Using TheBus for transportation and timing (Honolulu: rent, home, transfer to)

[celcius]

Hi there,

I'll be living in Honolulu this summer. I'm trying to find living arrangements now, but there's a good chance I'll be living in the Kapahulu area near the Ala Wai golf course. I'll be working downtown on Bishop St.

I've been looking at TheBus website and researching maps, routes, etc. but without ever having experienced this, I'm still curious. I'd like to ask experienced bus users how long this commute would typically take and how reliable this service is in general. I figure it's about a 4-5 miles distance from home to work. Probably take the Route 3? But I dunno. Would it be a straight shot or will I constantly be switching buses at hub stops? Are most destinations like this?

Sorry for the ignorance, it's just tough for me to visualize it. The system almost seems too good to be true, despite a bit confusing. I'd appreciate any and all info about the situation, as my mastery of utilizing this system will be absolutely critical to my life while I'm there.

[Freebird]

The system is amazing - we lived in Waikiki for six months without a car and even after we had the car, we would still use TheBus for many places we wanted to go just to avoid hassles with parking and traffic. If you can figure out what bus to catch (and where) and know which times correspond best with your schedule, you can get wherever you need to be (more or less) at very consistent times.

Looking at the route map on TheBus website, it looks like #3 might actually take you all the way downtown without a transfer. It also takes you within a block of Ala Moana Mall and several (very long, though) blocks of Ward Warehouse/Center - both major shopping/dining areas. Depending on where you end up living, the #2 and/or #13 buses might also work out well for you - from Kapahulu Avenue they run up Kuhio Avenue through Waikiki and you definitely do not have to transfer to get all the way downtown to Bishop Street. They run quite often and pick up on Kapahulu Avenue at Kuhio Avenue - #2 also picks up back by the zoo and #13 swings down Campbell Avenue before turning back onto Kapahulu (not sure where your lodging search is taking you but picking it up on Campbell might work well if you are living closer to the makai/ocean end of Kapahulu).

If I'm reading the map right, #3 would drop you downtown closer toward the makai/ocean end of Bishop Street and I know #2/#13 stops on Beretania Street with Bishop as the cross street (closer to the other end of Bishop). Depending on how often #3 runs and where the stops are located relative to your work location, maybe a combination of the two routes (morning vs afternoon) might work best for you because #2 and #13 run more frequently to/from downtown. After certain hours, the buses run much less frequently so if you're working late, keep this in mind.

I remember in the past there was a customer service number you could call to ask a human for the best routing from point to point - not sure if they still have this or not - I didn't look around on the website for very long.

The service is reliable for sure - it was excellent and so useful to us when we lived there. In our experience, riding it to and from work at normal hours was extremely consistent and predictable. It works very well with fixed times and not as well with spur of the moment things (like trying to get to a movie in a hurry). It might get you to your destination slightly earlier than you need to be there or you might be finished with work earlier than the next bus arrival and have a wait - as far as movies or whatever, we just knew we might not get there fast - be aware that weekend and holiday schedules are different from weekdays, sometimes by quite a bit. Overall, it was awesome - we really had no trouble sorting it out once we had moved there - it seems to be less confusing once you see it in person and find out exactly where the stops/pickups are located. Once you start riding it to work and realize where it stops en route, you will see how close it gets you to other destinations you need to access. I know you can master it for sure and strange as it might sound, figuring the system out and using it as our sole means of transportation for awhile was an experience in our lives we will treasure forever.

Enjoy your summer !

[newUHprof]

There's really good service all around downtown, so I strongly suspect you can find a single bus route to take. But I want to respectfully disagree with the "reliable" claim from Freebird.

If your bus is running ahead of schedule, it does *not* stop and wait, ever, even at the "time check" stops marked in the schedule. The only place it stops to wait is the end of the line.

I commute on The Bus. It's about 3 miles from my place to campus, and it's a single bus ride. But it *frequently* happens that I miss a bus by a minute or so because it's way ahead of schedule. The next one is running behind schedule. So I'll end up waiting 30 minutes or more. This is on a very highly-traveled route. And yes, I leave extra time to account for this. So on days when it's running on time or behind schedule, I end up waiting 20 or more minutes because of that! You can't win.

I also can't quite figure out why the route I take runs at 10 or 15 minute intervals in the morning (say from 7 - 8:30 am), but only at 20 or even 30 minute intervals in the evening (between 5 and 7 pm). Don't the people who go to work in the morning need to get home in the evening? I do!

Anyway, my husband and I joke that their slogan should be, "The Bus -- when you don't have to be anywhere at any particular time!"

I've been making it work... I leave extra time in the morning, and I have podcasts or reading material to keep me entertained while I wait in the afternoon. It's only about a 15 minute bike ride for me, so now that the rain has let up, I'll probably be biking more often and taking The Bus less frequently. The buses do all have bike racks in the front, so if I decide to be lazy and bus home, I can always do that (there's a big hill at the end of my ride... I'm not always up for it).

Anyway, service is good in that you can get anywhere you want to go, and if you're mostly moving around in town, you can almost always do it on one bus. But it's really a drag to have a one-hour commute that's < 10 minutes in a car. I don't want to drive, but I find myself doing it more and more often because I don't like wasting that much time.

[Freebird]

celcius, go with the experience of newUHprof when making your plans - it is absolutely true that TheBus is best used when you don't have to be somewhere at a certain time. Also I should have noted that the last time we were using it consistently to get to and from work was in 2006. . .we've just used it for other random trips since then - because parking would be crazy or for whatever other reason - it was from past experience for sure. The #2 and #13 buses we rode would arrive almost one behind the other, not much wait time ever (especially mornings) when we were using the system for commuting to work. When we were back on the island for work last year (several times, three weeks or so at a time) we didn't rent a car - would use TheBus to get back and forth to work and also wherever else we wanted to go, from Hawaii Kai to the movies at Dole Cannery - but those last two destinations did take quite awhile (seemed like forever, sometimes) and required transfers as well. . . also the work times were flexible when we were back and this made a real difference - I think not having to be there at a fixed time made our perception different from reality.

I never did understand the difference/inconsistency in the morning and afternoon schedules either - there were definitely times at night, especially if I worked late, that it would take awhile if the schedules had already tapered off for the evening. I did always have music with me and also stuff to read. . .it helped for sure.

It sounds now like TheBus is more "it gets us there" reliable - not time-schedule reliable so much anymore. I hope others who are currently on the island will contribute to this thread as newUHprof did because those who are experiencing commuting right now will have a much better take on your options ! I hope you can sort out what to expect and that everything goes well for you out there for sure.

[celcius]

Thanks for the replies everyone! I really appreciate the effort on helping me out.

I have one concern tho. newUHprof said that a 10min car ride could be an hour on TheBus. How true is that? If I took the #3 from Kapahulu Ave over by the Ala Wai golf course to Bishop Street downtown, about how long would that take? It's about 4-5 miles if that helps.

I'd definitely like to hear the experiences of people who use TheBus specifically to commute. I don't want to show up late for work!

[newUHprof]

I should clarify, I guess:

The point is you don't have to do any of these schedule shenanigans with a car. When it's time to go, the car is *there*. No waiting, no just missing it, no running behind schedule. So the car commute is totally consistent at <10 minutes, and the bus commute is not. It can take 15-20 minutes if I'm lucky (if the bus comes within a few minutes of my arrival at the stop), and more than an hour if I'm not (if I just barely miss my bus, and the next one is behind schedule or coming 40 minutes later). I would say these two cases happen with about equal frequency, but most of the time it's somewhere in between.

I should say that this almost never happens in the morning. For whatever reason, at least for the route I take, the bus runs more frequently in the morning. So even if I miss one, the next one is there in about 10-15 minutes, making the whole trip maybe 1/2 hour. It's only the evening commute that really sucks, and I don't know why.

The best way not to be late for work is to aim for the bus *before* the one that would get you there on time. That way, you catch that one, or you're sure to catch the one you need. But if you do that, you're adding 10-15 minutes on to your commute, and it's not necessary to leave that extra wiggle room with a car commute.

[Freebird]

Go to TheBus website - use the Routes & Timetables page and pull up the timetable for Route 3 - scroll down until you see Route 3 - Salt Lake - Kaimuki.

TheBus - Customer Service

Use the table that says "westbound from Kaimuki to Salt Lake" for mornings - assuming you are getting on at (or close) to Date Street and Kapahulu Avenue, you can tell the pickup times at this location (approximate times since they do run early and late) and then the time it stops (again approximate) at King and Beretania, which is quite a few blocks (and bus stops) past Bishop Street so it shouldn't take you this long to make it only as far as Bishop. Depending on what time of day you are trying to ride, the actual ride time can take longer or shorter. Combine this with how long you might spend on the front end waiting and the entire trip could very well take an hour, easily. The morning ride time between these points looks to be around 37 minutes *on the timetable* if there are no accidents, major traffic snarls or mechanical problems/breakdowns with the bus- and then take into account how long it will take you to walk to work from where you disembark from the bus downtown. IF you were lucky enough to catch the bus when you walked up and it was an uneventful ride into town, I'd guess (just from the timetable only, not from experience) that you could loosely plan for 45 minutes. I would aim for being at the stop an hour ahead of your work start time at first to be safe (if you have a solidly fixed start time for work) - again not sure how far and how fast you will walk once you are off the bus or if you will catch one quickly every time.

For afternoons use "eastbound from Salt Lake to Kaimuki" and use King and Beretania for your start time (knowing that the bus might/will/should reach your "closer to Bishop Street" stop sometime after the time on the timetable) and use Date and Kapahulu for your disembark point - it looks like around 30 minutes ride time, again just on paper - then not sure how far you will live from the Date and Kapahulu stop once you disembark - maybe there will be a stop further along the line that will get you closer to home and you can find that out once you are there.

I wouldn't count on being able to show up at the stops at the times indicated on the timetable and the bus being there - it is more of a rough indication of times. newUHprof is right about the car - as long as you have somewhere to park it, there's no comparison in the convenience for sure - not in the least. Very nice not to have to get to a bus stop way early just to be sure you make it onto at least one bus that will get you to work on time - even nicer at the end of the day to not have to deal with barely missing one and having to wait for the next one. Looking at the timetable, it looks like the #3 buses run anywhere from 12-15-17-20 minutes apart in the mornings depending on the time, so there's where the time can really add up if you barely miss one.

One trick you will learn once you start riding - sometimes getting off at the next earlier stop and walking to your final destination is faster than staying on the bus and waiting for it to get you closer - walking seems to be way faster than riding in traffic sometimes, especially downtown. I figured out how to cut five minutes off of my time by disembarking one stop earlier and walking/running an extra two blocks, because the stop that was actually closest to work was on the other side of a really long red light (where traffic would sometimes back us up for two lights). Jumping off early, more often than not I would pass the bus on the sidewalk - that light took forever and the bus would be waiting to get through it to the actual next stop...that is sometimes why it can take so long to go just four or five miles - lights and traffic as well as how long it takes the pax to embark and disembark at all of the stops.

Ignoring the rest of this post, the best thing will be to try it out once you're there and if you are consistently arriving at work way, way early then back things up from there until you find what works most of the time. Good to err at first on arriving super early and having extra time to just chill before work. I hope some of this really long post could be of help to you!