Drive Less

Long time..no blog. Mike and I were out in California visiting family last week. We had an amazing time, beautiful weather, surrounded by wonderful people. Now we're back to the grind in Mad-town.

I weighed our garbage today for the week...and I was shocked that we had 10 lbs of garbage and 9 lbs of recyclables. I'm not sure how that happened....but this coming month we will be focusing on Wasting Less! We've done some things to decrease our waste production, like eliminating paper towels completely and eliminating plastic zip-lock bags. I guess those two items don't weigh all that much though so we haven't seen a big decrease in garbage weight.

Last month our challenge was to drive less. It has been really easy for the past 8 months with the early spring and beautiful summer now turning into a beautiful fall. We haven't had any rainy days this month to prevent us from biking into work. Soon enough though I know it will get cold and it will start snowing and we will be challenged. I will be taking the Madison Metro Bus to work this winter. For some, the thought of sitting outside waiting for a bus when the wind is gusting and the temps are freezing does not sound like a great way to start the day. I know it's not my favorite way to start the day!! Madison Metro has some helpful tools on their website to reduce wait time. My favorite is the real-time bus tracker!


http://www.cityofmadison.com/Metro/planyourtrip/transitTracker.cfm

I just choose Stop Tracker (Using Dropdown Menus) and choose my route, my direction and my stop and it gives the next 3 bus arrival times.

**Make sure that when you've got your bus arrival times to check that it is for the right direction! Sometimes it's unclear, but when you have the 3 arrival times it should tell you which direction the bus is heading.

I have bookmarked two links on my phone. One is my bus route from home to work and the second is my bus route from work to home.

When I'm getting ready to leave, I pull up the appropriate link that I've saved on my phone to see when the next bus will be arriving. If it's really cold or wet outside I refresh the link right before I walk out the door to ensure that the bus is still "on time".

This tool has made bus commuting much more enjoyable for me but I must admit that I've missed a few buses by being too confident and cutting it too close!

The Madison buses also have bike racks on the front of all buses. I've posted a video above!

Happy commuting.