An economic perspective of free public transit!

  • I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    6 days ago

    I understand the concept of riding a bus being free time to read or use the phone, but my experience for my commute has been standing room only for an hour.

    I would love to be able to use an e bike to get to work, but I don’t like biking next to cars on anything more than a 30 mph road.

    There are lots of infrastructure barriers to other commute options because auto makers dumped so much money into making sure it’s that way.

    • tunetardis@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      6 days ago

      I understand the concept of riding a bus being free time to read or use the phone, but my experience for my commute has been standing room only for an hour.

      Well at least that speaks to good ridership numbers where you are. I guess they need to add more buses, bus priority lanes, or other higher-capacity transit options.

      I would love to be able to use an e bike to get to work, but I don’t like biking next to cars on anything more than a 30 mph road.

      It’s worth investigating what possible routes you can take to get from A to B, as there are generally more options with a bike than a car but they are not necessarily obvious. For example, after having a close look at a satellite view, I realized that what I had assumed was a railway track was actually a decommissioned rail line that had been converted into a trail, and it actually cuts some distance off of the car route I had been taking to work.

      Last night, I actually discovered a new route for getting home from band practice. I used to cut through a cemetery, but with the nights getting longer, it was starting to creep me out going through there in pitch black conditions, even though the bike has a headlight. (Cemeteries in the day time can be quite a pleasant ride though.) But I carefully surveyed an apartment complex that looked impassable. In fact, it had a foot path leading through it and beyond. This one was hard to spot on satellite since it runs through a tree tunnel.

      The biggest problems are typically bridges, where you really have no other choice but to cross with the traffic. I am frequently advocating to city officials to improve cycling infrastructure along any such traffic choke points.