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Do you take public transportation regularly?

I

iMacZealot

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Mar 11, 2005
2,237
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Do you take public transportation regularly?

I don't. Denver has the Light Rail (or "theRide" as it's officially called, but nobody calls it that), which is really cool and I think it will be one of the primary modes of transport in the city in the next few decades as Denver continues to grow constantly, but right now, unless if you live and work/go to school by a station or are willing to take the bus to get to it, it's not convenient. There's a station kind of by my school, but the closest station by my house is about four or five miles away.
 
iMacZealot said:
Do you take public transportation regularly?

I don't. Denver has the Light Rail (or "theRide" as it's officially called, but nobody calls it that), which is really cool and I think it will be one of the primary modes of transport in the city in the next few decades as Denver continues to grow constantly, but right now, unless if you live and work/go to school by a station or are willing to take the bus to get to it, it's not convenient. There's a station kind of by my school, but the closest station by my house is about four or five miles away.
Click to expand...

Four to five miles is nothing. When Phoenix's Light Rail opens this December, the closest stop will be 10 miles from my apartment, and plan on taking it to school. Four to five miles can easily be done on a bike or an extremely short bus ride.

Meanwhile, while I'm waiting for that to open up, I take ASU's inter-campus shuttle system. It's free, but it only leaves every hour, so it can be a bit inconvenient and leave me with a bunch of time waiting around before or after class. It's much better than driving for an hour, paying $700 for a parking spot, paying for gas, etc...

What's great is that my university has a deal with Phoenix Metro that gives students and faculty free bus passes. So when I start taking the city bus/light rail, I'll still be able to do that for free. And since the light rail and busses run on a 10-15 minute schedule, I'll be able to reduce my commute time/waiting around time. As of right now, I need to leave my house by 6:45 to catch the shuttle that gets me to school on time for my 8:40 class. When the light rail opens up I'll be able to leave my house about an hour later.

You should really give the Denver light rail a try. You will see that four to five miles is easily doable. Try biking it or taking the bus.
 
Yep I do. I've travel 90 minutes each way every day to work and uni and back. I buy a weekly unlimited rail, bus, and ferry pass which gets me around sydney. Been doing it for the last five years and I really like it. Passive travel is the way to go. I can work on my laptop, read, sleep, eat, play DS whatever. Bonus is being able to use the ticket on weekends to get wherever I want :).
 
The last time I took public transit of any kind was back in 1989, I reported to my first duty station in Pearl Harbor and my car hadn't made it to me yet. I took the bus a few times. Ever since then, I vowed to never take public transit again.
 
4-5 days a week I make a1.5 mile drive to the train followed by a 45 minute train ride downtown. Then a nice 10 minute bus ride to get to class. Another 10 minute bus ride and 60 minute train back plus the 1.5 mile drive gets me back home.

The time is useful for getting caught up on class reading or the last minute project.

Other than school, I will use public transportation as much as possible, during the fall/spring semester since I get an unlimited pass through school, to get to Cubs games, any number of museums, or one of the store I like going to. During the summer I try to walk as much as I can to save some money or take my bike down depending on the time of day. I try not to have to go downtown over winter break...to many shoppers, its cold, and it costs me money.

I don't know what I would do if I didn't have public transportation
 
iMacZealot said:
Do you take public transportation regularly?

I don't. Denver has the Light Rail (or "theRide" as it's officially called, but nobody calls it that), which is really cool and I think it will be one of the primary modes of transport in the city in the next few decades as Denver continues to grow constantly, but right now, unless if you live and work/go to school by a station or are willing to take the bus to get to it, it's not convenient. There's a station kind of by my school, but the closest station by my house is about four or five miles away.
Click to expand...

Denvers public transport is the worst. Absolutely terrible. Sorry. Why would you drive somewhere just to take the monorail. I never did take it. We would drive to the Apple Store and tell myself I will someday I will use it. never did. It is just not convenient at all. Also the bus system by my house there goes in a loop and thats it. Just a loop!

When I am in Tokyo though I take public transport everyday (however I have become much more lazy since we got our Honda Stream)

Bus/Train to school
Train to the main city to hang out/shop
etc
 
The big news in Phoenix was Sunday bus service ten years ago. Actually the busses here excel at only one thing, blocking traffic at intersections. The light rail boondoggle is just that. If we had been bold enough to kick off the personal pod/monorail system, we might have had something worthwhile in a metro region as large as the Valley is. The rail here is like Houston's or Salt Lake's: a solution in search of a problem.

Blame San Diego. When we started the Red Rocket there, it worked quite well after the first few years, and now covers a large portion of the county. Other cities saw it and just figured that they could "build it, and they will come." Same thing in PHX.

If we had a decent saturation/coverage with realistic scheduling, I'd use it in a heartbeat, but basically, it sucks here. I do use public transit in other cities when I'm staying/working in the metro area though. Chicago, NY, DC, Philadelphia, Toronto, even Atlanta sometimes.
 
iMacZealot said:
Do you take public transportation regularly?
Click to expand...

Yes, I do.
I usually cycle down to the station… depending on where I am going during the day I'll either lock my bike at the station or take it with me on the train.
In, say London, I'll cycle around. Down side is I have to make sure I am on board the train with my bike before the 4:00pm rush-hour ban on cycles on Southwestern trains…
Cycle back home.

I'll take a bus if I really have to — or if there is a tube strike. :eek:

Only time I use a car is if there is a heavy load to be moved — or bulky plants. :)
 
When it's available and convenient I take it. At the moment I have a 110 mile commute for college each way every day. I use the train for that.
For my normal travel I use my motorbike.
 
Well when I am in Jacksonville, FL, I never take public transportation. We have a bus system but I have never met one person that has taken the bus, besides on football game days when they park-and-ride to the stadium.

Now that I am in Taipei, I always take public transportation here. The MRT system is amazing and so clean. So easy to understand. I love it. The buses lines are a bit more confusing but goes everywhere. Driving and parking here is a pain in the butt. Then I also walk a lot more. To me a 30 mins walk somewhere does not seem like a long time.
 
When I was at school in Boston, I took it everywhere (except classes, that was across the street). I also used the commuter rail to go home. Now to get to Boston, I usually drive to a closer station on the CR, which is cheaper to ride from, only slightly more expensive to park at ($2 vs $3-ish) and has quite a few more trains. I don't really go to Boston all that much now though.
 
I actually took the train/bus to work last week for the first time ever. My car was in the shop and I'm trying to save up my vacation days. My commute is about 35-40 by car (dang the Hwy 40 shutdown), and took me about an hour and 40 minutes to do it via public transportation. If I had had to have taken it home, it would have taken more than 2 hours.

Sadly, I get carsick when I read in a car, so I don't know that I'd be able to get much of anything done on the bus. ):
 
When I was in college I rode the bus 5 days a week. It pretty much sucked but it was cheaper than parking on campus.
 
yoyo5280 said:
Denvers public transport is the worst. Absolutely terrible. Sorry. Why would you drive somewhere just to take the monorail. I never did take it. We would drive to the Apple Store and tell myself I will someday I will use it. never did. It is just not convenient at all. Also the bus system by my house there goes in a loop and thats it. Just a loop!

When I am in Tokyo though I take public transport everyday (however I have become much more lazy since we got our Honda Stream)

Bus/Train to school
Train to the main city to hang out/shop
etc
Click to expand...

It's a light rail, not a monorail. It's actually a great system, but there are some missing links in it. There is not access to it from Cherry Creek (where an Apple Store is and the biggest tourist attraction), the airport (which is a good 15 miles out of town, but they're working on it), or a line down Broadway. However, it's very convenient downtown or along Interstate 25. I'm surprised you didn't go to Sixteenth Street Mall, where all the tourists go downtown. It is perhaps the most accessible place to get to in Denver.
 
As much as possible. But, I avoid as much as possible the Metro busses in Seattle. Mostly because they are to big and can take forever during heavy peak traffik hours. Seattle needs more smaller busses.

In Florida I take the Disney Housing busses to work and to the parks all the time.

Wish I had a bike.
 
Almost never. I'm always carrying tools and/or materials and/or visiting several work sites, besides which public transport is not too hot around here.
 
Of course.

When I'm working in DC or Baltimore, I walk the 5 blocks to the train station and take the train to the respective downtown. Then I take the Metro or Light Rail, if need be. When traveling to DC for pleasure on weekends, I drive to Metro and take that in. Baltimore doesn't work for me on the weekends, as the cost/benefit of driving versus public transport leans extremely heavily in favor of driving.

I've been to all the older major stadiums/arenas in the two cities via public transport, and I look forward to using Metro to visit Nationals Park this summer.
 
Whenever possible

I live in the middle of cowtown Bavaria, so I mostly ride my bike or walk(or bum a ride if the weather is really crappy) as I only live 5k from work. However, for longer trips I either bike the 20k to the nearest train station or hop on the (infrequent) buses, or if I'm desperate or have lots of baggage, call a cab, but the fare is 20 euro:eek:

The trains in Germany are MUCH better than in the states, but their promptness, esp. compared to the train in Japan, leaves something to be desired.

The German trains also aren't all that cheap, but if you are a good bargain hunter you can get some pretty good deals. I recently got 50 euro roundtrip to Salzburg from Regensburg on the ICE.
 
All the time. I never drive in town if I can help it. When my job was downtown I didn't own a car at all. Working outside the city meant a 25 minute car trip would turn into a 2-hour multi-segment train ordeal each way with no guarantee of seating, so then I got a car. I love my car, but I still kind of regret having to have one. When you've gotten by without for a while it becomes more obvious just how much the darn thing costs you.
 
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