Caltrain Bike Plan meeting.

I am going to the Caltrain bike Plan meeting tonight in Mountain View, 6 PM at 500 Castro St. This is about a 20 minute ride from my office. Caltrain will parade their bike master plan which includes all sorts of wonderful things like bike racks.

Irony - I will be leaving my bike in the office, taking the shuttle to MV Caltrain, walking,
go to the meeting, walk, train, MUNI. There is no way I'm leaving my $$$ Seven
locked up on the street for the duration of the meeting. While this clearly indicates I *can* get to/from work without my bike, it sucks. For the 6 PM meeting, I will get on a shuttle at 5:07 PM. This arrives MTV at 5:27, and I get to sit around. It takes me 15 minutes to ride - less time than the shuttle and no flexibility. Most people would take a little bit longer than 15 minutes, but the flexibility is key to keeping the idle time down.

Had I thought about that this AM I would have checked my bike at Warm Planet. Of course, I would have then skipped SB 220 and 322 and wasted 30 minutes to take the train that meets my company shuttle. These little things are the tipping point between a "reasonable" commute experience and one that completely sucks. My wrist was broken for 3 months in 2005, I was on MUNI and the shuttle for that time - I never got bumped from the train, but it was more miserable than being bumped.


Speaking of bumps - GGT 72X from Santa Rosa to SF bumped 7 passengers - sans velo - at Rohnert Park. There were a few seats open, but not 7. The waitees were gambling that there might be more room on the 72 arriving 5-10 minutes later. Good luck to them. The bus riders in Sonoma County are starting to get as surly as the Caltrain bikers, with no relief in sight.