Do you agree with this article about Bart? (Oakland, Berkeley: apartment, lawyers)

[neutrino78x]

Originally Posted by WithDisp

For more than single people, which is what I mentioned, yes- BART's cost is generally more per mile than driving.

For anybody. It is cheaper than driving.

... You're not riding BART during peak times very much, are you? There's never a seat available. It's standing room only. Not a particularly conducive way to do computer work -if that's the line of work you're in. Some jobs require more than a 13 inch machine on your lap.

Well, like I said, I see people writing code on transit all the time, even when it is crowded. But I live in Silicon Valley, so I don't ride BART often.

How to Use a Laptop When Traveling | USA Today

Google and Apple offer their OWN transit systems, simply because the ones in the Bay Area aren't up to par.

It's more because some of their employees consider transit to be below them. And because of where they chose to build campuses. Google is hard to get to on transit. Cisco and Apple are easy to get to on transit. I see engineers from Apple and Cisco on transit quite often.

Google should have built their campus closer to the light rail. That's their fault, not that of VTA.

Your job may require you to be present, but if you're losing an hour a day on the bus that's hours lost that you could be working or being productive elsewhere.

lol...interesting theory, but I have a job, and I don't need to make money every waking hour. If you want that for yourself, more power to you.

You're going to have to redo your research though. Public Transit is not a symbol of the middle class anywhere other than New York City- and even then, the very well to do are seldom ever riding it.

Who said it is "a symbol of the middle class"? It is VERY common for the middle class to ride public transit around here. I see middle class people on transit all the time. But I wouldn't say it is a symbol of the middle class. That's weird.

[GalacticDragonfly]

BART is only loud for me between Colma-South City. So Airport tourists probably hate it.

It used to be really loud in the transbay tube, but they fixed that. It's kinda loud in the North Berkeley tunnel, to where I had to push my voice higher but it wasn't deafening like it was back with the transbay tube a few years ago.

[CaliRestoration]

Originally Posted by neutrino78x

lol...interesting theory, but I have a job, and I don't need to make money every waking hour. If you want that for yourself, more power to you.

It's not about making money every waking hour, it's about better utilizing your waking hours. How can you not get that very simple point?

Train delays, bus delays, and general system inefficiency eats up very valuable time. Sure it might not matter to someone who clocks in at 9 and clocks out at 5 for the privilege of making $12 an hour, but to actual businesses, 2 hours of wasted commuting time per employee could be millions of dollars of productivity annually.

Not only that, what about people who can actually afford to start a family? What's 2+ hours of time spent with them instead of sitting on a sweltering, slow, bus?

It may cost 20x the money to fly a family out to a vacation destination, instead of taking the grey hound bus, but I have yet to find a machine that will give you back 10 hours of life for some amount of cash.

Let me know when you find that machine though, I'll be in for a few years of time.

[HockeyMac18]

Originally Posted by CaliRestoration

It's not about making money every waking hour, it's about better utilizing your waking hours. How can you not get that very simple point?

Train delays, bus delays, and general system inefficiency eats up very valuable time. Sure it might not matter to someone who clocks in at 9 and clocks out at 5 for the privilege of making $12 an hour, but to actual businesses, 2 hours of wasted commuting time per employee could be millions of dollars of productivity annually.

Not only that, what about people who can actually afford to start a family? What's 2+ hours of time spent with them instead of sitting on a sweltering, slow, bus?

It may cost 20x the money to fly a family out to a vacation destination, instead of taking the grey hound bus, but I have yet to find a machine that will give you back 10 hours of life for some amount of cash.

Let me know when you find that machine though, I'll be in for a few years of time.

Not saying your points are completely invalid here, but commuting by transit can certainly make sense from a productivity perspective. When I don't bike to work (~2-3 times a week), I take the train. I get about 30-45 minutes of work done each day on the train, something I'd never be able to do in the car. This means I can leave almost an hour earlier from work (more time at home).

I also have the option to just veg out for a bit, if I want. Again, something I can't really do driving.

Of course, this is specific to commute hours and my transit route (the peninsula, which is served well by Caltrain).

I'll also mention that productivity reasons aren't really why I take transit...there are other benefits that I find worth it. But it happens to work in my favor.


Every once in a while (~1-2 times a month maybe), I'll drive to work...and then I remember why I don't do that every day. And my commute is only ~11-12 miles...

[neutrino78x]

Originally Posted by CaliRestoration

It's not about making money every waking hour, it's about better utilizing your waking hours. How can you not get that very simple point?

This has already been addressed. You can do work on transit. Driving is the method that wastes productivity.

Not only that, what about people who can actually afford to start a family? What's 2+ hours of time spent with them instead of sitting on a sweltering, slow, bus?

Well, if I had children, I would obviously want to live close to work. I would still use transit to commute.

[jade408]

Originally Posted by neutrino78x

This has already been addressed. You can do work on transit. Driving is the method that wastes productivity.



Well, if I had children, I would obviously want to live close to work. I would still use transit to commute.

You can't work on BART during commute hours. Have you been on BART then in Oakland? You are doing good if you can get a a pole or bar to grab on to. There is no using your computer. You can barely read your email.

[neutrino78x]

Originally Posted by jade408

You can't work on BART during commute hours. Have you been on BART then in Oakland? You are doing good if you can get a a pole or bar to grab on to. There is no using your computer. You can barely read your email.

Reading your email is being productive. You could make phone calls too. You could check the status of your servers and issue commands over telnet via ssh on your phone, too. Well, at least on Android...but I would assume that iOS has terminal emulators available as well.

A lot of times, my posts on here were typed on my cell phone while I was riding public transit.

Read HockyMac18's post as well. (S)He is saying the same thing.

[04kL4nD]

What on earth are you talking about? Making phone calls on a packed BART train that is loud? Yeah, you've never rode BART during rush hour... LOL

[shooting4life]

Originally Posted by 04kL4nD

What on earth are you talking about? Making phone calls on a packed BART train that is loud? Yeah, you've never rode BART during rush hour... LOL

Yep, once I was riding home during commute time from SF towards the east bay, texted my wife and told her that I was touching 5 different people at one time because the rain was so crowded. I saw a fight break out once every two weeks because of people trying to force their way onto over crowded train at embarcadero.

[neutrino78x]

Originally Posted by 04kL4nD

What on earth are you talking about? Making phone calls on a packed BART train that is loud? Yeah, you've never rode BART during rush hour... LOL

I don't ride BART very often, but other users said the information about BART being loud is old.

I know that I have made phone calls on loud, crowded buses and CalTrain as well. The microphone in your cell phone is usually noise-cancelling. People have a tendency to yell into their phone when the device usually has no difficulty separating your voice from the background noise.