You should bike or use a bus

January 3. 2025 0 Comments

For the last several years a lot of YouTubers have been pushing a narrative that driving a car is bad for the environment, it creates traffic jams and pollution. And this is 100% correct. Then they finish with a narrative that everybody should use public transportation or bike and claim that this is the perfect future.

Let’s think about it. I live relatively close to work. It is only 11 miles from my work. 1 mile to the highway, 9 miles on the highway, and 1 mile after the highway. It takes me around 18 minutes to drive in the morning. Most of the driving is 2 miles before and after the highway because of many traffic lights. When I go back from work it usually takes from 30 to 45 minutes because there are the traffic jam that I have to stay around half of the highway.

Now let's think about alternatives. If I use a bus then my trip will be several times longer because I have to walk to a bus and wait for a bus. Obviously, any bus is slower than any car and it will make frequent stops.

So with a bus, my trip will be 3-4 times longer because a bus will not go to my work in a straight line. It also needs to make a lot of frequent stops and drive on regular streets instead of a highway.

Let's assume that it will take 3 times longer. Instead of 18 minutes to work and 45 minutes back, I will spend 54 minutes to work and around 1 hour back because traffic also affects a bus just way less. As a result, right now I travel for around 1 hour. But on a bus, I will spend close to 2 hours every day.

But this is actually the best case for a bus. If I would need to drive a bit longer on the highway, the situation would be way worse. For example, if I needed to drive 15 miles on the highway, it would increase my driving time by 5 minutes in both directions because extra miles would not be affected by traffic anymore.

But for a bus, it means an extra 12 miles which will add an additional 30 minutes to my trip because of frequent stops and driving on city streets with traffic lights. So instead of 1 hour and 10 minutes now I ride 2 hours 30 minutes.

But wait, I’m not finished. This will apply only if you have a bus that drives you directly from your house to your work. You may not be so lucky and there is a chance that you need to use 2 buses or more and that will add a few minutes of waiting for the next bus. And this practically dictates you where to live to have convenient routes to your work and back.

But what would happen if you want to go to work very early or return late? Well, you will have to wait longer for a bus. If you arrive too late at a bus stop then you have to wait for the next bus. And the next bus can also be full and you will have to wait for another bus.

If you are ever waiting in summer at a bus stop in direct sunlight you know it is not fun at all. And when the bus arrives it will have AC with very cold air inside. It is not good for your health. The same when you waiting for a bus in the rain and strong wind. When finally a bus arrives you are half-wet and after you enter that bus will will find that inside is quite cold because of the same AC. Without AC all windows will be foggy. Waiting for a bus in the very cold weather is not fun either.

Lastly, it just happens that with time asphalt at the bus stop starts to sink a little bit. A perfect place for puddles after rain. Do you know what happens to people waiting at the bus stop when a car drives in that puddle? They became wet and dirty.

And these are not theoretical thoughts. Not at all! They are from my personal experience after using buses for around 1 year and later observing people when I drove past them in the car.

The same applies to a certain degree to the subway. It is too cold in summer. Everything is wet in the rain. In winter, it can be too cold or too hot depending on number of people in the train. And obviously subway is even less flexible than any bus.

Also, you will meet weird people that do weird stuff. In the flu season, it is very easy to get infected. Somebody can steal your wallet or phone while you are packed tight like sardines in the can.

And while you are wasting one hour of your life on public transport, you cannot use this time for anything. Reading is not good for your eyes when a bus or a train is moving. Also, you need to sit to be able to do so but the number of seats is limited. Trust me I tried and it is really bad to do this on a bus or a train. You can only listen to music or sleep.

Now let's talk about riding a bike. The typical speed of the bicycle in the city is 7-12 miles per hour. It means I will travel from 55 minutes to 1 hour 34 minutes. And it is obvious that if we decide to move 6 miles further from the work, my travel time will be simply unacceptable.

But time is only part of the problem. What if there is rain or snow? And during summer you will arrive completely wet at work and you will need a shower which also adds up to your travel time. You also will need special clothes to ride and you need to wash them every day.

Some people may think that riding a bike is good for your health but it is only good when you ride it in a forest or any other remote location. When you ride along the regular road with cars you will breathe all these fumes from all the cars. I am pretty sure it is not healthy.

Now let's talk about what is common for a bus, a train, and a bike. The common theme is that my commute time will increase by at least an hour. If I would be able to use this time for something else it would be ok, but I cannot. And trust me I tried to read on a bus, on a train and I quickly understood that it is not good for my eyes. Obviously, you cannot do anything like that on the bike.

Typically an adult with a family does not have much of “me” time. “Me” time is time that you can spend on anything you like. Reading, playing on the computer, watching YouTube, etc. It is something you are doing alone.

At least 8 hours of sleep, 9 hours of work (8 hours of actual work and 1 hour break). Commute, hygiene, eating, helping kids, spending time with the second half, shopping, doing some work around the house, etc. As a result, according to my calculation, the typical “me” time is around 1-2 hours per day.

Using any of the suggested means of transportation will reduce this time by a whole hour and effectively reduce “me” time to 0 – 1 hour. It is a huge sacrifice in “me” time for everybody and significantly reduces my quality of life.

This in turn will affect anybody’s work performance. If I’m not able to relax and unwind then I will work less efficiently. It will also reflect on my family because I will be not as relaxed as I used to be. My understanding is that most of the people in this situation will sacrifice sleep and that will make things even worse.

And I completely understand that cars by themselves also create a lot of problems, they need to be serviced, they create pollution, require parking, etc. but on average using a car increases the quality of my life by a lot.

I can live in any place I want and I don’t need a good bus or subway connection. I can go to and from work at any time. I’m always traveling in comfortable conditions. I’m not too hot, or too cold. I’m arriving at work fresh and happy without being pressed in a sardine can.

With a car you can go anywhere, not just work. If I need to go to the doctor or dentist I can go there. If there is rain, too hot, or too cold I can drive my kids to school. A car is freedom and that is a reason why there are so many cars in the USA.

Basically, a car is the freedom to go anywhere you want. While public transportation limits your options pretty much in everything. Where to work, where to shop, where to have fun. For example, there could be a good doctor a few miles away, but I cannot go to them because I need to change many buses to go there and it will take me more than 90 minutes.

But I also completely understand that cars are not viable in a city with extreme density like New York. Cars are moving so slowly that it is simply way faster to use any kind of public transportation. It is less convenient but it is much faster. This is a legitimate way to use public transport.

Public transport is not a silver bullet that solves everything. There will be always places that have a poor connection. There will be always pairs A and B that will take quite a lot of time to travel, compared to another pair C and D which have the same distance between them. After all public transport is going only on popular routes. Nobody will add a new route that will transport 100 people per day.

And the real solution for huge traffic jams is not public transport that reduces your “me” time pretty much to zero. The solution should be to reduce the need to travel to work completely.

A lot of jobs today only need a computer and access to the internet. Just allow people to work from home and a lot of people will save 1 – 2 hours every day. It will greatly increase their quality of life, and greatly reduce the number of people commuting every day. This is a real solution and not a public transport that solves the problem at the expense of the people’s quality of life.

I hope it helps someone.

You should bike or use a bus

And these are not theoretical thoughts. Not at all! They are from my personal experience after using buses for around 1 year and later observing people when I drove past them in the car.

Also, you will meet weird people that do weird stuff. In the flu season, it is very easy to get infected. Somebody can steal your wallet or phone while you are packed tight like sardines in the can.

And the real solution for huge traffic jams is not public transport that reduces your “me” time pretty much to zero. The solution should be to reduce the need to travel to work completely.

I hope it helps someone.