Roody

There is scientific backup for a couple things most of us know through personal expreience and common sense:

There are a few interesting surprises in the article that I was not aware of:

Biking or walking to work will make you happier and healthier - Vox

Mobile 155

I think cycling would make you happier as a form of commuting. Unless it rains or it gets real hot. But it is also where you commute and where you live.

Overall, Americans in the Suburbs Are Still the Happiest - CityLab

I know but everything is subjective in this kind of discussion. LOL

Ekdog

Based on the gearheads that post here, I'd agree, as they seem like a grumpy, haughty lot when compared to cyclists and public transit users.

wolfchild

I think public transit and cars are equal in terms of how it makes a person feel during their commute. Sometimes public transit can be just as frustrating as being stuck inside your car during rush hour gridlock.
Commuting by bicycle is the most enjoyable way of getting to work.

Machka 

Yes it certainly can be as frustrating ... or more ... to the point that 2 or 3 times a month I entertain the idea of buying a car.

Friday was one of those days. Happily, for a change, everything was moving quite quickly and I didn't have to be on the bus for an extended period of time. But while I was, I was surrounded by sick people coughing, sneezing, snuffling
...

Roody

Well of course public transit (buses at least) are stuck in traffic about equally with cars. They are using the same roads after all. The feeling of control that people have when they are driving is pure illusion when it comes to gridlock. Car drivers can no more whoosh away than bus drivers can.

Bike users, on the other hand, can often find a way to get through or around the gridlock when escape is impossible for larger vehicles. Or at least cultivate an active fantasy life to see them through the rare times when escape is not possible.

The main inescapable frustration while bike commuting is probably waiting at train crossings. At my former home, I had to cross a couple freight train tracks near a car plant and a coal power plant. So sometimes my wait would be for >150 freight cars full of shiny new Cadillacs (fantasies of train-jacking $50 million worth of luxury automobiles--no more carfree for me!). It was worse waiting for the coal trains. They went super-slow, I guess because they were unloading the coal, and they frequently reversed a few yards and went forward again. (Fantasies then about becoming an eco-terrorist and taking out that power plant so I wouldn't be late for work).

But other than the occasional train delays, my bike commute was pretty much hassle-free and stress-free, as well as carfree.

Machka 

Car drivers can choose different routes and go at different times. But drivers are locked into the one route (unless there's a really bad accident ahead and the road is closed ... that's happened once on my current commute) and they are more or less locked into set times.

I'd much prefer a train system.

Trains (light rail) are not part of the car traffic so they have an increased chance of running fast and running on time.

Roody

Trains might be more on-time than other modes; I don't know, having never seen statistics.

My personal experience is that in taking the bus to work for several years in total over my career, buses were on time the vast majority of the time I was late maybe 5 or 6 times over hundreds of commutes.. On the flip side, I was early a lot of times, because one bus I took was scheduled poorly, and it took the bus routers a long time to figure that out.

I took an intercity bus >100 times to visit my parents 200 miles from my city. I was a few minutes early or late much of the time. I was notably late around 10 times, to the point that it would be inconvenient if I had somebody picking me up at the bus station. One time I was almost 6hours late. One time the trip was totally cancelled and I had to wait for the next bus.

By car, I was late a few times, usually because of traffic or train delays, a couple times because of engine problems.
Walking, I don't think I was ever late. Bicycling, a few times because of trains. Once because my bottom bracket blew out on my way to work--my fault really, because I ignored warning signs.

Jim from Boston

People who commute by car are less happy and less healthy than the rest of us

Many years ago, early in my cycling lifestyle, I heard a lecture by a psychiatrist who said that in experimental (animal) studies of stress, immobilization was the most powerful stressor. I immediately extrapolated that concept to realize that confinement in an automobile was society’s most common form of immobilization. Even when cruising along on a freeway, the driver is still immobilized, and it becomes more acute when in a traffic jam. The bus, followed by the train, offer more freedom of movement, but walking and cycling allow essentially total freedom of movement.

Since automobile commuting is such a prolonged daily, and life-long activity, I would attribute a lot of the morbidity of civilization to that incessant stressor. Perhaps scientific, maybe not, but certainly makes sense to me.

Walter S

I'm happier riding under my own steam. It is empowering. I pick my route and schedule and don't feel that I'm subject to regular impediments that are beyond my control. And to top it all off, I travel at a reasonable pace.


https://www.minnpost.com/second-opin...uman-happiness

gerv 

Considering that the confinement of car and couch are pretty recent developments in human evolution, it's easy to see how anything that keeps you active and healthy is also going to keep you happy as well.

Ekdog

I've being commuting by bike and train now for nearly a decade, and I've only been late twice, both times due to mechanical problems with the train. My bicycle hasn't let me down even once.

Jim from Boston

The difference though is that the car is immobilizing whereas the couch promotes inactivity and one is free to move away, especially facilitated by recording devices freeing up the restraint of waiting for the commercials.

Of course, the true Couch Potato only leaves to answer the “call of nature,” or seek out sustenance from the four food groups (sugar, salt, grease, and alcohol).

tandempower

It's not just gridlock. There are also roads where traffic is usually sparse enough to turn onto the main road from side roads pretty easily; BUT THEN there are some times when traffic gets just dense enough to cause long waits as approaching cars are going just fast enough to deter you from entering the roadway. After a while, you start to contemplating just turning in front of someone and letting them honk but just at that moment, there's a hole in the traffic and you can turn.

If the traffic was slowed by congestion, you could turn into it but then you'd be stuck in the congestion. If it was slightly less busy, you could turn onto the road without waiting and immediately soar to top speed. It's goldy locks gridlock, really: not too fast, not too slow, just right for keeping you at stop sign for five minutes.

tandempower

What's worse is that the fact that the cage is moving tricks the mind into perceiving itself as mobile, which it is technically, even though the body is immobilized within the vehicle.

Machka 

The bus I have been taking to work every day for the past 9 months has been pretty consistently late.

They pick me up at least 5 minutes late about 90% of the time ... although on the odd occasion they might actually be 5 minutes early, so I have to be out there early, just in case. If I miss the bus, it will be a good 45 minutes before the next one comes. And so I'm usually left standing out there, in all sorts of weather, for 15+ minutes.

They are supposed to arrive at my stop in Hobart at 8:50. I don't think they've ever arrived there at 8:50. I consider it a good run if we arrived at 9:00. 9:10 is a more likely time. And we've pulled up to the stop somewhere between 9:15 and 9:20 about half the time.

I cannot make 9:00 am appointments/meetings because although my bus should arrive in ample time, it simply does not. The only way I can make an early appointment/meeting is if I plan to take an earlier bus, which runs somewhere between 30 and 40 minutes earlier, depending on when it feels like turning up.

I have started voicing my concerns because my thinking is that if you're never going to arrive at 8:50, don't put that time on the schedule!

wolfchild

If bus service is unreliable, then why not commute by bike ??

Machka 

Because commuting by bicycle would take me 2 hours each way. I don't have 4 hours a day to spend commuting.

Roody

I just noticed on re-reading my post that the train has been the main cause of me being late for work--and I wasn't even riding on the train! Rather, I was sitting in the street, on bike or in car, waiting for a crossing train to clear the road. I guess that's less of a problem in Europe, where most RR crossings are either above- or below-grade.

Roody

I had the same situation at my last house. Really, being consistently late or consistently early are both OK--it's the "consistent" that's the key factor.

Rather than complaining about early or late service, you might have better luck in getting your bus company to participate in one of the new apps that permits real-time posting of real-world arrival times at your particular stop. Eventually, these apps could make public schedules unnecessary.

Machka 

They may use apps already ... but even so, it still doesn't keep the bus which is supposed to arrive at a destination at 8:50 from pulling up at 9:17.

Roody

True, but at least you can wait in your house or other sheltered area rather than standing by the curb for 27 minutes.

I-Like-To-Bike

Where did you get that "guess" about European RR crossings from?

Machka 

The pick up isn't the issue. I'm right at the start of the route and the bus arrives anywhere from a few minutes before the time on the schedule to about 10 minutes after. Not too bad. I'd like the bus to pull up on the dot every time, but I also know that's never going to happen.

It's the drop off that's the issue. If we have a bad run in, we can lose a lot of time.

Roody

This is exactly why most polls of bus passengers show that the most wanted service improvement is "more frequent service." If the buses came every 5-10 minutes, it wouldn't be a big problem to just take an earlier bus to avoid being late. But when buses are more than 30 minutes apart, people don't want to waste so much time by taking an earlier bus.