Bike/Bus Combo in Gainesville

Pick up this bike?  hahaha...

So, I've been taking the bus more often - our family has one car and we've done pretty well for over 5 years this way, but it's getting a little tricky when I have appointments that take me outside the 2-mile Rule zone.  We've been doing a combination of things:

• I bike, the Old Man drives
• I drive and drop everyone off and then pick up
• I ride the bus, the Old Man drives

Yes, the onus of finding alternative transpo falls on my shoulders but that's fine; I get the feeling the Old Man is not comfortable biking near traffic in an urban setting; besides it's better for me to not be tied to leaving the house at a certain time to pick everyone up. 

Today, I'm trying something different.  Gainesville Regional Transit System (RTS) is our public transportation system, and their website is pretty spiffy - it has a route finder that interfaces (does anyone actually use that word anymore?) with Google Maps, so you can get a pre-planned route with schedule and transit times.  I won't diss the route finder even though I've never actually found an agreeable route this way.

For instance, I need to go to the NW part of town so I input my address and the termination address and it gave me this cocamamy route that requires me to go in a completely different direction for an hour and then I have to walk for 22 minutes.  The walking is fine, I love to walk and have the gait of a metropolitan dweller, but the section of road they're talking about can be walked in 22 minutes if you are an Olympic athlete.  Srsly.  So I said "forget that noise," and I'm doing something a little bit different today; I'm riding my bike to the main downtown depot, locking it up and then taking the one bus I need that will drop me practically in front of my destination.  Because our buses are equipped with bike racks I could alternatively take my bike with me, but this thing is no lightweight, so meh. 


I'll try to get a pic of the bus bike racks to show you what I mean.