Not riding is spurring our economy
Wow… Who’d have thought that me taking a day off of my bike for the daily commute could be such a huge boon to the economies of the areas that I travel through? The lack of a bicycle, coupled with delays a getting out of the office has pushed my normal transit agency up 100%.
Normally, I use both Amtrak and Capitol Corridor trains – coupled with my bike – to deal with my commute. Well, technically speaking I think that even both of those two servers are technically Amtrak, but we’ll consider them two for the time being.
Today, however, without the bike I actually used 4 distinct transit agencies. Here’s the lowdown:
Departure
- Leave house to bus top. Unfortunately, at the bus stop I realize that I forgot something and go back to the house, missing the bus. Beg the wife (who was happily snoozing in bed until my rude interruption) for a ride to the train station instead.
- Board Amtrak capitol corridor bound for Emeryville
- Transfer to bus, across the Bay Bridge to the Caltrain station
- Caltrain to Palo Alto
Going Home (this is where things get more interesting)
- Meeting at the office runs a little longer than hoped. Catch a later Caltrain that wanted at Palo Alto
- Since I won’t make the Amtrak connecting bus leaving Palo Alto at this time, and missing that bus would result in me getting home about 90 minutes or so later, I start to scheme and plan. I could take a taxi from the Caltrain station to the Ferry building and catch a different Amtrak bus ($10-$12 with tip) However, I’ve got some Bart tickets in my wallet with balances left on them. After a whole bunch of time schedule cross-referencing between Caltrain, Bart and Amtrak, I opt to get off of Caltrain at Milbrae and take Bart out to the Richmond Amtrak stop. Haven’t been on Bart in a while, otta be fun…
- Get off Bart, stand around for 20 minutes waiting for Amtrak
- Get off Amtrak in Sacramento, walk 3 blocks to bus stop
- Take Sacramento RT home
I think I may have been less complicated for me to cross three or four countries in Europe compared to this. However, I did get to catch up on a bunch of podcasts during my little experiment in mass transit.