So I went to the local bus system website and entered the route from my home to work everyday.  It came back with a 7:50 am pick-up not too far from my home, one transfer and a drop off reasonable close to my work with a total transit time of 1 hour and 21 minutes.  (This is normally, by car, a 30 minute drive in traffic a 15 minute one without).  Additionally since I have to be at work by 8am and this would put me there just after nine it was not a viable option.

So I chose the option on the page for â€oearrive earlier at destination” and had it recalculate.  This time the pick up was 7:10 am in the same reasonable close to my house location.  The trip would require three transfers, take me 10 miles in the opposite direction of where I wanted to go and deposit me at the same reasonably close to my work location approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes after pick-up thereby still making me late to work.

While I am reasonable willing to do what I can to help the environment (and save myself gas) this did not seem like a viable solution.  I rest my case.  By the way, just for reference, I live in Orange County, Calfornia.

Would it cost me less to just suck it up and take the bus every day? Sure! It would cost a few dollars less per day than what I currently pay for gasoline. However, all that money saved by using public transportation gets blown right out the window because of all the extra time I spend commuting.

I suppose I could just live in town and not have a car at all, but that's where I won't budge. I moved up here from Chicago a couple of years ago. If I wanted to maintain the whole "urban experience", I would've stayed in Chicago. I rent a very TINY but gorgeous studio in the mountains so I can at least have a great view.

And as for Chicago, I think they're public transportation system is no better. Sure, they have all the buses and trains that stop every 100 feet, but that also added to my commute. Even though I lived IN the city, I still had to leave my place by 6am to get to where I needed to be by 8am. No wonder people are so miserable! And didn't even get to the part where the undesirable portions like to use these buses and trains as a mobile hotel. And bathroom. Ain't nothing like standing on the train all the way in to the city because the only free seats are covered in urine and feces. Way to go, humans.

As far as solutions to this problem with public transportation, I'm open to hearing suggestions. But when all the municipal developers and planners are chomping at the bit to expand highways, build more 4-lane "sidestreets", and more overpriced cookie-cutter housing 30 miles outside of town, it only makes it easier and more logical to just drive your own car.

"You can't fix stupid." "A Uterus is NOT a clown car!"

i just wish these car bans would take place every day...

The undesirable portions of society I speak of are the homeless-by-choice people who reek of alcohol and human waste. These are the SAME people I see every single day as I go to and from work. They're the SAME people, sitting in the same places, drinking the same booze, smoking the same dope, ALL the time. It took 2 years before one guy finally understood that I would not give him money to buy alcohol- and only after insulting me. These are the people that get drunk and high and pass out in the parking lot of where I work. These are the people that leave piles of broken liquor bottles and vomit in the doorway. These are the same people that I see urinating and defecating in the landscaped garden of the place where I work- while there is a public restroom NOT 100 FEET from where they decided to lose a little more of their nearly non-existent self respect.

So no, I will not respect these people. They ARE undesirable, and they are a drain on my community- and your community. They are the people that refuse to be helped- and it's their choice. However, I'm getting tired of their "choice" to make all of our surroundings a giant toilet bowl and garbage dump. And it's this last bit, their total lack of respect for not only the community I share with them, but themselves. This is why they're called "undesirable portions". At least animals don't defecate where they eat.

"You can't fix stupid." "A Uterus is NOT a clown car!"

No doubt some people make better decisions than others. But oft-mentally-ill, oft-struggling-with-addiction, oft-having-made-bad-decisions, oft-looked-down-on-by-the-more-fortunate people are still people.