My lady and I enjoyed a joint commute today. I decided my morning office was going to be Barista. I have to make an early morning pickup at the UPS Store for an important delivery pickup and the Barista Coffee Shop (3rd St Location) is just shy of 2 blocks away.

However before I headed off we both walked into Stumptown at Stark. I locked my bike real quick and we walked inside. With just 7 minutes before the streetcar arrived I decided to stay in line and she headed off to purchase a fare for her commute. I then, upon purchasing our quick breakfast croissants, jumped on my bike for the super long (that’s sarcasm ya’ll) trip about 280 feet to the streetcar stop. I rolled up with 4 minutes before the streetcar arrived. We enjoyed chit chat, our croissants and the morning air.

The streetcar arrived on time per the GPS Tracking estimate and per the schedule. It is always a bit amazing when the transit tracker arrival, schedule arrival and the actual arrival are all the same! Almost like the operations are more precise then they are. Because the thing is, this is America, and we’re pretty lazy about our precision of operations in this country. But that’s just fine for the commutes we’ve built for ourselves.

CL Line (click for full size, beware, it’s huge)

My lady boarded the CL Line (yup, you read that right, somebody in downtown is actually riding the CL Line!). She heads across the Broadway Bridge and into the offices at the Left Bank Annex. I headed down the Stark Street Buffered Bike Lane and then onto 3rd to pull into Barista Coffee. I think the cross streets are Washington and 3rd. Barista, if you haven’t tried it, is one of the top coffee shops in the world (yeah, I didn’t mistype, world vs. just Portland).

Overall her commute it about 25 minutes, including the 4 minute wait at the streetcar stop. My commute was about 5 minutes, including a stop at a red light. Including the stop at Stumptown Coffee for morning croissant for her and I we maybe added 3-4 minutes. That’s what a commute should be. End of story.