You musn’t have caught a train in Sydney in the last few years. They are now **very ** unreliable.
“The…8:45…train to…Strathfield…is delayed…by…46…minutes. CityRail…appreciates your…co-operation.” :smack:
You are right but I bet they still come more often then once an hour.
Baltimore, MD from our close-in suburb of Dundalk:
Public transport: walk 5 minutes to bus stop, ride for an hour through the blight that is South-East Baltimore. Get leaned on by drunks and/or persons who smell of urine.
Drive: Fifteen minutes on I-95. Parking’s easy but not cheap, unless you know where to go.
Walk: about five miles along roads (interstate highways) where people, mopeds, bicycles are illegal; Or, walk through aforementioned blight. No thanks.
I really don’t have much call to go downtown. I used to work downtown, and my husband would drive me and pick me up.
A small suburb of Utrecht in the Netherlands.
If I want to go to the downtown of our small city (about 30 000 inhabitants) it works out like this:
by car: about 10 minutes.
bicycle: about 4 minutes
on foot: about 15 minutes.
The reason that it’s faster by bike than by car is because our town has one road that goes around town (a “ring” or “beltway”) and each neighborhood has one road splitting of from that “ring” to lead into the neighborhood. In other words, if I want to go to the middle of town by car, I have to first drive out to the “ring”, drive halfway around town, and then drive into downtown. that means I have to drive about 15 km for a distance of less than 3 km as the crow flies. By bicycle I can take a straight route. The town was purposely planned this way, to cut down on traffic.
If I want to go to downtown Utrecht it works out like this:
by car: between 15 and 45 minutes depending on the traffic
by bike and public transport: 10 minutes if I get to the station right when the train leaves
on foot: at least 2 hours
The Netherlands is the perfect country for public transport. It’s small and has a very high poulation density, especially around the four largest cities: Amsterdam Den Haag, Rotterdam and Utrecht.
To my town (suburb) center–25 minute walk, 5 minutes by car, about 10 minutes by bike.
to go downtown Chicago-
-about 35 minutes by car (expressway)
-40 minutes by electric train (Metra, formerly the Illinois Central)
-walking is not an option
But hey! Metra is now allowing bikes on the trains! So you can load your bike, get off downtown and tool around! hurrah!
(it is limited to off peaks etc, but it’s a start).
Walking takes about 20 minutes. Buses are excellent and take about 7 minutes.
You can park your bike in the Millennium Park bike garage, too. It’s very nice!