Carless Commuting

North Hollywood to Glendale: 7.1 miles on bikeTime: 35–45 minutes

My first foray into human-powered transit was my route from NOHO to the former Glendale Airport-turned-Disney-compound. I miss this trip; it was really very pleasant and short. I know what you’re thinking, 40 minutes is not so short, but it flies by when you’re on a bike. Just remember that you are adding around 80 minutes of cardio to your day. Sure it would take you half the time to drive there, but you get nothing out of it. Zero. You will likely add several years of healthy living to your life with this kind of commute. It’s science.

I made this trip for about a year and a half. The main challenges I faced were sweatiness and rain. To kill two birds with one stone, I brought a change of clothes with me every day in my backpack. When I got to the office I went to a bathroom stall, toweled off, put on some deodorant, air dried a bit, and changed into office clothes. If there was heavy rain, I sometimes arranged a ride with a co-worker or took the bus.

Google Maps has a glorious feature that can help you plan your route. In this case, large portions of my ride were on Class I (completely separate from traffic) and Class II (marked lane in the road) bike paths. These paths are indicated on the map by solid green lines. To view them, select the item named “Bicycling” in the menu labeled “Traffic” at the top right corner of the map. Once you’re in bike mode you can get directions between two destinations by clicking the bicycle icon above the destinations you entered. If Google Maps doesn’t choose the best route for you, just drag the path a bit until it hits the most solid green lines. I’m not sure if the feature is ready for other big cities yet, but you can definitely find information about local paths online.

Riding on a Class I path is the best possible scenario, and worth going out of your way for. You won’t have to worry about cars at all during a stretch on a dedicated path, but sometimes there are people who clog the path or form a phalanx of baby strollers. If they don’t automatically get out of the way, you might have to yell at them or insult their babies to get them to move.

A Class II painted bike lane is also something worth aiming for, but you’ll need to be completely alert at all times from there on down. It’s not like cruising the Class I, there are dangers on both sides. Parked cars often swing their doors open without looking, so you’ll need to keep an eye on them. Cars in the road might crowd you a little, but generally the painted path is wide enough to give you ample space.

In sections of the route where there is no bike path whatsoever, you effectively become a car. You must ride in the road and use arm signals indicating your turns. This takes some getting used to, but I quickly became comfortable riding in traffic (more on this in the next example). In fact, I often rode right past the traffic. Suckers!

North Hollywood to Studio City: 7.6 miles on bikeTime: 35–45 minutes

North Hollywood to Studio City: bus + 2.1 miles on bikeTime: 25–30 minutes on bus, 10–15 minutes on bike (35–45 minutes total)

A new job changed my daily destination to Studio City. This commute sent me in the other direction on the Chandler Bike Path, and gave me the option of taking the Metro Orange Line; a bus that has its own road and runs next to the bike path. Each bus has a rack for three bikes on the front and often has standing room in the back if the rack is full. If neither option is available on a given bus, another one is probably about to arrive in a few minutes if you’re waiting during a peak hour. The fare is $1.50 one way, or you can buy a monthly pass. Since I mostly rode my bike, I opted to pay the one way fare when necessary.

The bike path portion of this trip was almost brainless. I listened to music and had time to relax and think. If I felt like exercising, I went fast. If I was groggy or hungover, I let the bike do the work. Either way, it always went by quickly. You might understimate just how incredible it is to have 30 minutes of uninterrupted thought on a dedicated bike path or a bus. It’s not like driving, you barely have to pay attention to anything.

Then there was the hard part – a large portion of the route was on a busy street with no bike path to speak of. To add to the challenge, the road itself was full of cracks and holes and things that make a bike tire sad. In addition to the parked and moving cars, I had to watch the ground. It sounds daunting but it really wasn’t all that bad after a few cautious trips. I quickly memorized the trouble spots and avoided them, even in the dark.

However, I did have some scary encounters with the moving cars. I adopted a few techniques and outfitted my bike with very bright blinking lights. I can’t emphasize the lights enough. They are very important for those times when you leave work after dark. A backpack with reflective tubing is a good addition to the arsenal too, and get some rechargeable batteries for those lights.

The strategy I found most effective was to ensure that I was taking up a large enough portion of the right-most lane while riding. This forced cars to go around me in the next lane over instead of trying to squeeze by. It’s not always possible in heavy traffic, but it’s a useful trick. If you don’t establish your own space in the road, you might wind up weaving in and out of the parked cars on the right, which is dangerous and unfun. Never underestimate the ignorance of the drivers on the road – many aren’t used to cyclists. As long as your reflectors and lights are doing their job, you’ll look like a car with a tail light out at a glance. Watch out for oncoming traffic making left turns too. Sometimes they won’t notice you, so you might have to slow down or speed up to avoid them. If there is traffic, you can line up with the cars at the stop lights, or if there is enough room you can sneak by them to the front of the line and position yourself out in front of the first car.

I made this trip for about a year, and it took about 20 minutes longer than driving would have taken during rush hour. Not too shabby.

North Hollywood to Santa Monica: subway + bus + 1 mile on footTime: 20–30 minutes on subway, 60–70 minutes on bus, 10–15 minutes on foot (90–115 minutes total)

Ok, so after the first two examples you might have been thinking any one of the following:

1. Sure it works in the valley, but I don’t live or work there
2. I don’t want to ride a bike to work
3. I have too much stuff to carry around already, I can’t add clothes to the list

Enter the Los Angeles Metro Transit Authority. The bus, subway and rail network is extensive. With a well planned trip you can probably get just about anywhere. Most routes with multiple connections will require that you buy a monthly pass for $75 to be cost effective. Not as cheap as you’d think, but where I work parking costs double that. There are several Metro Rapid (1.5 Mb PDF) lines that stop infrequently and are ideal for work commuting. A short walk to one of these stops and you’ll find a bus about every twelve minutes at peak hours.

In my opinion there are two main barriers to entry for public transit; riding with people from different walks of life (read: stinky people) and acclimating to a much longer commute. Riding to work among all types of people is not for everyone, but I personally think it’s not much of a hang-up. Sometimes I have to squeeze into a crowded bus and stand for 30 minutes, and sometimes I get wedged between two large people, but typically the worst I endure is sitting next to some random everyday commuter. It’s pretty painless. Just don’t expect the lines that form outside the bus doors to have any meaning – it’s a complete free-for-all when they open.

The second and probably most significant barrier is time. Your trip will likely take twice as long as driving or more. This doesn’t sound very appealing at first, since you will have to get up earlier and get home later, but I think of it as a luxury now. I hop on the bus and completely ignore my surroundings for about an hour. The subway is even easier. It’s like being on an airplane; you can do all the things that you stopped having time for. I often have my best ideas or figure out the trickiest problems on the ride.

I’ve been using this route for over a year now. I spend a lot of time on my phone reading Wikipedia and playing Sodoku, or I answer email so that I’m ready to go when I arrive to work. It’s a great time to catch up on the news, skim my favorite blogs, or check out the latest industry headlines. Most people read, snooze, or just blab on the phone. The bus is loud enough to drown them out. Like I said before, I look forward to this time every day. It’s great. If you can get past the barriers, I bet you’ll agree. Oh I almost forgot – the ride is pretty bumpy.