[WD-42]

I've been pretty aware of this ever since I became a cyclist. I will ride down to the corner store to pick up a six pack and some chips, throw them in a backpack and ride back. It's easy. I see people driving their cars to do the same thing. All that weight and space for a 6 bottles of beer. There is massive waste all around us.

[spiritplumber]

A long time ago in San Antonio TX I was pulled over by the cops while biking back to my little apartment with a bunch of groceries. They were unwilling to believe that an adult would leave the car home to get groceries by bicycle.

(I'm from Italy originally).

[linker3000]

Context: We're from the UK.

My wife and I left a meeting in a business park in Phoenix and decided to walk the 5 mins to the local shopping mall, have a look around and then get a taxi back to the apartment in which we were staying (We'd taken a taxi to the meeting).

We were about 2 minutes into our walk when a car pulled up and it was one of the people from the meeting. People in the office had spotted us walking and assumed there was some kind of emergency or our car had broken down.

We had to be very politely insistent that we didn't need a lift to the mall and were perfectly fine.

[bjelkeman-again]

We experienced the same when we walked down the hill to go shopping in Laguna Niguel, CA. Stopped by cops for walking to the store. Nothing more happened.

[lostlogin]

There is also the time component. Off peak and with a decent sized backpack (change of clothes, laptop, food etc) it takes me the same time to go 6km as it does to drive it.

At peak it’s 1/4 to 1/3rd the time.

Cars are slow around town.

[Zambyte]

The time component has to factor in both the traffic while driving, and the extra time required to find available parking. I bought an electric scooter a few weeks ago, and I have come to realize that my travel time is pretty much purely a function of distance. I just roll up past traffic if there is any, lock up on any bolted down object, do my business, unlock, and roll out.

If anything, I feel like traveling at rush hour is actually strictly better for me. Cars being slow doesn't slow me down, but with the average speed being so much lower during rush hour, it seems like it makes it so if a driver hits me, it would be at a lower speed.

[tengwar2]

It's a reasonable solution, but let's not forget that simply walking is often at least as good a solution in many countries.

[ornornor]

Getting a trailer (burley cargo in this case, but applies more generally) has been a game changer. I can even bike to ikea and bring back flat packed furniture with it. Or do the weekly groceries. The trailer can carry up to 100lbs iirc (I have an e-bike)

Short errands are much nicer with a bike: less effort than walking, much faster than walking, no parking headache at destination, cool breeze in your hair, and free (no gas, insurance, parking, tickets…)

[bongodongobob]

Those people could be driving from 20 minutes away or on their way home from work, or running other errands or picking kids up from school or any number of things. Good for you though.

[Zambyte]

Fortunately trains and buses exist.

[bongodongobob]

Not where I live. Not where a lot of people live.

[Zambyte]

Okay, but for the 80+% of people living in cities[1] in one of the countries not particularly known for it's density nor public transportation, buses and trains exist.

[1] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/urban-ru...

[eskibars]

This is so absurd.

1 year ago, I lived in San Rafael (Marin county, Bay Area). I occasionally needed to go to Palo Alto for work meetings. The fastest public transit option was to take a 40 minute bus to Larkspur Landing, then a 30 minute ferry to the SF Ferry building, walk for 20 minutes, and then take Caltrain for 45 minutes or more and then walk from there. With transfers, at minimum it was a 2.5h journey, but typically 3+h

All to cover a 60 mile / 100 km distance

[Zambyte]

Fortunately bikes (and even e-bikes!) exist.

Edit: Also Google Maps says San Rafael to Palo Alto will take 2 hours give or take a few minutes on public transit, with 3 buses, but the middle one you could easily cut out with a bike or a 4 block walk. That doesn't really seem absurd at all for an occasional trip. People do 2 hour drives for an occasional trip and no one bats an eye.

[eskibars]

This is just wrong. FWIW, I owned a bike, and this is wrong under both "bike" and "non-bike" conditions.

If you live directly next to the San Rafael central station, that'd be easiest/fastest. But San Rafael is much bigger than that. I'll get into that in a second. There are 2 basic options to do this trip:

Fastest option 1 was to go to San Rafael Station (I'll call it SR here on out) then bus to SF, then bike/walk to the Caltrain station, which was about a 25 minute walk. The buses from SR to SF ran often as rarely as once per hour, and occasionally they just don't show up at all. The ride took 30-60 minutes depending on traffic. There weren't always bike spaces on the bus, so sometimes you needed to lock your bike up in SR and you were going to be walking in SF to Caltrain. But because of the variability on traffic times, you have to leave incredibly early if you want to catch the fastest train to Palo Alto. And if you're going to California Avenue (which was where I was going to), the express option basically doesn't exist.

Here's how that plays out: 10 minute bike to SR station (or 30-40 minute walk, depending on your walk speed), you have hopefully timed things right to get on a bus leaving once every 30-60 minutes and that the bus is actually showing up: otherwise, you're waiting 30-60 minutes for the next one. Then a 30-60 minute ride into SF. Then a ~5 minute bike ride or 15-20 minute walk to Caltrain. Then a 45-60 minute ride to Palo Alto, but again the transfers aren't timed (they couldn't be, given the difference of where the bus dropoff is)

The second real alternative is replacing the first bus leg with a ferry leg by going to Larkspur Landing. There is the SMART train that goes there, but for some wild reason drops people off a 15 minute walk from the ferry and then has no timed transfer.

I did the journey dozens of times and never completed it in less than 2h 30m but more commonly was 4h and had more than 1 occasion where it took much longer than that.