"Another one rides the bus..."

Today I did something new, I rode the local bus. In my 6 years of living in Silicon Valley, it is the one form of masst transit that I have not taken...until today. It happened that my destination was downtown, the transit center where I walked to on Sunday. So we can do some comparisons.

Pure Walking: 28 minutes, free, 3900 steps. 1.58 miles
Riding the bus: 15 minutes (2 min to bus stop, just by my apartment; 13 minutes on bus). 100 steps, $1.75,

Time saved: 13 minutes, 3800 steps saved, $1.75 spend
Verdict: Was it worth it, probably not.

Day stats:

Miles walked to destination: 0.5 miles
Miles bussed: 1.58 as the crow flies,
Miles Mooched Home: 2 miles 4 - 5 miles of route. I went the opposite direction to return where I was.

Quick observations:

- Very few people use the bus, 3 - 4 people total. One was from out of town, the other was grocery shopping and upon getting off gave the groceries to what appeared to be a blind woman.
- I wonder if people read on the bus, people on the bus don't seem to have much with them. I had my messenger bag, I always notice on the subways around the world, people are always reading.
- For short distances, it doesn't make much sense to take the bus. So the trade off is time vs money vs getting some exercise.
- Caltrain seems to have the most affluent demographic, BART is a mixed demographic, Light Rail is mixed demographic one step even lower, then there's the bus.