This is my daily commute:
There’s literally no option for public transit, because I live near one rail system, and my work is near an entirely separate rail system. The two aren’t connected at all, so there’s no way for me to transition in between the two. Making a transfer between the two literally takes longer than simply walking to work, because the two closest stations are farther apart than where I live compared to my job.
What surprises me the most in yours and the OP is how much longer the walking and biking are comparatively. I picked a random spot 11min drive away from my house for comparison:
And I’m in the “countryside” of the Netherlands, no trains, trams or anything like this here and bus station is already like 10/15min walk.
I expect the public transit craziness but why is walking/biking that much more?
might be a highway for op with a higher speed limit
Well part of it is that my distance is actually closer to 10km, whereas yours is only 6.6km. It sucks that highways entrench the need for cars, but they’re also extremely fast when the roads are clear. I can drive 70Mi/h (~115km/h) almost the entire way from my apartment to my job. So the driving time is super short in comparison to anything else.
Ah yes of course that makes sense if 10 of those 11min are at highway speeds. Mine is smaller roads, first highway is maybe 15min drive away and speed limit is anyway 100km/h between 07:00/19:00.
Biking to work would be awesome if I didn’t hate biking in the sun or snow. Spring or Fall are nice biking seasons. Might move to a more bike friendly area, but luckily current commute is nil since I wfh.
First World:
Not quite comparable, because long distance, but for someone usually bouncing around Germany, the TGV network is kinda crazy. A bit envious after returning.
Like, the ICE is usually faster than driving, and I don’t have a car anyways, since I don’t really need one, but having a separate network for high speed rail means the French are just on another level.
That would be really fucking nice. I’m not joking. It takes me less than 15 minutes to drive to work, public transport doesn’t exist for me, and biking is terrifying because a long part of it is on a 55MPH rural highway with no shoulders or bike lanes.
I’ve taken to riding a motorcycle during the warm season instead. Far more enjoyable and nicer, even on a 49cc scooter (modded to reach 50+) or a 46 year-old Enduro bike.
More than twice as long as walking is impressive.
In my city at least, this happens because a lot of the bus routes are one way in the morning / afternoon (into or out of the city) so if you want to take a bus out of the city/downtown in the morning, it ends up being a mess.
Could also easily happen in a system that’s entirely hub and spoke without any lines that meaningfully cross each other, particularly if buses come 30+ minutes apart. So, going to a neighborhood that’s not between your location and city center can take forever speaking from experience.
My guess is because it doesn’t have a direct line to the destination, so you need to go all the way down to a station and make a bus swap to come back.
Like imagine you need to go two blocks south, from First Street to Third Street. But there’s no bus that goes north/south. So you go fifteen blocks east on First Street to the station, wait for your next bus, then come back another fifteen blocks west on Third Street in a new bus. Or you could just walk the two blocks south.
Gotta be Atlanta
Driving was one of the first scamcriptions. I thought I had escaped by bike. I lasted 4 years of full time commuting before the horror film level infrastructure disabled me crossing paths with a third grade equivalent competency person.
Two hours and forty-four minutes of transfers between buses instead of eight minutes of driving like Automobile Jesus intended? Blasphemy, I say.
