So far out of the last two weeks and three days, I’ve commuted to the Orchards office north of Vancouver, Washington for a total of 6 days. Two trips occurred before that, and were both entirely transit and Lyft. So here’s the stats so far.

Day 1
To: Yellow Line MAX / Ctran 4 Route / Lyft
From: Lyft / Yellow Line MAX

Day 2 (1st Day on the job) November 9th
To: Yellow Line MAX / Ctran 44 Route / Ctran 7 Route
From: Ctran 7 Route / Ctran 4 Route / Yellow Line MAX

Day 3 November 10th
To: Yellow Line MAX / Ctran 44 Route / Bike
From: Bike

Day 4 November 11th
To: Yellow Line MAX / Ctran 44 Route / Bike
From: Bike / Ctran 44 Route (Wrong Way) / Ctran 4 Route / Yellow Line MAX

Day 5 November 24th
To: Yellow Line MAX / Ctran 44 Route / Bike
From: Bike / Ctran 44 Route / Yellow Line MAX

Day 6 November 25th
To: Yellow Line MAX / Ctran 44 Route / Bike
From: Bike / Ctran 44 Route / Yellow Line MAX

Notes:

All of the Ctran drivers have been excellent. They’ve offered several cyclists the opportunity to come onto the bus when the front rack is full too. They wait for people running for the bus and overall don’t seem to sweat getting off schedule. Of course, there’s a good and very bad side to disregarding the schedule.

Speaking of schedules, departures from end points – as one would expect – are on time +-1 minute. Catching the 44 back to the MAX has a schedule that is entirely useless. Not a single time so far has it arrived at Westfield Mall even close to on time. Usually somewhere around 8-14 minutes late, or in one case the bus just didn’t show up entirely. Leaving the MAX Delta Park Station (the end point) for the 44 and 4, they almost always leave on time. The 4 however takes 20+ minutes longer then the 44, which makes it all but ridiculous for me to take it.

The MAX has actually been the most timely out of all the routes. Which is somewhat odd, because out of all the trips, the MAX has been late by 6+ minutes in the morning on 4 of my 6 trips so far. Fortunately the transfer from the MAX to the 44 is 8 minutes or so, thus the tardiness of 6 minutes means I only have to wait about 2 minutes before the 44 departs. If the transfer is botched, that means I’ll be waiting 30+ minutes for the next 44 or boarding a 4 and taking an additional 20+ minutes in my commute.

Another big plus, is my entire commute I get to work on things that relate to my job. Which means, in essence, my entire commute counts toward getting the job done – I’m very fortunate and have worked hard to put myself into a situation like this. If I were to drive it would mean I’d entirely lose the commute time and it would be wasted time. Instead I commute on the MAX and bus which gives me time to read, write code, work on documentation or other assorted things I need to get done. To put it simply, this commute actually works really well for me. I’m intrigued to learn more about it and see what comes of the changes when The Vine is put into place.