treebound 

Just playing with thoughts and options, posting here to track and to give myself a motivational nudge.

I recently started a new job, 40 mile commute each way, car gets about 25mpg, motorcycle gets about 50mpg, bus would cost $6-$7 per day, all as a point of reference. Driving takes 45minutes up to over an hour each way in the car, longer if traffic jams up. Motorcycle vs bus fare is about a wash. Relocating isn't an option right now since we live less than 4 miles from my wife's job, just including this because someone always jumps in and says to move closer to work like doing that to them is as easy as changing their socks. 8)

The bus and pedal option is as follows:
1. pedal to the park-n-ride lot, three to choose from all within 2-5 miles from home, just depends on where I'd want to board the bus at.
2. the bus is the Ozaukee county freeway flyer route and would dump me in downtown Milwaukee and knocks about 25 miles off the commute.

3. from there I can bicycle south on 6th or 1st to around Lincoln ave,
then either diagonal over to 20th and take that all the way to College or Grange,
or I could continue south on 1st and merge into Howell and take that south,
at this point I'd either zig zag through neighborhoods or head east to 51st and go south.
Destination is near Ryan road and the Franklin business park between 51st and 35th.
Rawson and Ryan seem like death traps based upon driving them in the car to check ride routes.
A few neighborhoods get a little sketchy.

The other snag in the plan is timing. By taking the very first southbound bus in the morning, and trying to catch the last northbound bus in the evening, leaves me almost no time for delays or flats. And if the bus rack is full then I'd have the full distance to ride home.

Anyway, just playing with options. I might just start with one day a week. Or I might just bag it and ride the motorcycle, then bicycle on the weekends and some evenings.

now I've got to go charge the phone ....

Barren

I'm just about to try my first 1/2 commute to work up in Neenah. I live in Omro, and with hwy 41 construction have been stuck driving through Winneconne everyday for work. I actually like the drive, but it takes longer and costs more fuel. I'm planning right now to do a 13 mile drive to a park and ride, then ride the next 13 miles on my road bike. I've planned and tested via car a few different routes, all of which sound a lot easier than yours! Riding through sketchy neighborhoods sounds like it has a high chance of issue, be it a flat, being attacked by people or animals sounds possible too. High traffic areas are also a ***** to deal with too, especially those intersections you mentioned.

I have family that lives in Oconomowoc and also on the South side... I forget which city these days... New Berlin, I think.

If I had a Harley, I'd be riding that daily... but I haven't pulled the trigger on that yet.

Good Luck!

EAA

Here's a few random comments on your plans...overall you seem to have it pretty well thought out. I haven't ridden 6th St between downtown and Lincoln, but from driving I think 1st/Water is a better option - more traffic on 1st perhaps but much wider. 6th is ok south of Lincoln, wider and has a bike lane. I'd recommend avoiding Howell between Layton and College, it's 3 lanes, no shoulder or parking lane and people drive like they're on the freeway. Lincoln has a lot of traffic but also has a bike lane, it's not too bad. I'm only familiar with 20th from about Cleveland Ave south, thats fine for riding. It's been a while but as I recall Rawson has a nice wide paved shoulder/breakdown lane going west from 20th and was ok for a bike, east of 20th no shoulder and bad traffic. I don't know about getting from Rawson to the industrial park though. And those sketchy areas certainly aren't the worst Milwaukee has to offer - I go through those areas pretty often and haven't had any problems, at least in the day/evening.

To me the biggest potential problem sounds like not being able to get your bike on the bus, and addding an extra couple hours to your ride.

I hope it works out for you!

treebound 

(sometimes I really dislike phone browsers, just lost what I typed, argh)

Anyway, heard on the news about a daytime shooting today at 6th and Becher, no real details yet.

A few weeks ago I saw Kris Kegel (sp?) at his Hales Corners bike store, so I asked what route he takes between there and their Fox Point store. He said he usually goes through the 3rd Ward and then picks up Forest Home. I used to help seasonally part time as a mechanic/bike-builder at their Fox Point store, really miss the perks.

Thanks for the comments, really appreciate the direct local knowledge too.
I just got a new tire on the Buell (2000 M2 tube frame) so I'll probably ride that a few times. Then I can hop off the freeway on that and get a better feel for the route options. I suspect that if my wife hears about the shooting today then she might get overly concerned with my cycling plans. Oh well, if life was easy then there'd be no challenge to it.

Just a point of note if anyone is curious, I plan to ride a 20+ year old steel framed road bike (not sure if I mentioned that and afraid I'll lose this text too if I scroll up to check). Better hit post now.

Thorn

Forest Home works really well. I've used both Mitchell St and Greenfield + 11th to get from 2nd street to Forest Home depending upon the time of day and my mood. I don't have a problem with the neighborhood. Sure, that area of town might be a little tougher, but the cars give me room and pass with car. The further west I ride, the closer the passes and the more hook attempts. Since I ride through the area during commute time, the people on the street are just trying to get to work. I might feel differently if my commute took me through there after 9PM.

MRT2

Wow, you have my respect if you can pull that off. I know the area well, and I couldn't imagine commuting by bike/bus from Mequon to Franklin and back every day. I have business that takes me all the way from Port Washington down to Franklin on a regular basis, but I just drive it. I would suggest trying it a few times and see how it goes.

Trifusion

I use the bike app in google maps it usually maps 3 alternate bike routes and flags steets that may be less bike friendly. Then I use street view to virtually bike the routes.

My city plugs all crime into Crimereports.com and the web site will map all the crime locations so you can see hot spots.

Greg

treebound 

I'll actually be starting in Port.
I ran a few routes through GoogleMaps and it says 1:25 for the bike portion each way, not sure how much time I'd be able to cut off that time.
If I use the 1:25 time, then plan on the first southbound bus in the morning, then the last northbound bus in the late afternoon, it doesn't look workable with a full 8 hour day and a half hour for lunch. Bummer. Would leave no cooldown time, no flat fix buffer, no flexibility for traffic delays.

So I think I need to wait until I'm past my 90 day probationary period on the job.
In the mean time I'll be working on getting back in commute condition. Port Washington to Belgium is about a 20 mile round trip, so I'm going to use that as a time test route. 20 miles on the northern leg of the Interurban trail might approximate 15 miles in the city and south county. New plan is to get ready, work the kinks out of my legs (I'm in my 50's so I can say kinks), and hopefully by the time my 90 days is done then I'll be ready for a weekend test ride. If it works than I'll be giving it a try in early July or late June. And until then I'll plan to take my bike to work on the car a few days a week and will take some lunchtime rides to work out bike route options, some of the subdivisions near work have very convoluted and wandering and dead end roads in them.

I'll update this as plans progress.

dedhed

Don't do a lot of South side riding so I can't help on routes, but another option is take the bike on the car and park in any of the park & ride or freeway flyer lots even a Store or office complex lot and ride from there.

Big Lebowski

To the OP: Your situation is similar to mine, except that I am in Kansas City and my commute is only 20 miles each way. The wife isn't interested in moving, I have a motorcycle that gets just over 40 mpg (HD 48) or I can take the car.

Anyway, 15 miles of bicycle riding after a 25 mile bus trip each way sounds like a time-consuming commute. However, I'd try it once on a day that perhaps the bus is not so busy (maybe a Friday) and see how it goes. I just started doing something similar and I love it.

Good luck!

CommuteCommando

One comment on the cost of the bus. If you are comparing the fare cost to the cost of gasoline alone, and it comes out even, or just a little higher (which is usually the case) you are coming out way ahead if you then factor depreciation of the vehicle in.

John_1961

THANK GOD I live out in the sticks my bike commute to Mukwonago take 1hr and 30 min

treebound 

Yep, daily gas cost in the car is $12-$16. But if I use the tax rate at which an employer would reimburse at of around 55cents per miles ( which is for wear
and tear, maintenance, and fuel ), then the daily cost is over $40 which is a big difference. But I also have to factor in the time aspect and the logistics.

Rode the motorcycle in today though, at least it's two wheels. Still going to work on the pedal option though.
Your comments are appreciated. Oh, and about that shooting I mentioned in an earlier post, they caught the shooter, it was a daylight robbery attempt, and the local residents helped the police to track down the suspect. Good to know that they caught the guy and that the neighborhhod helped as well. Makes me feel better somehow.

scorch

i do the bike and bus thing pretty often. And i also have a motorcycle and my car also gets 25 mpg.. honda accord from 1991..

I dont drive much unless its a blizzard.

but why is your bus ride 7$? around here its 1.70-2.00$, how are you charged there?

treebound 

https://www.ridemcts.com/Routes-Sched...s/143/#Weekday

$3.25 each way for the Ozaukee Flyer, basically a commuter freeway bus route extension from the Milwaukee County Transit System.
The surface street routes are a little cheaper and take a lot longer.
There is also a slight discount if someone buys a multi-ride pack or buys a bus pass.

Ridefreemc

I cannot comment on routes since I'm not from your area, but can give you some general ideas and information. I weigh these things in my commute as well.

Motorcycle - if I factor in the cost of maintenance this is the more expensive option by far - even at 45 mpg. Of course, depends on the brand (i.e., maintenance schedules). Remember how many miles you get out of a pair of tires and factor that in.

Vehicle - well, you know that one.

Bike/Bus - can you get further down the line in order to get your bike on the bus? I wouldn't worry too much about flats, etc. as that may not happen as much as you think. Besides, you can get a better more flat resistant ire like some of the Schwalbes. If you go to a popular stop or station you run the chance of missing that bus of course. Another option is a folding bike. That way you are covered (if folders are allowed inside the bus).

It will be a challenge, but once you get used to the bike/bus it is actually quite nice. There may be days you simply want to ride the bike home, or even get off at a different spot to ride a new area. The other cool thing about taking the bus is you have time to read or relax and let someone else drive. For this reason I don't necessarily count this time as wasted (as in driving a car).

Do you have a rideshare program in your area? You may be able to hook up with someone and share the costs.

EDIT - I am of course ignoring that 40 miles is a long way to go with the options you have!

NorCalVelo

I'm from your area. I currently commute from Stonecroft to Mequon (11 miles each way) 4-5 days a week. Before I started commuting by bike, I took the Ozaukee Express from the Grafton Target stop. I always purchased 10 Premium (Express) tickets at a time to take advantage of the minimal discount, which does make an economical difference in the long run. It's terribly unfortunate that MCTS does not run the OzExpress later in the evening which makes using public transportation extremely inconvenient for those of us that live North of the county line.

treebound 

Stonecroft is interesting. We had some neighbors who moved there a few years ago, then moved elsewhere due to job and other issues. Kind of a unique village of sorts.

Drove the car in today. Brain dead road ragin' tail-gateing inconsiderate sleep drivers all make the bus a more attractive option. Is it legal to spit spitballs through a straw out of a bus window**********

Anyway, going to try to get some miles on the bike this week in the evenings to gauge what shape my legs and lungs are in.

benda18

I've had a similar commute for the past 5 years and would encourage you to give the bike/bus thing a try. here's my experience:

40 mile commute from suburb to suburb through the central city. like you i have a motorcycle as well, and did that for about 2 weeks until i got sick of the rush-hour traffic idiots. YMMV.

i had a 10 mile ride to the park & ride then a 25 mile express bus trip into the city. at that point i could transfer to another local bus or ride 5-6 miles to work. i did both, depending on how i felt that day (they both took about the same amount of time).

in 5 years i never missed a bus because the bike rack was full. i did this by learning where the bus route started and riding to the very first bus stop (thus ensuring i was always the first bike on the bus). in the mornings i'd get to the stop 15-20 minutes early (it was the first trip of the day) and got in line. on the way home i did the same downtown and made sure i was early. a few times i noticed other people getting left behind because they had a bike and waited at the main downtown transfer point.

i rode all the way home (by choice) about 3-5 times per year and enjoyed it. it was about 50 miles and took me about 3 hours. use this as your last-ditch plan if all else goes wrong. if for some reason you miss your bus have your wife or a friend bail you out once or twice. i never had time in the morning to ride into work, although it was my goal to do a complete round-trip journey by bike.

on average i probably rode the bike/bus 2-3 times per week year-round for 5 years. at my peak i was riding every day for 2 months at a time before i needed to take a break. even during the winters it wasn't that hard.

one more thing to add - even though my door-to-door was 1 hour 45 minutes i preferred this to driving. obviously riding a bike is fun and not a time waste so that wasn't a problem; riding the bus gave me time to read or watch netflix on the phone or do whatever. i always felt like riding the bus was like getting my commute time back, not giving up more of it.

try it for a week or 2, then after that you'll know if it's going to work or not. best of luck.

PS my wife and i moved about 3 months ago. now i have a 10 mile commute to work and am much happier.

benda18

wanted to add to my previous post:

in case you didn't already know your transit agency (MCTS) has posted their schedule data to Google Maps. It's really the best way to trip plan anymore. I work for a transit agency in Greater Cincinnati and create our Google Transit feed and highly recommend to everyone to get familiar with it if you haven't already.

if you have a smart phone it's priceless as you can plan trips on the fly in the field. some screenshots:


GoogleTransitDesktop by bendertj, on Flickr

Untitled by bendertj, on Flickr

benda18

The last bus outbound in the afternoon left downtown at 5:30 for me. my backup plan was to find the next best route that would get me closest to home after that. In the rare event that i may have missed my bus and didn't feel like i could ride home, my plan would be to catch that route then bike home the remaining 20 or so miles. It was a lot better (and faster) than biking the whole way home, although not viable day-to-day.

the more familiar you become with your transit system the less stressful you'll find your commute.

treebound 

Thanks for the additional perspectives on transit options. I will play around with it today and see how well the MCTS site works with my phone browser.
Thanks.

treebound 

I've been shadowing some of the busses when I see them on the road during my commute. Last week I saw one on the way home with a bike on the front rack so I followed along, pulled into parking lots when the bus stopped at its stops, was hoping the cyclist would get off the bus at the Park-n-Ride so I could ask him/her how that route was working for them and to see if they ever had to wait for the next bus due to two bikes already being on the rack. But it stopped at a roadside pullout when the cyclist exited, college kid, busy two lane road and intersection, so I thought "oh well" and headed home not wanting to freak out the cyclist.

Today at lunch I buzzed over to a second choice bus to try and figure out where the stop is, couldn't find it, I'll have to find it another day.

Then on the way home since I was on the motorcycle today so it would be easy to dip in and out of parking lots, I headed into downtown to figure out where the busses would stop and leave from for when I transfer between busses. There is probably a six block jump from where I'd leave the first bus and then jump onto the second northbound bus. Good thing I did because the second bus was running about 5 minutes ahead of schedule. As it was, based on the schedules I'd have 5 minutes to make the six blocks, but now that I know the busses could leave ahead of time then I'd have a 20-30 minute wait for the next bus on that route. I'm looking at trying to catch the last busses of the day, that line doesn't run into the evening. I'm going to do a little more shadowing and watching to get a better feel for the routes and schedules. I'm also going to delve deeper into more alternate routes. Some routes I won't ride due to crime zones and past attacks on the busses in town, just being aware of the realities.

Time for more bus homework.

ps, there is one route that goes close to my work and straight to downtown. It would be a perfect option except that it only runs on weekends to take people to and from the county House of Corrections. Oh well, back to the research.

June 22nd update: It appears that the bus schedules are just general guidelines and I should plan on the busses departing locations up to 10 minutes earlier than scheduled. Especially for those reverse-direction portions where I'll probably be the only rider like on the second freeway fliers I'll be trying to catch. The summer is starting to get away from me, so I'm commiting to giving this a go at least once next week. (Not worth a thread bump until I actually do this, hence the edit down here in the basement threads.)