Commuter Experiment - Day 1

Afternoon commute (Aug 6): 63 minutes
Morning commute (Aug 7): 56 minutes

The first day of my commuter experiment has been an interesting one. My ride home last night was extended by about 15 minutes from what it could have been as I just missed one bus when I got off the train and had to wait for another one to come. I would have made it to the one bus, if the train hadn't stopped midway before my stop. You see I get on and off the train at the end of the line in the south, so the trains alternate at the platform when they arrive, one the northbound side and one on the southbound sides. But sometimes both sides of the platform are occupied with trains, so a third train that is approaching the platform has to wait until one of the sides of the platform is vacant. I think last night I was in the fourth train in line approaching the platform, and had to wait for 2 other trains to clear the platform (which takes a while, since the driver has to clear out one side of the train, lock up the cabin door, and walk to the other side of the train to the driver's cab). So by the time my train finally reached the platform, my bus was just taking off.

The commute this morning was shorter than last night, but I was still kept waiting this morning for the bus to pick me up. It's probably mostly my fault for leaving the house so early, but the morning bus has been hard to time lately. There is one bus driver that occasionally does the morning route that shows up 5 minutes earlier than when the bus is supposed to arrive, and if I don't get to the bus stop early enough, I have to wait 20 minutes for the next bus to come in the other direction. I noticed yesterday that this particular driver was running this week, so I thought I should leave early this morning, just in case. I got to the bus stop 6 minutes before the bus is supposed to arrive, and like 2 minutes before this particular driver usually arrives... and then had to wait until the normal time before the driver showed up. He was driving a lot slower than usual today, so I'm wondering if he was getting complaints of being to fast and missing his schedules stops.

So that is my first day of my experiment. More to come (assuming I remember to keep timing myself)