Let me start off by saying how much I love my car. It’s not the car I love it is the ease of having a car that I love. I have always thought it would be a good idea to ride public transportation or my bike, but I have never been able to make myself do it. With the Clear the Air Challenge I thought it would be a good time to start. (You can find out more about this challenge here.)
The last couple of days I have been researching how I was going to get to work. I found out times and locations and what the best way was going to be. I found out that I needed to be at the bus stop at 6:40 am to be to work by 8.
So, it all started at 6:25 this morning when I left my house. I got to the stop early, and it was a good thing I did. The bus arrived 4 minutes early. It was a smooth ride to the Trax(light rail train) station. I am lucky to have a limited stop express bus that I can ride to the Trax station. As the bus was pulling up to the station the train was just leaving, so I got to wait around for 10 or so minutes till the next one.
Trax was great. It was nice to be able to get on the train and not worry about driving. I will be able to get some work done in the morning, read or just listen to some music on the ride. When I got to my stop I had a half mile walk to work but it wasn’t bad.
All in all, it worked pretty well. It took 1 hour and 17 minutes from the time I left home, to the time I got to work. It also took exactly the same time to get home. I arrived to work about 20 minutes early today, so I plan to leave my house a bit later tomorrow; we’ll see how it goes. I will be updating my adventures of not using my car for the month of July.
Thanks for sharing your honest experience with transit commuting. I’ve found that my morning commute may take a little longer, but avoiding 5:00 p.m. rush hour more than makes up for that in the afternoon!
I hope others will learn from your experience and give it a try.