Happy Green Beings

The 30 day pass is handy, and encourages me to keep a car parked when I go to work. I keep experimenting with places to get on or off the bus. My latest route cuts my commute down to an hour from the original route I was taking. The funny thing is, I don’t think that the route is that much farther to ride. But the crux issue for us, like most families, is getting kids to their evening extracurricular activities. That’s why most families keep a second car. With kids scheduled tight around dinner time, it has been difficult to keep at least one car parked at all times.

I’ve been thinking about how to get beyond the 2 bikes per bus limit. First, I’m going to try to get our tag-along trailer approved as a carry on. If that doesn’t work, I plan to lock our old tag along bike attachment near the bus stop serving a frequent destination. When we dismount from the bus with an extra child along, we could unlock it and attach it to one of our bikes, and haul him along. That means one young child could ride to the first bus stop and lock up his bike there, and then still be able to ride to our destinations served by that bus stop.

The one thing I need is for a couple of the Valley Transit bus routes to be extended to the other side of our interstate highway so that I can safely get my kids to the soccer/baseball parks when they play and practice a couple of times per week. It just isn’t safe for them to ride their bikes on the high traffic roads that cross that barrier.

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Since I began going to work without a car again, I’ve been able to do it with a bike and the bus system in comfort and without any major concerns. I even made a couple of bus commuting rookie mistakes without any significant loss of time thanks to a friendly bus driver’s advice. Planning for the commute took time, and going completely car-light will undoubtedly require a changed mindset, but using public transit is now far simpler in Wisconsin’s Fox River Valley.

Valley Transit has joined the ranks of Google Maps Transit. You go on Google Maps, put in your starting and destination address just like you do for a car trip, and select public transit from the drop-down menu. You can get directions, a map, and an itinerary including transfers and fare prices for many transit systems around the world. How awesome is that for planning a vacation and skipping the car rental? (Click the link above to see a demonstration of how it works.) What is great for a bike commuter is that it makes it easy to try out various bus stops. Honestly, the rack and ride option speeds things up substantially if you explore boarding options and are willing to ride a bit farther. If I take the first option offered by Google Maps from my home to my workplace, nearly door to door service is over 2 hours by bus alone. By riding to points farther from my home and workplace, I have that same trip down to less than an hour each way.

I had spent a lot of time second guessing myself and learning the bus schedule. But once they completed the process of joining Google Maps, trips on Valley Transit have become quick and easy to plan. I hope that ridership goes up as a result because funding for all transit systems is going down. They need more riders to fill their trips and help to fund the system. It makes it possible for them to continue serving those who depend upon the system as their only means of transportation.

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