'm about to try--for better or worse.

I'm a pretty avid skater, but I find that having both is ideal if you're gonna go entirely human powered. Bikes are more versatile with less-than-ideal terrain and inclement weather (but if you're prepared correctly, skating in the rain can be a blast!), and skating has a MUCH steeper learning curve. Also, skating takes approximately twice as much physical effort per mile, and for most people a bike is about 20% faster. That said, my usual skate session is around twenty miles and is so much more fun than anything I ever do on a bike.

There are upsides to doing both, however... mostly the same clothing, helmets, lights, etc., you're already intimately familiar with the pros and cons of all the roads in your area, and you can always throw your skates in your panniers.

Back at Ohio U, I used to skate all the time. Never for transportation reasons, though. We just used to like going out and hitting the curbs and handrails around campus. We would put in about 5 to 7 miles just rolling from one spot to the next, over blacktop, concrete, streets, sidewalks, even a few sections of bricks and stairs.
You can use skates as transportation, but you have to figure on carrying shoes for when you get where you're going. Either that or a set of wheel guards you can clomp around in when you have to go inside. The other things to figure is that the hard durometer of the wheels makes them very prone to slipping when it's wet out. It really sucks to skate in the rain.

I don't see how inline skating can be effective if you have to transport something. Go with a bicycle.

Tell that to the guy who pulls people with a rickshaw. I don't see blades as a viable transportation method. Sure... people do that race but that is not typical.

Ditto!

I use the bike to commute, but will rollerblade 8 to 20 miles a week.

Rollerblading requires well developed skills and are not easily stopped in an emergency. However rollerblades never get flats and can be carried into the building. Storage & theft are non-issues.

Do both.

Michael

So your left skate is in love with another left skate? That can be awkward.

15 month old thread. Awesome!

On a similar thread there is also the Xsjado (Shadow) brand. Similar idea, though geared for the more aggressive skater.