Reporter Sarah Bahari was nice enough to give me a ride home. She covers the Keller schools, so she knows my area, but it was still pretty far out of her way.
I'm crunching a few numbers tonight, trying to figure out how much time I've spent on the road the past four weeks and how much I coulda spent if I were driving. These numbers include rough estimates for travel times Thursday and Friday, based on how I think those days will go, and are subject to change:
41 hours, 18 minutes -- Time spent getting around town by bus, cab, foot, train and rides bummed from friends the past four weeks. This includes time spent commuting to and from work, and time traveling to and from news assignments.
23 hours, 50 minutes -- Estimated time it would take to make the same trips by car.
Ya know, I have sat down and made the same kinds of time comparisons for my bike commuting to work. But then I added in the fact that if I hadn't ridden home on the bike, I would have wanted to drive over to the bike shop and join the evening ride. This way, I get in some miles (not as much as the shop ride), and I use up the normal sit-on-my-butt-in-my-car time doing something other than listening to the radio. Very productive when you look at it that way. How much bike commuting time would you have had to spend in the gym to lose those four pounds? Extra time driving to the gym? Time spent away from family? It won't push that 24 hrs. car time up to the 41, but it will move it closer.
Posted by: bullschuck | December 20, 2007 at 09:57 AM
Very true. And I'd rather be outside riding the bike than in a gym.
Posted by: Gordon | December 20, 2007 at 10:27 AM