Drive: Pull out of driveway onto cul-de-sac, turn onto residential street, turn onto tract main street which leeds to freeway on-ramp, then 50 minutes at 75 mph to downtown offramp. All of downtown is within 1/2 mile of bottom of ramp.
Public transport: Drive 1/2 way to downtown as above & pick up light rail at station. Ride 12 stops into downtown.
Walk / Bike: Not legal. All bridges over the river are freeways, legal only for cars, trucks & motorcycles. By going 50 to 100 miles (no exaggeration) out of the way out into far ruralia I might be able to devise a route which uses only bike/ped-legal roads. But that would entail a ot of walking/biking on narrow 2-lane country roads without shoulders or sidewalks.
Yup, I’m a typical distant-suburb American. And, no, I don’t drive anywhere near as far as downtown to go to work. I think that’d be nuts, although several of my neighbors do it every day.
Now “downtown” of my little suburb, home to 3 fast food joints and a couple of generic retail stores? 5 minutes by car, 15 by bike along residential streets. But why bother?
Car: Anytime other then rush hour? About 15 minutes. Rush hour? About 40 mins-1 hr. Parking in the CBD? Very hard to find and Very expensive.
Walking/biking: Not possible from the North Shore.
Ferry: About 15/20 mins for people who live near the ferry. For me? See Car.
Bus? The Bus stop is just outside the door. It takes much the same time as the car no parking woes though.
Public transport in Auckland SUCKS. I lived in London and Sydney and sob that Auckland sucks at buses while London and Sydney excell at buses and trains.
Well, The Woodlands, TX doesn’t really have a city center, but if I were, say, going to the Mall or Market Street (a sort of fake 1920’s downtown they’re building nearby) it would take 10 minutes by car, 15 by bike, and maybe 25 walking. No public transport within the Woodlands, so far as I know.
Commuting into Houston:
Car 45 minutes, via I-45 or the Hardy Toll Road
Bus (Woodlands Express): 10 minutes by car to the park ‘n’ Ride, then 50 min to downtown, $8-something round trip.
No rail service, although the UP (ex-MoPac) line Conroe-Houston would make a great commuter rail corridor).
Walk/bike to Houston: completely out of the question.
While I agree that there isn’t much to do downtown Tally, unless you like watching State Government at work, there are a few things to do:
Farmer’s Market on Saturday’s
The New Coffeehouse on Park Avenue
Hemisphere Sushi Restaurant
IMAX Theatre
Plus two new 10+ story condos going up now and 2 more to follow, so I think things will get a little better
For me:
To walk downtown: less than ten minutes and yeah I’ll even do it in the summer heat
To drive car: three minutes to drive there, ten more minutes searching for a parking spot and for quarters in my car to feed the meter.
Bus: 2 minute walk to bus stop where you can spend up to an hour waiting on the bus to arrive and drive you the few blocks to downtown. Walking with one leg tied behind your back would be much faster.
There’s a guy on a Segway that rides past my house every day on his way to and from work.
Metro, baby. Montreal has a big (elongated) downtown so depending on where I’m going, it can take me anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes. (Many downtown things are on the green line, which means I have to change trains.)
Walking, anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.
Driving would not save time over the metro, especially considering parking.
To the center of the city I live in, either a 5 minute drive down the highway, or about an hour’s walk.
To the eponymous center of the region - San Francisco - about 45-60 minutes drive (asuming good traffic), plus whatever’s needed to get to the specific destination, or a three minute drive to the train station and 55 minute train ride. Riding a bike or walking are both impossible due to the distance, terrain and absence of roads that allow pedestrians.
Driving: go west on North Grand (don’t ask) about 2.5 miles to 5th Street. Turn left (south) on 5th Street, go about 1 miles. Arrive at 5th & Adams (that’s as close to the center of downtown Springfield as you can get). Depending on traffic, about 10 - 15 minutes.
Bus: walk about 3/4 mile west on North Grand to the bus stop at Milton Ave & North Grand. The bus will take a convoluted route but will eventually wind up on 5th Street, a few blocks south of Adams. Takes about 30-45 minutes.
Walking: same as in driving. Would take about an hour, hour and a half.
San Francisco here. Ten-fifteen minute drive downtown. Anywhere between five minutes to half an hour looking for street parking. Probably a five/ten minute walk from there.
By bus, five minute walk to Geary, take the 38 straight downtown. Hour total.
Biking is not my forte, but Geary is one of the flattest cross-town streets in the City (along with Park Presidio-Crossover-19th Ave), so however long it takes to bike about six miles on a busy street with a couple of hills.
Troy, I once walked the entire length of Lombard from the Presidio to Coit Tower.
I did take the elevator up to the top of that rather than walk.
Living in West L.A. I could reach the Wilshire bus and probably make it to the western edges of downtown in about 30 minutes, if I got the express. IIRC, that runs only to the westernmost Metro station, which happens to be on a spur line, so I might then have to wait 10 or 15 minutes for a train. Total time would then be 45 - 50 minutes.
By car it could be anywhere from <20 minutes to nearly an hour depending on traffic. Walking would take hours.
By car: 580 freeway, 20 minutes and depending on where I’m going mayb another 10 minutes to find parking. Parkig from $0.25 to $5.00 depending on meter or controlled parking.
By Bus: 4 block walk to the 40 line. Downtown in 30 minutes $1.50 one way or $1.75 for a transfer/return trip.
By bike about 40 minutes is I don’t get hit by a car. A bike lane runs about 1/3 of te way there after that you’re on your own. You can also combo bike and bus but I’ve never tried it.
Walking probablably at least an hour. I’ve done it before.
To Downtown SF.
By car 580 to 80 without traffic 40-45 minutes. With traffic as much as 1 1/2 hours depending on the traffic out of Berkeley and the time of day.
By Bus: 4 block walk to the 40 line. Take 40 line about 15 blocks and transfer to a N I think (it might be a K) tnasbay fair is an extra $0.50 I think. roughly $2.75 one way. 1-1:15 hours.
By Rail. One block walk to the 56 line. 56 to BART (7-10 minutes) $1.50. Take a BART train. $3.35 the last time I took it but fairs have changed since then. 45 minutes.
I don’t have a car, so it’s pubtrans all the way. On the Brown Line el train it takes about half an hour to get to the Loop, or I can switch to the Red Line at Belmont to go to Michigan Ave. That takes maybe slightly longer because there can be a wait at the transfer. Or I can take the 148 bus, which starts close to my house, expresses along Lake Shore Drive - that can get me to Michigan and Delaware in about thirty-five/forty minutes, depending on traffic.
I can and have biked down the lakeshore bike path to downtown, but that’s mostly for exercise. It’s about 20 miles round trip. It takes a couple hours, I guess. I haven’t done it yet this year.
Walking…well, it’s not impossible, and I enjoy walking, but if I actually want to go somewhere and not just enjoy wandering around, it’s not very practical.
Depends on which city center you’re talking about. I live in a suburban town north of Dallas.
If I’m going to downtown Frisco, I’d probably hop on my bicycle if the weather was nice, otherwise I’d just drive the mile up to main st, and the 2 miles over to downtown.
If you’re talking about downtown Dallas, I’d hop in my car and drive the 35 minutes straight down the Dallas North Tollway.
Since I’ve just moved into a place that’s a hamster toss from downtown, I’ll use my previous suburban basement from hell as the starting point. Without further adieu, I give you: London, Ontario.
Car: About ten minutes, by any number of routes.
Bus: Five minute walk to the bus stop, then about a fifteen minute bus trip. Exceptions include the occasional Friday night, when the bus tends to fill up with university students heading downtown to get sloshed - meaning an additional fifteen minute wait if there’s no room.
Bike: About twenty minutes if you’re my aerodynamic and bike-obsessed girlfriend, thirty-five if you’re a grad student who hasn’t seen the sun since, oh, 2002.
Foot: An hour and a half. I’ve done this while drunk, so I’m factoring in the two-minute pee break just north of the university gates.
Blimp: Five minutes if you don’t mind crash landing on the eyesore that is the John Labatt Centre.
Yep…you read that right. Welcome to my hometown…geographically quite small, and 80,000 year-round residents. 'Tis a bit crowded here.
(And since we’re not far from the beach, the 15 minute drive would’ve been about a half hour last weekend)
First I drive down a highway, get to the ferry terminal, depending on the time of day, season, I wait or drive on, then I take a car ferry for 20 minutes, cross the Puget Sound, land in Mulkiteo and drive on a highway for about 30-40 minutes to get to Seattle city centre.