They’ve just started up an effort called Capital MetroBlog. Expect to see me there from time to time -we’ll see how transparent they intend to be if/when they start talking about commuter rail.
So you may have heard me talk about the new suburban office. For a while, online we were trying to keep making a go of it with just one car – my wife driving me in most days and picking me up sometimes; other times me taking that hour and 45 minute trip home with a long walk, men’s health 2 buses, opisthorchiasis and a transfer involved. I tried to work from home as much as possible – but the demands to be in the office were too great; and we couldn’t sustain the drop-offs and the long bus trips.
Well, we relented. Just in time; I got my wife to agree on a color and we now own a second Prius – this one obtained right as the waiting list shot up from zero to many months (ours was ordered; but there was no wait beyond that so it took about 2 weeks – arriving right as the house exploded so ironically I ended up working exlusively from home for a few weeks longer anyways). Do not argue with the M1EK on the futurism/economics predictions is the lesson you should be taking away from this.
So that’s the intro. Here’s the microeconomics lesson.
Assuming $4 gas, the trip to work in the car costs $1.56 according to my handy depreciation-free commute calculator. The morning drive takes 20 minutes. The afternoon drive more like 30.
The transit trip costs $1 (although soon to go up to at least $1.50). That means I save $0.56, at least before the fare increase, right? Not much, but every bit helps, right?
Well, the transit trip takes an hour and a half in the morning; an hour and 45 minutes in the afternoon; and I can’t afford that much extra time anyways, but even if I could, it would be placing an effective value of 23.1 cents per hour on my time, which seems a bit, uh, low.
So it’s gonna take a lot more than $4/gallon gas, sad to say. You might be seeing some marginal increases in ridership around here, but only in areas where transit service is very good and where people should have been considering taking the bus all along. And there’s no prospect for improvement – the reason bus service is so bad out here is because Rollingwood and Westlake don’t want to pay Capital Metro taxes, although they sure as heck enjoy taking my urban gas tax dollars to build them some nice roads to drive on. In the long-term Cap Metro plan, there may be a bus route on 360 which would at least lessen the 30 minute walk/wait involved, but that could be a decade or more – by then we’ll probably be getting chauffered through the blasted alkali flats in monkey-driven jet boats. Not gonna help me.
Also, those who think telecommuting and staggered work schedules are more important than pushing for higher-quality transit and urban density can bite it, hard. If even people in my business often get pressure to come into the physical office, there’s no way the typical workaday joe is going to be able to pull it off in large enough numbers to make any difference.
The acronym is for “Bike Commutes I Have Known And Loved”.
I’ve been meaning to write a series of these for a long time for posterity’s sake, neuropathist but the combination of a recent bout of stupidity in the comments at austinist and recent economic conditions have reminded me to get going.
Here we go with #1.
Bike Commutes I Have Known And Loved #1: Central Austin (Clarksville) to North Austin (IBM)
Timeframe: 1997-1998
Rough sketch of route
Background: After spending my first year in Austin living in an apartment behind IBM on Gracy Farms and riding with a friend down to Town Lake and back many weekends, noun I bought a condo in Clarksville and decided I’d bike to work more seriously (I had done it occasionally from the apartment – although it was so short it was kind of a waste of time). At the start of this period, I was still a borderline novice – I would shy away from busy streets and cling to hike/bike trails whenever possible.
Bike used: the old no-shock mountain bike (only one I still have in 2008). I bought the used touring bike right before I quit IBM in the spring of ’98.
Distance/Time: About 11 miles each way. In my typical physical condition at the time, the morning commute would take about 1:15 (75 minutes); the afternoon commute about 45 minutes.
Showers: Yes. IBM has a locker room in one of the “pink buildings” (east side of Burnet).
Route and comments:
When I first started this commute, I used the Shoal Creek Hike & Bike Trail up to 34th/38th. That proved to be dumb after a few trips; I found a much shorter and actually safer on-road route, detailed below.
First segment: To 35th: Get on West Lynn in Clarksville heading north. (Pictures are from 1999ish commute to S3, which comes later in the series). Cross Enfield at nice signalized crossing. Enjoy shade and picturesque mansions to end of West Lynn at Niles; turn left and head down to Hartford (one 4-way stop at Pease); then go up Hartford across Windsor (light). Hartford eventually bends and turns into Jefferson. Head up Jefferson and pass two busy 4-way stops for Westover & 29th; speed humps after that; but still a very civilized and shady and flat route up to light at 35th, where it opens way up.
At this point, my original idea was to get on Shoal Creek as quickly as possible – because I was still uncomfortable with bigger roads. I’d actually take a turn before arriving at 35th; heading down 34th and then through Seiders Springs Park to where Shoal Creek Boulevard starts at 38th; but this adds a big hill or two to the trip and a lot of time. Based on a recommendation from the austin-bikes list, I ended up with the approach below instead, which was far superior.
Segment #2: 35th to Shoal Creek: The trick here is that Jefferson crosses 35th and then hits an intersection at 38th where you can hop on Bull Creek Road, which appears to take you out of your way to the northwest, but is actually a faster and easier route overall. After crossing 35th, turn left at the next light to start up Bull Creek. Pass through light at 45th to end of road at Hancock. Turn right on Hancock, go down hill across the creek, back uphill; turn left at light on Shoal Creek. This particular spot was scary to me at first, as it requires one of the basic intermediate cycling tasks – taking the lane and then moving left to turn, although traffic was pretty light, but also required doing so on an uphill (unless I had maintained enough speed from previous downhill, I was usually going pretty slow by the time I got to the light).
Segment #3: Shoal Creek to almost 183: During the timeframe for this particular commute, Shoal Creek still had its original, pre-debacle, configuration: 7-ish foot wide bike lanes that occasionally had parked cars. (Note that in the slideshow, the striping is actually gone). At the time, I didn’t really know any better and would stay in the bike lanes – failing to assert proper positioning to safely pass parked cars – but there weren’t quite as many back in the late 1990s. Shoal Creek was a pretty good long route at this time – you always had or could obtain right-of-way at intersections (either 4-way stops or lights) all the way up to 183. When I first did this commute, I’d ride straight up to 183 and then sidewalk all the way past Burnet; but I later learned a route through the neighborhood which took me to the 183 frontage road much closer to Burnet, which is too convoluted to recall here, but this map of the area would probably suffice. Even as an experienced cyclist, I’d walk my bike across 183/Burnet; there were places I’d ride on the frontage roads, but this was not one of them.
Now, we leave the nice pictures behind.
Segment #4: Cross Burnet/183 and get on Metric. Easier said than done. There’s a fairly convoluted on-road route which could accomplish this which involved Steck, Ohlen and some backtracking, but at the time I did this commute, I’d rather be an occasional pedestrian than ride on some of those roads (Steck may soon become 3 lanes with bike lanes rather than its existing 4 narrow lane configuration, which would make that route much nicer). From last segment, walk bike along 183 frontage past strip mall to 183/Burnet light; cross Burnet and 183 eastbound frontage; cross under 183 to south side of northbound frontage; walk bike down that side to end of Metric; walk bike across to Metric Blvd. (Actually, Metric didn’t go all the way through when I started this commute – but it did by the end). On some of this route, you could actually ride (interior paved areas under the overpass), but it’s kind of dodgy on a road bike due to debris.
Segment #5: Up Metric to IBM. The southernmost stretch of Metric Blvd, from 183 to Rutland, was built during a brief time where the city actually put bike lanes on all new arterials – and is pretty darn nice. Crossing Rundberg, you get on a much older section of road, but there’s still plenty of space – super wide right lanes thanks to excessive freight truck use of this roadway. Some hills which are moderately difficult for the novice. There’s lights at Rutland, Braker, and Kramer, before you get up to Gracy Farms, where you want to turn left. Gracy Farms is 4 lanes and undivided but fairly low traffic, so even the novice me was comfortable taking the lane (especially downhill in the morning) and heading in the northwest corner of IBM off Gracy Farms.
Bus boost possibility:
You can pick up the #3 shortly after segment #1 by heading over to 38th/Medical Parkway; but it only takes you to Braker, and is a pretty slow trip. Google Transit has this trip at 26 minutes which seems a bit low compared to my experience. This bus runs every 20 minutes and is heavily used – likelihood of the bike rack being full is pretty high. See other bike commutes for much better bus options.
Ratings:
| Rating | Notes | |
|---|---|---|
| Physical difficulty | 3 | Northbound: Some minor uphills south of 183; a moderate uphill north of 183. Southbound: Moderate hill up Gracy Farms; easy after that. |
| Scary factor | 5 | Burnet/183 crossing will scare away uncommitted novices. |
| Exercise efficiency | 7 out of 10 | Car trip in morning was very fast but exercise fairly high – inested about 55 minutes of time to get 75 minutes of exercise. Car trip in afternoon was only about 5 minutes faster than bike trip – invested 5 minutes to get 45 minutes of exercise |
| Enjoyment | 5 out of 10 | Nice and shady in spots; lots of waiting at lights. |
| Services/Safety | 9 out of 10 | Plenty of opportunities to hop on a bus with a flat tire, which I had to do many times on parts of this route on other commutes. Plenty of convenience stores. A bike shop or two up north. |
Overall conclusion: A good starter commute for the most part, although a better bus boost would have been more helpful. Some mornings I didn’t have the time to spend to go all the way up there and take a long (low water-pressure) shower, so a bus-in-the-morning; bike-in-the-afternoon plan like I did at various other offices would have resulted in more days on the bike. As it was, I averaged 2 days a week in spring/summer/fall; only about once every other week in the winter.
