driving in rush hour sucks

This week I went to a friend's house for dinner after work, so I drove in. This is the view of backed-up traffic on Fifth Avenue right before the intersection with Penn Avenue. Driving to and from work in rush hour traffic seems like a particularly awful form of self-torture. Why do people do it? I'm happy I don't. My bus/bike combo commute suits me just fine. The bike ride home is fun, it takes 15 minutes less time than riding the bus home, and I don't have to deal with traffic like this.

first day of bus-bike combo commute

My parking permit at work was approved, but I canceled it. Following my resolution to take my bike on the bus in the morning and bike home after work, I started today after getting a new helmet and a tune-up from Dave.

Dave and I also did a test run on Saturday--biking from our house to my office in Oakland and back. I have to admit that the trip up Polish Hill wasn't as bad as I thought it would be! The return trip down through Polish Hill was pretty fun.

The hardest parts of my first day--figuring out how to use the bus bike racks and the bike racks in our garage--are over. Now I'm looking forward to a fun ride home!

Have you considered biking or taking public transportation even one day of the week? Visit Bike Pittsburgh's site to learn about their Car-Free Fridays program.

the case for biking to work

Recently I saw a PBS show called Blueprint America about the problems with this country's infrastructure. Today we face not only issues like bridges falling down, but issues that affect our quality of life: suburban sprawl, which has led in PA and elsewhere to the decline of small towns and neighborhoods, traffic jams that not only are maddening but lead to pollution and unsafe streets, and poor public transportation.

The show that I saw, Road to the Future, profiled a couple living in Portland, OR, where a large percentage of residents bike to work. The couple lived in the city and biked everywhere with their two young children. They said they rarely go anywhere they can't bike to.

It made me feel guilty for applying for a parking permit. While it takes me less than 15 minutes to drive to work, it takes me a half hour via bus in the morning (not bad), but between 40 and 45 minutes for the afternoon commute.

One of the (many) reasons both Dave and I like city living is that we have so much more free time because of quick commutes. Dave bikes to work most days and walks when the weather is too icy or rainy to bike. He's never once driven his car to work in the five years he's worked Downtown! His bike commute takes him 10 minutes each way. Compare that to commuters who live in the suburbs and have an hour commute each way (which is very common where I work). If you take out two weeks vacation, it comes to 500 hours, or roughly 20 full days, of people's lives every single year that they spend driving to work. And that doesn't take into consideration the costs they spend on gas, car maintenance, and parking; the congestion they contribute to; and the greenhouse gas emissions they contribute, which is fouling up our entire planet. It makes perfect sense to us to live in the city where we don't have to drive to work and can walk most places. (And for those who say they won't live in the city because of city taxes, obviously they pay more for car gas, maintenance, and parking than the tax increase.)

Given this, it's hard to stomach a 40-minute commute when I live 15 minutes away. But I hate the idea of driving to work and contributing to congestion and pollution. SO, I'm saying it here, publicly, so I can't back out of it: I'm going to start biking home from work. My morning commute is up through Polish Hill, so I'd have to shower in my building before work because I'll be sweaty from the ride (and, furthermore, I seriously doubt that I'd be able to make it up the hill without stopping and pushing). Luckily, my bus, the 54C, has a bike rack, so I can put my bike on the rack and ride the bus in the morning, then ride my bike home after work, which is all downhill and should be pretty quick.

This is a huge step for me because I've never been comfortable biking on roads. I like mountain biking on trails, but even then I'm pretty uncoordinated and fall and hurt myself a lot. But I'm going to start! The Port Authority has some instructional guides on how their Rack and Roll program works. I'm going to start as soon as I'm back from Prague in two weeks. Wish me luck!

Oh, and if this has inspired you, please consider taking mass transit, biking, or walking to work! Watch that Road to the Future documentary I linked to above, seriously. And here's a link to Bike Pittsburgh, who advocates biking to work.

Image taken by Dave, who not only commutes via bike to work, but also takes hour-long bike rides every day after work, as well as multi-hour rides on weekends, all over the city.