Bike vs bus for my 10 mile commute, guess which one actually saved me time
I live in Portland and I've been trying to cut my carbon footprint, so I decided to either bike 10 miles to work or take the bus for a whole month. The bus was supposed to be the easy green choice, but man, I had to transfer twice and wait 20 minutes at a stop near downtown where the shelter didn't even have a roof. So I switched to biking, and day one I got a flat tire on a glass-covered street by the river. But after I patched that tube, I realized I was actually getting there 15 minutes faster than the bus, and I didn't have to smell someone's leftover fish dinner. The kicker is that my bike commute saved me about $80 in bus passes over the month, and I didn't feel guilty about idling in traffic. Has anyone else had a similar showdown between two "green" options that totally backfired on paper?