Month: August 2011

For once, I’m pretty stoked with Auckland public transport: the new Outer Link bus every 15 minutes means I have a new alternative for commuting. The incongruity of the system means even though it’s a little more roundabout than the bus I’ve been catching, and thus takes longer, it’s half the fare – so I’m saving money and it’s a more reliable service. No more waiting half an hour in the pitch dark to get home is a win in my book.

Of course, as winter ebbs away, it’s also getting feasible for me to walk or even run to work and back. Price-wise and health-wise, that’s obviously the best bet.

All up, I have four options for commuting:

Bus 1

$3 one way, more direct route (5-10 minutes), comes every 20-30 minutes – but isn’t exactly reliable.

Bus 2

$1.50 one way, slightly longer route, comes every 15 minutes.

On foot

40-50 minutes walk. I really enjoy the walk, though it exposes me to our notoriously fickle weather which can swing from scorching to monsoon-like and back in that time.

Drive

Literally 5-10 minutes, which is convenient, especially on days I have meetings and interviews. (Parking is free at work.)

At the moment, it’s all pretty ad-hoc; I go with the flow depending on the weather, what time I get up, whether T needs the car and whether I have appointments during the day. Having so many options is awesome, and it’s another reason not to move. T keeps arguing that we can live anywhere now that he has a bike and I can drive – but I know better than anyone else that cars are unreliable, and as a rider there are days he simply won’t be able to ride to work. (Also, driving can be kind of annoying.) As a lifelong PT user, I just wouldn’t feel comfortable living somewhere where I didn’t have the option of hopping a bus to the office.

How do you commute? What would you choose out of these options?

Reasons why although T having a motorbike once more makes my life easier (did I mention that? Oh, well, you’ll see it in our monthly roundup…), for example, being able to drive to meetings/interviews during the day, and not having to wait for the bus home in the cold and dark, it also adds a dimension of stress.

1. I am a very, very nervy person. I jump at everything. So it’s no surprise I’m a nervous driver, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready to sit my full licence.

2. To that end, I have to devise all sorts of roundabout routes when I do take the car. Working normal hours also means braving peak hour. It’s near impossible to turn right out of the street I work on to go home, so often I wuss out and turn left. A bit of a detour ensues, obviously. The same goes for leaving the house in the mornings, complicated by the fact that I have to reverse out. DON’T LAUGH. Hmm. I think we should impose a backing-in rule, actually.

3. Traffic. Is there anything more irritating than getting up to a traffic light just as it turns red? At every single intersection on your journey?

To that end, I don’t drive in every single day. There are days it rains or it’s too cold for the bike to start up at 5am. Also, I like to walk to work occasionally.

You look like a Power Ranger, I said:

But seriously, I’m happy for him. Remember when he bought his Xbox? I was so ridiculously heartwarmed by the whole thing then. I’ve never had anything like this for myself, he said.

And now we can go gazelle on travel/wedding/honeymoon saving – and after that, a down payment. A project car and dirt buggy are still on his wishlist, but financially still years away, not to mention they require a garage. So really, that’s going to come after home ownership.