The Pros and Cons of Riding the Express Bus
7th June, 2010 - Posted by katherine - 3 Comments
Last week I bought a one month bus pass for the express bus and thought it would be fun to document my experience in case anyone else is interested in trying it out. So every Monday for the next 4 weeks I’ll give a little Monday recap of my prior week’s bus experience.
First, a little more about the cap metro express bus. I first tried it out last June when my car’s transmission was dying. I was pleased to discover an express bus stop only a mile from the house we were then renting – I had driven by the stop many times but just never looked into it. I was also very pleased to discover that the month bus passes were about $34 a month, which was a pretty good savings for me. My car gets about 25-28 miles to the gallon, and the drive to work at the time was about that round trip. So I was able to save about $$15-20 a month by riding the bus.
I knew nothing about the express bus at that time, but here’s the deal: the buses make limited stops (usually about 4 up North) then the bus gets on the highway and makes limited stops once it reaches UT (about 6 stops before I would get to my stop). Also, for whatever reason, maybe to attract more upper middle class people to ride the bus, the express buses are often the large charter buses that have big comfy seats that recline. Sometimes if you are riding at a time of the day that has fewer riders, the regular city buses will be used, but I’ve always felt that they’ve been clean.
Furthermore, the type of people who ride the express bus are mostly students at or employees of UT, and some professionals who work downtown. Everyone is polite on the bus and hygienic. In the 5 months I rode the bus starting last June, I never sat next to someone who smelled bad and only twice had to sit next to someone who overlapped into my set – both common complaints I’ve heard about the UT buses and city buses. So I had a pretty good experience riding the bus during that 5 month span – I enjoyed being able to relax on the bus and take a nap on the ride home, and I definitely was able to read more. But the cons were that it added maybe 15-20 minutes round-trip to my commute, it was annoying to just miss the bus by a minute and have to patiently wait for the next one, and I lost the freedom of being able to do errands on the way home. And after being with people at work all day long, it’s nice to get in my car and have some time alone, which obviously doesn’t happen on the bus.
I would have continued riding the bus though, but cap metro increased the rates for $64 for a month pass. I find it incredible that it’s cheaper for me (if you’re only counting gas money) to drive my car to work rather than ride the bus. I realize there’s extra wear and tear costs on my car by driving in, but still, it’s pretty crazy how much more it costs in immediate expenses to ride the bus.
However, I did feel guilty riding my car in every day by myself, and decided to try the bus again for a month. Maybe it’s something I can do on and off, which will still be better for the environment than me driving in my car every day. So here’s my recap of my bus riding experience last week:
pros:
- was able to start and finish a short book (‘food rules” by Michael Pollan)
- had 2 naps
- had a long telephone conversation with my parents, which normally would occur while driving (not as safe)
- had 2 long conversations with a coworker who rides the same morning bus in, which I otherwise wouldn’t have had
cons:
- missed an evening bus by a minute and had to wait 10 minutes for the next one
- had to get up about 20 minutes earlier each day than I would have otherwise
- on Wednesday afternoon, was anxious about missing the evening bus when I had to be somewhere right after work
So all in all, it was a good experience so far. And if you work at UT or are a student there, you get to ride for free, so if you have that advantage I really recommend it.
3 Comments
Greening Austin Daily » Wrap up of Riding the Express Bus
July 7th, 2010 at 10:23 am
[...] of my month of riding the express bus. My experience was chronicled, in probably too much detail, here, here, here, and here. My daily fare ended up being $2.63 each day, which is probably about the [...]
Guess Who Just Got Her Money’s Worth Riding the Bus (Sort of) | Greening Austin Daily
April 11th, 2011 at 7:51 am
[...] can read in great detail of my experiences riding the bus here and also if you click on the category of this post “public transportation” (when I [...]
Laura
May 9th, 2011 at 1:12 pm
I really liked the Express buses when I lived up north, as they were great for getting downtown in a hurry, and not too expensive (although I agree that $64 for an Express bus monthly pass is ridiculous, when the regular bus pas is half that price). My main complaint was that they offered no services on weekends, which then meant that trying to get to work on a Saturday or Sunday took me an hour and a half to 2 hours (especially if you missed a connecting bus, which you invariably did) instead of 30 minutes.
Now that I live down south, I’m pretty annoyed to see that while there are plenty of options to get to UT in a hurry, there are absolutely no Express buses in my neighborhood, and certainly none that go near my work. The train, oddly enough, DOES go right past my work, but there’s no way to take the train door-to-door from home to work; you always have to use a bus to connect, leaving you again stranded at a station for half an hour (or more).
CapMetro is, by far, the worst transit system I’ve seen in my travels.
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