No.
No.
No.
Southern Minnesota here. Town of about 19,000.
I found nothing will cure bus/train snobbery better than sitting on a nice train and reading a book, then glancing up to see the miles and miles of people sitting in traffic, while you go roaring past at 60MPH. My family (who are not from the ATL) always wondered why I took the train when I have a perfectly good, still pretty new car…until one time they were passing through and got caught in our legendary traffic. After that, they understood.
I can’t drive and I purposely chose the house I’m renting as it is near a main bus route. It costs slightly more to live there, but it’s worth it not to have to carry my shopping a long way. At £3 (about $5, I think) a week for a bus pass (there’s stiff competition going on between the bus companies in Manchester) it’s not worth having a car.
The town/towns I work in has free public busses. But there is no way for me to get TO the town other than to drive.
So my answers have to be - No, no and no. Doesn’t bother me. I like the freedom of going where I want, when I want and being able to carry lots of stuff easily. Public transportation seems so inconvenient.
The nearest bus stop to me is about 2-3 miles away, I think. If I were to take the bus to work, I’d have to drive to the stop, take the bus downtown, then transfer to another bus or two to get me on base. It’d probably take a couple of hours minimum.
I can drive in less than 30 minutes on most days.
There’s a grocery store a mile down the road, but they’re one of the more expensive ones around. I do my best to bunch m y errands and do them all in a single circuitous trip. The last time I relied on public transportation was in San Diego in the mid-70s.
fishbicycle:
I see you haven’t been here since the Harris Tories got their ugly fingers on it ! 
I live in Toronto and have seen the number of public transit vehicles decline as ridership has increased. I’m not sure but I believe our public transit has the least government funding of any in North America - 80% of its income comes from the farebox, because the gvts don’t want to pay for it. This is in contrast to something like London, where 20% comes from the farebox. (no cite, sorry !) Quality of service has hugely declined and they keep raising fares. Not that I’m bitter.
My best option where I live is the streetcar, which is amazing, as long as (a) it comes, (b) there’s not too much traffic and (c) they’re not doing track maintenance. This streetcar route has everything on it I could possibly want, ie Queen Street. I could also take a bus to the subway, which is also pretty convenient.
But I commute by bike, every day. (Except today, I had to take her into the shop, and I’m feeling a bit lonely.) The main reason is because it always takes me exactly half an hour to get to work: no waiting for vehicles, no being stuck in traffic. I pass stopped traffic all the time so I would imagine that during the times I travel, it would take much longer to drive. It certainly takes longer by public transit.
The bike is quick and reliable and I would so much rather be biking in the snow for half an hour than waiting outside for the streetcar for half an hour, being stuck in the streetcar for Og-knows how long with loads of miserable people, and then have to walk home from the stop in the snow. (One particular 3-hour trip home last winter sticks in my mind.) Or being on the subway and hearing that ominous sound of the train grinding to a halt and endlessly wondering “How long will I be stuck in the tunnel this time?” (The announcer usually comes on to tell us “service will be resumed in seven minutes” … every seven minutes or so …)
I have never driven a car, so I guess it’s true that our transit system is pretty darned good if I’ve managed to survive this long.
1. Do you take public transportation regularly, like to work every day?
Yes. I take the bus to work every day. I used to take the tube (underground), but prefer buses now.
2. If you normally drive to work, could you get to your job using only public transportation if you had to? How long would it take? What would it cost? How many transfers would you have to make?
Not applicable.
3. What about other places? Could you get to stores and entertainment options without driving a car?
Yes, easily. London has a comprehensive bus and underground network.
Hi, Cowgirl:
[slight hijack]
I guess a lot can happen, or fail to happen, for that matter, in six years. I’m sorry to hear that the quality of TTC service has declined and that the price has gone up. Still, compared to where I live now, it’s wonderful. I lived at the end of the lake in Hamilton, too, and the HSR is light years ahead of Taltran. Back when I had the time, I could get on a bus in Hamilton, and with one transfer and several reissues, go through Burlington, Oakville, and all the towns through to Toronto, on one bus fare, and transfer onto the TTC at the Queen St. streetacr loop. Now that is convenience! Don’t know if you could do it now, though.
I suspect the large difference between the two transit systems is that Canadian drivers are unionized, and there is all of that political mechanism looking out for them and administering the system. Here I find that hardly any service or industry is unionized…the drivers are people who could have been working at McDonald’s last week, and they get paid about $8 an hour. So it doesn’t faze many of the drivers that you have 4 minutes to catch your only connection for an hour, and it is still 11 minutes to the terminal, and they are driving at the minimum speed to propel the bus forward. But I have probably digressed. We now return to the thread about whether you take public transit, already in progress.
[/slight hijack
I live in a town of about 100,000. The public transportation is buses with taxi backup.
If I wanted to use mass transportion, I have several options:
(1) Grab a bus near my home. No transfer needed as the central bus station is near my office.
(2) Drive to a lot and pick up a commuter bus there.
(3) Drive to a lot and pick up a University Commuter bus.
All of these would be free to me (as a U employee), although I need a special permit to do #1. If I chose option #3, the U would also pay to have a taxi take me to my car in the event of a family emergency (such as needing to pick up a sick child). Pretty sweet deal.
I don’t do this because I have to pick up my son at lunch several days a week and again most weeknights. Parking and waiting for the bus makes meeting the time restrictions impossible.
As Kyla can attest, the system is less ideal for getting around town for entertainment or shopping purposes. Inconvenient transfers, doesn’t run late enough at night, etc…
Yea, the problem I had when I took the bus regularly was that it was fine for a set routine (going to work-coming home), but when, say, I needed to pick up something at the store on the way home, it became a huge hassle.
I live in Chicago, and I friggin’ LOVE public transportation. I live two blocks from an El stop at one end, and work in the Loop, so my total commute is usually about 1/2 hour. This is compared to 1.5 hours when I lived in the suburbs and worked in the city - I had to drive 20 minutes to the Metra train stop, and then take the train into the city. Even that 20 minutes (when lucky) of rush-hour traffic each way was enough for me. Never again, if I can help it.
I still have my car, though, because it’s useful for moving things around, or during those times, mostly at night, when traffic isn’t so bad. Still, whenever it’s an option, I use CTA to get around.
Nope. I’ve only taken the bus once or twice since I moved here.
I’d have to walk about 2 miles from my house to a bus stop, then take two buses to work, paying a dollar each way and getting a free transfer. It’d probably take less than an hour if I timed it right.
The only bus that stops anywhere near my house doesn’t go anywhere near my work; I’d have to take one bus to the plaza downtown (which is the opposite direction from work), then get on a bus going back out to my office. OTOH, I can drive the 5 miles to work in less than 10 minutes.
Yes, that would be easier because there’s plenty of shopping and entertainment downtown. I could also take a bus from downtown to the mall in about 15 minutes.
I’d have to take the bus to get anywhere without a car, though. The only places within 30 minutes of walking from my house are a truck stop, a Denny’s, a florist, and several hotels.
1. Do you take public transportation regularly, like to work every day?
No. I never take public transportation.
2. If you normally drive to work, could you get to your job using only public transportation if you had to? How long would it take? What would it cost? How many transfers would you have to make?
I could get to school using PT if I had to. It would take about an hour (either no transfers or just one) and cost either 75 cents or $1.25. I could walk to school in less time, though. For some weird reason having to do with the screwed up bus schedule, it would take me TWO hours to get home.
3. What about other places? Could you get to stores and entertainment options without driving a car?
Sure, but it would take forever. It’s faster just to drive.
Thanks for all the replies everyone. As I suspected we have a full spectrum here, from people who take it all the time and love it to people for whom it simply isn’t an option. It is nice to get perspective from other countries too. I am a little surprised we don’t have more Americans who couldn’t take PT even if they wanted too…most of my immediate family falls in that category.
I can’t. My job requires me to use my car, to transport clients to where they need to go, etc. Often I have to be available at a moment’s notice.
I could, but I’d be SOL once I got to work (see above).
The nearest bus stop to my house is about a mile away (I live in a sparsely populated area on the ass end of the city). That’s a tough distance to walk when it’s 5ºF with a 30 MPH wind.
From there, I’d have about a 30-minute ride downtown, and then a transfer to another bus, and then about a 10-minute ride. There’s a bus stop about 100 feet from the door to my building.
Fare is $.75 one way; transfers are free.
Yes and no. The Springfield Mass Transit District bus system is inefficient and haphazard. For starters, buses shut down each night at 6:00, so there’s no using the buses for after-hours entertainment. They also have a greatly reduced schedule on the weekends. Also, all transfers run through downtown, meaning that a trip from the southwest side of the city to the northwest side of the city involves a trip downtown; a two-mile trip that would take ten minutes by car could easitly take an hour and a half by bus.
However, at least two routes have stops at out mall and peripheral shopping centers, and a lot of people use the buses during holiday shopping season rather than try to find a parking space.
Ah, that’s something I didn’t think about. The last bus that goes toward my house from downtown leaves at 5:12 PM. If I took the bus to work, I’d have to drastically change my hours.