Yeah but that would raise my commute to two hours daily. And an hour of that would be biking home after midnight in a town where I'm very likely to get shot, stabbed, and mugged. Probably at the same time.
Not to mention my bike getting stolen and the fact that I'd likely get stopped by the police here every night due to dark skin
Distances are far in places designed for cars. My city was made at the height of car based design so it takes an hour and a half to cycle from where I live to where I work, and that's typical. We do have transit though, which is especially pointed at moving people from residential areas to work places and back
Bike theft is such a problem where I live I've been very hesitant to get another one. If they can't get the whole bike, they'll wrench off tires/seats, etc. My town might be an outlier, but I wonder how other people deal with this kind of thing when their bike is their primary form of transport.
The good news, I guess, is that there's a healthy market for bikes and bike parts. Hopefully that means more people are riding them! (Note: some percentage of this comment is a joke but even I don't know how much)
My closest bus stop is 1.5 miles away and the bus runs every hour (or so they claim)
The city added some sort of public "uber" that you can hail and ride for I think $2 but it only works within city limits and my wife has many friends in the neighboring cities so it was useless if she wanted to meet them, and also sometimes it'd take more than an hour for a pick up
I'd love to live in a place with workable public transport, but where I live it would add an hour to my commute each way; effectively an extra 10 hours a week at work
Do you ever run into issues with the bus taking a lot longer, and you not accounting for the extra time if your wife take the car? Where I live, 15-20 minute car rides are often 35-45 minute bus rides, and the bus comes half an hour.
Not really. I just leave at the time needed to get to work on time for whatever mode I'm using. It's about 8 miles, and before COVID it was usually quicker to cycle than sit in traffic. Now there's less traffic so cycling takes a bit longer than car, but not much. Bus is about the same as cycling.
I'm 57 and not hugely fit, but I can cycle 8 miles each way without any problem. Takes 30-35 minutes depending on wind direction.
Right now I work a hybrid job and landed this job not long after totaling one of our vehicles in an unavoidable wildlife encounter. We ended up not buying a second car and I've been biking to stuff in town when I can (I live in a small town and various stuff frequently calls for running to other nearby towns for this or that) and it's been really nice only having one car to worry about, but with the kids starting school and my wife looking at going back to work, the time to get a second car might come sooner than later