As awesome as it would be if everyone could feasibly take public transit for their commute, Scott McGerik breaks down exactly why it’s not a good idea for him ^[1].

There’s math. He gives a perfect example of the back of the envelope calculations involved. I followed along and found that my per-mile costs are much lower than I thought. And depending on what your costs are, it makes everyone’s break-even point different.

What it really boils down to is that it’s just not feasible to take Metro Transit ^[2] between suburbs. This is an oft-cited problem in discussion of what’s lacking in our public transportation system. If it takes 75 minutes to get to work by bus vs 10 minutes by car (each way), of course you’re going to drive. Similarly, there is no Southwest Transit ^[3] option for me to get four miles across Eden Prairie from home to work. My choice becomes 9 minutes in the car vs 22 minutes on my bike.

If you need to get four miles across Minneapolis, public transit still may not be feasible depending on where you’re going, but there a lot more options.