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You have to understand just how far it takes to go 18 miles in the bay area during rush hour, that could take an hour or more. I've sat on the 880 between the 580 interchange and the San Mateo bridge for 45 minutes. It's four miles. I can get down to Fresno (140 miles) in less time than it takes to get into San Francisco (90 miles).
Lol. Yup. In my case it is 18 miles from Oakland to Concord. Takes 20 min off peak. But if t try to go from Concord to Oakland, let's say after doing an AM drop off of my car, it is going to take me an hour to get home as I live near the Bay Bridge toll plaza. So I really have to schedule my maintenance appointments.
Some people drive BECAUSE they understand their local transit system.
Lol, this is exactly how you could describe my take on this. I feel that a lot of other people I know around my area feel the same way...they understand the local transit system, even though they are mainly drivers. Of course this is New York City, so when it comes to those folks who live out here in the outer boroughs, the vast majority will do what is sensible: take the express buses, subways, ferries and trains if they work in Manhattan. From my area, I have known a few people who worked or work in Manhattan doing more blue collar work, such as plumbers, contractors, roofers, steelworkers and even transit operators who all drive to work whether it's Manhattan or the job is located elsewhere in the city. As far as local trips are concerned, the only people that I know who actually walk anywhere, or use our free train (for intra-island trips) or take the local buses around are those people who cannot afford a car and would certainly rather be driving. Some of them have had cars before but lost them due to financial circumstances, and are working towards having them again.
That being said, I do have a pretty in-depth knowledge and understanding of how my local transit system works (speaking in the perspective of locally, just being trips within Staten Island) to which I could definitely get pretty much anywhere on the island by train, bus, walking or riding my bike. I'm simply not going to do it lol. Maybe if it's a nice day out and I'm leisurely considering biking the less than 2 miles to my cousins house, I'll consider it. I just don't like waiting for buses, waiting for trains, walking to stations or stops especially if I have to carry things, absolutely hate carrying bags for longer than I have to, do not like getting caught in bad weather, walking places in ridiculous heat or freezing cold, wondering what kind of creeps are going to be hanging out at the local train station (we have had a pretty ridiculous mugging issue lately on the train...I think that there should be turnstiles and fare collection and it would help, but who knows), having to plan out a trip that WITH traffic would take 15-25 minutes but instead is going to take me closer to an hour to a hour and a half due to crappy headways, transfers (which I also HATE HATE HATE transferring to buses/trains lol) and I just really cannot for the life of me, deal with standing in a crowded bus or train with obnoxious people when I can use my car instead. There are trips where biting the bullet and taking transit just plain makes sense of course, even I know that: if I commuted to Manhattan every day in an office for example. But for the majority of trips around my area, I just plain don't like taking transit or walking because I just think it sucks. I pay $280 a month for my leased vehicle, $130 for insurance, lord knows hundreds a month in gas, tolls, fees and other costs and I honestly can't say that I regret any of it. I love my car, I love driving places...even with traffic, love blasting my radio, cruising around with the windows down on a beautiful day like today, or blasting the A/C with an iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts on a sweltering day. Now thats just me, but I really think that there are a lot of people who feel the same way, whether they have transit options or not...they just love using their cars over transit. Damn, I think I'm gonna go take a drive later...
You have to understand just how far it takes to go 18 miles in the bay area during rush hour, that could take an hour or more. I've sat on the 880 between the 580 interchange and the San Mateo bridge for 45 minutes. It's four miles. I can get down to Fresno (140 miles) in less time than it takes to get into San Francisco (90 miles).
I didn't know you were dealing with that kind of traffic.
How do you feel about getting a motorcycle and lane splitting?
I might be a little weird. Today I am visiting my parents who live 90 mikes away. Taking Amtrak so I can catchup on reading. .
The drive is 80-120 minutes depending on traffic. The train is 90-105 minutes plus 20 to get to their house in the car. All in all about the same. One is stress free.
I might be a little weird. Today I am visiting my parents who live 90 mikes away. Taking Amtrak so I can catchup on reading. .
The drive is 80-120 minutes depending on traffic. The train is 90-105 minutes plus 20 to get to their house in the car. All in all about the same. One is stress free.
Sounds reasonable to me, except that the station doesn't sound close to their house so they have to pick you up. Which is one of the downsides of trains, it helps for people to be living in compact towns where most live a short distance from the train.
Supposedly here, they are improving the train so that a 3 hour train ride to Manhattan would be possible [and would be living close to the train station]. My fastest driving time was 2hr45min but that's just to the north of the city center (Upper West Side) and parking in the Upper West Side takes 20-30 minutes of circling to find a street parking space. 2hr45min is best conditions, anyway.
Sounds reasonable to me, except that the station doesn't sound close to their house so they have to pick you up. Which is one of the downsides of trains, it helps for people to be living in compact towns where most live a short distance from the train.
Supposedly here, they are improving the train so that a 3 hour train ride to Manhattan would be possible [and would be living close to the train station]. My fastest driving time was 2hr45min but that's just to the north of the city center (Upper West Side) and parking in the Upper West Side takes 20-30 minutes of circling to find a street parking space. 2hr45min is best conditions, anyway.
Nothing is close to my parents house. Besides some farms. . They consolidate trips to the grocery (the midway point) and target/Walmart/etc with picking us up. So it works out. The train station is about 3 miles from the big box stores. For me I have 2 Amtrak station options within 3 miles.
I might be a little weird. Today I am visiting my parents who live 90 mikes away. Taking Amtrak so I can catchup on reading. .
The drive is 80-120 minutes depending on traffic. The train is 90-105 minutes plus 20 to get to their house in the car. All in all about the same. One is stress free.
Most of the time. Today we had a 10-15 minute delay.
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