Dtrick.org

I’m riding into work this morning and at one point, I came to a halt at a stop sign. As I watched an approaching utility truck, towing one of those big air compressors on wheels, I noticed it dragging what must have been a fifty foot air hose behind it. I start frantically pointing at the trailer. The driver clearly sees me and screams out the window, “what’s your problem man?”. His phrasing actually contained a few more expletives, but that was the gist of what he was saying.

I watch him continue through a yellow light, only to have a car turn left behind him. Naturally, the car couldn’t see the air hose, so it ran the hose over in the course of making the turn. The combination caused one end of the air hose to rip out of the air compressor, while the other end, with the brass connector on it, swung up and hit the car.  He certainly noticed the hose now!

I feel bad for the unsuspecting motorist making the turn, not so bad for the utility truck driver.  I suppose he just thought I was a nut, but would it really have cost him much time to slow down and find out what I was madly pointing about? What if I had been pointing at something that was a matter of life and death?

I’ve had two days over the past few weeks, where I decided to try the bus instead of biking. With the Washington Bridge walkway closed, my bike commute distance is now about 16 miles each way. Assuming I don’t flat or have some other sort of bicycle mishap, I can pretty much guarantee a one hour door-to-door time. My experience driving during peek rush hour has been, the commute in via car is about the same as biking, my commute home is almost always faster by car. I was curious to see what RIPTA could do for me. So here are some of my thoughts/observations:

1. The bus schedules should be treated as advisory only. In the morning, the buses seem to run pretty close to the published schedule. However, in the afternoon, I consistently noticed the buses were ten to twenty minutes late. Naturally, the first time I depend on the buses being late in the afternoon, will be the time they are actually running on time. I don’t fault the drivers for this, they have no control over the traffic jams they face coming and going from the city. It does make me wonder though, with all of the reconstruction involved with the 195 relocation, are RIPTA and/or RIDOT looking into carpool or bus only lanes? Even if they are only active during commute times, this could really help bolster public transportation, especially if people begin to realize they can commute faster via bus than their own cars.
2. The buses seem to end up grouped together. The bus I rode home yesterday was about twenty minutes late, it was immediately followed by a second bus, that was originally scheduled to be 15 minutes behind the first bus. This can be a definitely problem when people are expecting a bus every 15 or so minutes and they all go by in one big clump. This seems to be more of a problem on the way out of the city than on the way in.
3. Some buses seemed to be over stuffed, while others are almost empty. I rode a bus into the city a couple weeks back that had a sum total of five people! I suspect his has to do with point number two.
4. If I include the time walking to and from the bus stops, the riding the bus is slower. Because of the delayed buses out of the city, riding the bus home can be significantly longer.

Bottom line, the hassle of riding the bus isn’t worth it. I have more freedom with my bike, can come and go when I please, and it’s no slower. Quite frankly, I was surprised that I couldn’t even match my bike times over a 16 mile commute.

Every once and a while, I stumble across a firefox plugin that is just a great time saver.  I’ve been telling people about the site BugMeNot for quite some time, it’s a convenient way around those sites that require logins for no good reason (i.e. the New York Times website).  I came across yet another site today, went through the manual process of getting a BugMeNot login and started thinking to myself, Firefox really needs a plugin to do this for you automatically.  Well, it turns out that someone had this same idea long ago.  The crew over at RoachFiend published a BugMeNot Firefox Plugin and it works beautifully.  The next time I came across one of those login screens, I just right click on the login and I’m in.  It looks like it’s been over a year and a half since the last update and I had no problems running it with Firefox 2.0.0.6.

I turned passed another bicycle commuter milestone today.  I've carried plenty of smaller objects and even run numerous errands for small items over the years, but today I had my first real packing challenge.  I heard from someone who recently moved and weren't able to take their child's bike with them.  They offered it up for free, to anyone who would be willing to go and get it from their past landlord.  How can you pass up an opportunity like this?  I took a walk after work yesterday and grabbed the bike.  It was awkward enough walking with the bike, I spent the evening and part of today thinking about how to get it home.  Over lunch, I started playing with what I had and figured out a way to attach the bike; here are some pictures of the final product.

I've heard rumors about what a nice environment Portland, OR is for cyclists.  Having never been there myself, I was intrigued to see a video entitled Portland: Celebrating America's Most Livable City posted on Streetfilms recently highlights some of the nice changes Portland has made to accommodate cyclists and pedestrians.  It's a thirty minute video, so don't try and watch it unless you have some time on your hands.  The video clearly shows my local cities and the state have a long way to go to catch up.  Fortunately though, we can benefit from the successes in Portland and, hopefully, achieve a similar level of infrastructure in a shorter period of time.