Fortunately, rural Middle America doesn't have huge amounts of traffic. So a bus isn't needed in those locations either.
If you have a bus route available, really consider it. I don't think this oil-crisis is avoidable. Even if Russia retreats from Ukraine tomorrow, the long-term effects of these sanctions will propagate through the market.
My daily commute is from Palo Alto to Cupertino. I'd say that does not count as "rural middle America".
Just now I opened Google maps to find me a way to work using public transit.
As a baseline, it takes me 16 minutes in my car.
Option 1) drive 11 minutes to the train station. Ride the train 3 stops, get off at mountain view and get a lyft for 8 minutes. Total travel time: 47 minutes. (note this is basically all car, so a non starter in reducing gasoline use)
Option 2) basically the same thing but replace the train with the 22 bus instead. Total travel time: 57 minutes. (again, practically all car)
Option 3..n) walk 19 minutes to catch the 21 bus, ride to mountain view, switch to the 51, ride to practically the doorstep at work. Total travel time: 100+ minutes. And I arrive an hour early.
In summary, VTA has failed me, and I'd like to say most of the people in the north part of Santa Clara county. But the reality is, many of them actually like it this way so it's harder for the rifraff from San Jose to get here. We still pay the same taxes into the system, we just don't have it up here.
> Option 3..n) walk 19 minutes to catch the 21 bus, ride to mountain view, switch to the 51, ride to practically the doorstep at work. Total travel time: 100+ minutes. And I arrive an hour early.
How far away is the drive to the Mountain View / 51 bus? Is it an option to drive to that bus, then bus to the doorstep of your work?
If gasoline reaches $6, $7, $8, $9 or $10/gallon, would it be economical for you to use this route? Is there a convenient parking lot where you can park all-day at reasonable costs (or for free)?
It's 11 minutes to Mountain View by car. There is of course no free parking because it's downtown. Then it's an additional 25 minutes on the 51 bus.
This isn't a situation where good is being passed up waiting for perfect. It's utterly terrible being passed up for bad but workable.
This plan saves me a fraction of a gallon. The cost of parking alone already eats many times the savings. And this still doesn't cover what 20 minutes of my time is worth. Admittedly, time spent as a passenger is better spent than as a driver.
Surely there's something to do downtown in your daily life that can spread out the costs though?
I don't know your neighborhood, but even just a Trader's Joe (or other grocery store) near the parking spot would integrate your work-day into a grocery-run, or other such regular activity.
If this isn't a regular enough occurance, its still a benefit to do it once or twice a week, as you need. If not all the time, then you start thinking about how you can use mass transit at least some of the time.
Home -> Mall -> Work -> Mall -> Buy Groceries -> Home. Or maybe gym activities, or whatnot.
I don't know what exists in that commercial area, but in my experience, there tend to be lots of things to do around bus stops.
This pin is to the transit center. To the south southwest is the business district. Nearly ALL of it is restaurants and bars. It's honestly impressive how 4 city blocks are basically one giant food court. But I thought the point of this was to save money, not spend way too much eating out every night.
There is a CVS a few blocks away, but let's be honest, I'm going to do my shopping at my local store in Palo Alto a mere 10 minute walk from my house. I'm not planning an excursion to DTMV to shop at the one store.
As for the rest of the time, the main thing I like to do for fun/excersize is go hiking in the hills around here. The number of trailheads that have transit to them is so vanishingly small it might as well not exist.
I'm seeing a free-parking lot (with EV-chargers to boot), "Ava's Downtown Market & Deli", a barber shop.
Those three things alone are sufficient to make one bus-trip from this location per week worthwile (free parking near a bus-stop that takes you to the doorsteps of work). At least, whenever you get your hair cut, and whenever you need to buy more higher-quality salami/cheese from the Deli for your home sandwich preparations (and whatever else that market keeps in stock).
I don't live there. I don't know everything that Mountain View has to offer. Maybe there's something else there that's worthwhile for lifestyle: a gym, workout center, arcade, bookstore/library, etc. etc. I think I see a dance center (maybe you're not a dancer), but that suggests that some kind of workout culture is in the area, so maybe there is a gym there that matches your activity style (or maybe you can learn dance as your activity to take advantage of that location)
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So already, the home -> free mountain view parking lot -> bus -> work -> bus -> parking lot -> home trip seems to have been proven reasonable.
There's also a CVS on that bus-route, and seems to be walking-distance from the free parking lot as well for other lifestyle shopping needs. This doesn't seem unreasonable to me at all.
There's also the occasional needs items: the post office and a few banks.
The lot by the train tracks is 5.50 a day. So ~one gallon of gas.
There is actually a bookstore and a library. I even have a library card here, though I almost always use the Palo Alto library system instead.
There's also a lock museum attached to a locksmith shop.
I'm not saying there is no reason to ever visit. I'm saying it doesn't make sense to go every day.
But I'm coming around to your suggestion to designate just one day a week as "screw around on the bus before and after work" day. I'll try it tomorrow if I can get myself out the door early enough.
I don't think it makes sense "every day" for me either, but once-a-week is where I've found myself at too. Free parking all day at my location though, so its a bit different.
I'm estimating that I'll cut out ~15% of my gasoline usage with just once-a-week bus trips, since the bus-stop is closer to my house than work. At $2 per way, I'm barely profitable, my personal vehicle is too efficient, lol.
> The lot by the train tracks is 5.50 a day. So ~one gallon of gas.
Yeah, I can see how parking costs makes such a proposition much worse.
Something to consider: a lot of your vehicle costs are per-mile. Tire usage is another 1cent or 2-cents per mile, depending on your tire's costs and durability.
Oil-changes are really cheap, but other items can get costly, suspension, depreciation, etc. etc. And a lot of these items "wear out per mile". Adding those items on top of the gasoline costs (maybe 12-cents per mile gasoline + 10-cents per mile other costs) makes the number of miles you need to travel a bit less than you might expect to break even.
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Also remember: this topic is largely about Russia's oil being sanctioned off. The target is a 7% reduction (equal to Russia's current share of our petroleum usage), at least here in the USA.
Once a week is good enough, as far as this topic is concerned.
Hopefully you find a reasonable plan for the once-a-week bus idea!
People won’t like it this way for very long once the gas prices are up 30%. At which point California and the Federal government will have to step in and rectify this situation. The easiest solution would be to mandate worker pickups and to massively increase the bus network and frequency. The Bay area certainly has the density to justify massive bus subsidies if it means saving fuel during an energy crisis.
If you have a bus route available, really consider it. I don't think this oil-crisis is avoidable. Even if Russia retreats from Ukraine tomorrow, the long-term effects of these sanctions will propagate through the market.