As it turns out it doesn’t actually cost that much on regular transit, there’s an AIRPORT SURCHARGE because it’s an “airport train”.
No wonder Americans don’t use public transit, even when the system exists it’s ridiculously difficult and expensive to use.
Here is my daily commute to work:
The Public Transit option is literally greyed out, and Google goes “lmao get a fucking car, peasant.”
If I were going to minimize my car usage and strictly use public transit, it would be a ~20 minute bike ride (in the opposite direction of where I work) to the nearest bus station, to get to a public transit service that doesn’t even cover where I work. Then I’d take a bus to a train station, and ride it south through two cities. Then I’d make a transfer to a northern line, and ride it back north through those same two cities (and a third additional city) in order to get near another rail line. Then it would be another ~20 minute bike ride to transfer from one rail system to another, because the public transit in the southern cities doesn’t service the city where I work. Once I’m transferred to the service that covers where I work, it’s another ~20 minute rail ride, followed by a ~10 minute bike ride after getting off the train.
All in all, it would be about 2.5 hours of public transit riding, (and about an hour of riding my bike in +100°F/38°C weather), just to avoid driving 10 minutes. It would also require maintaining two separate transit passes, because the southern and northern transit systems don’t work with one another. Yeah, it’s no wonder I take my car to work.
10 minutes by car but 53 minutes by bike?? Do you live literally on the autobahn?
A lot of roads arent bike legal in America
I’m guessing the trains are in kind of a hub/spoke design and they live and work on different spokes which the transit system isn’t designed to accommodate
That’s why I said bike, not trains 😅
I can read! Honest!
Might be better getting a moped/motorcycle and taking the car route. It’s more environmentally friendly than the car, anyway, but it doesn’t take your entire day away from you.
That car route is likely on an interstate that mopeds can’t ride on. Motorcycle is ok, but again, safety is a concern for a lot of people on an interstate.
Likely an alternative side road route but depending on the place that could literally be twice as long with all the red lights you hit on the stroads.
it’s great that it is more environmentally friendly but it is not worth the risk to your life
May I ask how car is 10 minutes and bike 53? And walk over 2 hours? I ride the electric bike to work and it’s about 10 minutes ride, vs 4 minutes by car, so roughly double. 20 minute walk, not brisk. It’s hot here too, that’s part of why I got the electronic bike, walking was making me arrive sweaty.
American roads rarely have sidewalks. You have to have a different route entirely.
Depending on state, you may need to defeat varying regional wildlife (at least one full game with multiple generous DLCs, spanning the US) in order to complete the journey, and this does accrue XP as one might expect.
It does also produce players attached to min-maxed builds to adhere to one or another strategy, so play the meta-game carefully.
70 MPH via car, vs… What, like 15 MPH on a bike? Also, there’s no way I’m riding my bike on a 70 MPH highway; I’d have to take a different (much longer) route entirely, just to avoid getting killed by a truck.
You drive 70mph to work? Your home and work are both right off a highway? Then car seems efficient as heck, I would drive too.
That map is just so weird. There is no road next to the highway? Like, why does that transit loop exist if there’s nothing in the middle of that circle, or around the outside of it?
Correct, there’s no side road, sidewalk, bike path, or shoulder on the highway. It’s just a two-lane highway that cuts through an otherwise barren area. There’s a gas station near me, and a gas station near my work. Aside from that, there’s just a few warehouses. That openness also means there’s zero shade if I wanted to ride my bike.
The routes are usually different for biking, walking, and driving. The speeds on the highway are also often several times the rate of speed you’ll be able to achieve on an e-bike and certainly much higher than you’ll be able to achieve on a manual bike.
How many minutes would it be to cycle to work?
It’s written on their gmaps screenshot: 53 mins.
Also worth noting that the listed bike route requires riding on a 70MPH highway, which doesn’t have a shoulder, sidewalk, side street, or bike path. If I were going to avoid that highway, (because let’s be real, I’d be dead on day 1 after being hit by a car,) then it would be about two hours of cycling.
I live within a very reasonable distance of work. But there is literally no safe route to get there. Not even a longer alternate route, just no way to get there without a significantly hazardous stretch of road. Riding that as a one-off would be one thing, but riding it 240 (give or take) round trips per year for years on end are not odds that I am interested in taking.
I would love to cycle to work, which would both help the environment and improve my physical health with some much needed exercise.
I do intentionally only live within a short distance of the bus, always, and am lucky my work moved really close to where I live. Couple reasons biking to work for me is not much longer than driving - traffic is heavy so car travel can be slow. The sidewalk that stretches from near my house to work has few intersections so is reasonably safe, if there are not many pedestrians I take that, if there are, I go a block off the main road down the side road.
On the sidewalk I’m often riding past stationary cars, my coworkers see me pass them.
That’s inside the city though. The suburbs here are dire, house farms ringed by stroads.
There ARE times I have to walk the bike across a 6 lane road, going anywhere to the north of me I have to do that, it’s not like all the roads are reasonable. That 6 lane road has a bike lane but I wouldn’t dare. But the paths to work, grocery, yoga, my daily routes are ok.
As a counterpoint here is mine
Except way off peak it’s faster to take bart than drive (north berkeley to downtown SF). I usually take a trans bay bus when going to office (closer to my house) which is $6 one way. BART is like $8. (So round trip under $20). Vs driving is $8 for the bay bridge and then somewhere between $20 and $60 to park for the day (no free parking at my office).
I feel your pain.
When I was in college, it was a 2mile bike ride to campus from my office campus housing, conversely it was a 6h Transit ride on buses metros and all sorts of stuff. The lack of lockers ment carrying several bags to and from school on a bike, which sucked. I ended up driving cuz it was easier.
2 miles? I almost biked that far to my primary school.
If you need to transport stuff, just get bags, that fit on the side if your bike.
Seems to be more of a problem of your city or township having just crappy public transit systems. A problem that most cities, and nearly all townships, in America share.