When I realised I could take a coupla buses to work vs driving in, I used to joke “15min by car, 1:15 by buses”, but that gap closed a lot.
Extra traffic all times of day or night (eg, coming home after midnight in stop’n’go traffic?!?) made the trips by car closer to a half-hour or more.
And with the bustime app (best f’n money the MTA ever spent on anything), I could shave off any/all waiting time for the first bus and practically could walk right up to the bus as it’d be pulling into the stop, and bring travel time to about just under an hour if I got lucky.
So that gap closed, by a lot.
I was toying with the idea of taking a bike to work, but the sheer length of the trip and getting sweaty, and potentially getting smeared all over the asphalt by an asshat, all but nixed that idea. An e-bike, maybe, but there was still one stretch where it’s highway or nothing, the nearest way across the GCP/VWP would be a Jewel Ave crossing a few more miles out of my way.
And that’s the main problem, the way these douchebags drive. Bad enough they’ll cream bikers (motor and pedal), but they’re almost exclusively hit’n’runs. Hell, I got nicked by a huge SUV’s mirror standing on the sidewalk when he came too close and clipped me, that I spun around, had my arm ripped out of my duster’s pocket (ripping said pocket), and ended up on my back staring up at the sky wondering wtf ever happened. He stopped, paused, then took off.
Nope, I’ll stick to “recreational” biking where I can control the time and place and route.
(Oh, a witness got a plate# but was one character off, white sedan, and at my behest, trying a variation like ‘Q’ for ‘O’ turned up a dark SUV pretty much matching what nailed me. Cops said unless I or the witness would be positive, there was nothing they could do. And the SUV was regged to a house on east Lawn Guyland. Pretty coincidental for a statewade search!)
