Why do so many people who live in walking distance to a metro still drive to work?
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Anonymous
Most companies that provide free/reduced parking ALSO provide transit benefits. It's usually pick one or the other. The problem is that a lot of people don't actually live in a situation where they can walk to metro (the safe areas are too expensive and the rest just isn't safe to walk after dark), so they have to drive to metro, pay for parking at metro and then take metro to work. So it is not only more expensive, but it usually takes longer than driving (even with our horrible traffic around here), because you have to leave time to drive to metro, park, walk to the station, then wait 10/15 minutes for a train, et cetera, et cetera. Most people around here work long hours, so an extra 30-40 minutes a day in commuting time is a lot. |
Anonymous
I walk to work but OP you do realize that work also has to be close to a metro for this to work? |
Anonymous
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I live a mile from the metro and a few blocks from a bus route that would bring me directly to the metro station.
The reason I drive is that my commute takes 25-35 minutes if I drive and over an hour if I walk or bus to metro. At this point in my life, that extra hour a day matters. A lot. However, if I didn't have children living at home, I'd probably use metro. |
Anonymous
| but, explain to me how it is actually cheaper to drive when you have to pay for gas and car maintenance? I think with free parking, maybe you break even, but only maybe. |
Anonymous
Allow your mind to be boggled that not everyone is like you. The daycare pickup-dropoff is an issue, the fact that I sometimes have to work at locations that don't have a Metro near them is also an issue. |
Anonymous
There's always the constant entertainment of the bus if one doesn't want to drive/park at Metro. Anyway, the large majority of stations in DC proper don't have parking anyway. |
Anonymous
Because most of us have cars anyway. Riding Metro is less expensive than owning a car and having to tend to all of the associated costs of car ownership (insurance, maintenance). But if you have the car anyway, then people tend not to factor in those associated costs, because that money would be spent whether they took the Metro or not. I think that you are also underestimating the need of many people to go more places than straight to work and back. |
Anonymous
| Bc I need to drive dc to school which is not on the metro. When I don't need to do drop off I sometimes take metro, sometimes bus depending on what time I leave. I have both options where I live. But on days when I can leave early (6.15 -6.30) to work, I take the car because it takes me 20 min door to door with parking. On metro or bus it's consistent 45 min. |
Anonymous
Oh god, yes. The bus from where I live to K Street is 45 minutes on a good day. And then I have a 15 minute walk to get the 7 blocks to my office. So. not. worth. it. |
Anonymous
| I live walking distance from work and metro, and when we moved I was going to start walking, but I come home after dark and did not want to walk in the dark. Now I drive bc I have to do Daycare drop off and pickup. DH does take metro, but his last job even though we lived in the same condo was nowhere near a metro station, so he had to drive (or take a metro/ bus/ walking combination that would have taken him 1.5+ hours to get to work, and was not in an area you really wanted to walk around in) |
Anonymous
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time. It takes me 45 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes to take the train to work (switch trains at metro center) as opposed to 20-30 to drive. It is also much more expensive. I think we figured gas would have to hit 10.00 to make it cheaper to metro.
We take the trains a lot for leisure activities and walk very frequently, but getting to work is just not as feasible by metro. |
Anonymous
| We live near metro and DH and I take it nearly every day (unless there's a specific reason to drive e.g. middle of the day appointment, leaving from work for a road trip, need to bring lots of stuff to work, etc). It lets us be a one car family. Of our 4 closest neighbors, at least one of each couple also takes metro to work. |
Anonymous
and I would say that 45 minutes is rare - if all the stars align. One hour is more likely. So I am looking at an extra hour with my kids by driving, which I'll take in a heartbeat. |
Anonymous
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Honestly, at this point, Metro and/or MARC couldn't handle all of the extra bodies if suddenly a lot more people switched from driving to public transit. Both transit systems are seriously over-capacity as it stands. And I'm not sure that it is feasible (for safety reason) to add more train times for the Metro. MARC,perhaps, but not Metro.
Perhaps with expanded routes on Metro, that could absorb more passengers, but it all depends on where those passengers would be headed (if they travel to and from points on the expanded line as opposed to traveling to points where there is already heavy usage, it won't really help). Basically, there are just too many people in this area. At some point, we have to realize that. Public transportation isn't going to fix that problem if the public transportation is already seriously over capacity. So I guess my point is, if the OP uses metro, why are you so upset that other people aren't? Don't you realize that would only create more problems for you? |
Anonymous
| ^^^ Sorry about all of the typos. |