Hong Kong Commute: Ma On Shan to Wan Chai

My commute starts in Ma On Shan, a town in the Eastern New Territories. Ma On Shan is governed by Hong Kong’s ‘Rural Council’, but it is anything but rural – nearly 100,000 people live in 30-storey apartment blocks crammed into an area one-quarter the size of Manhattan.

7:00 am: I leave my flat, and take the elevator down to the second floor. To save space, apartment blocks are built above shopping malls, so my elevator leads straight to the mall. A short walk past McDonalds (Hong Kong has the highest rate of McDonalds consumption in the world, and seven of the world’s most profitable McDonalds) brings me to the Ma On Shan bus station (still indoors!).

7:05 am: I catch the 807k green minibus (technical term: ‘public light bus’) to University train station. Minibuses are a strange invention – they are fairly large, rickety, and seat 16 people, but their drivers treat them like race-cars. To prevent them speeding (frightening elderly passengers), the Hong Kong government requires minibuses to install large speedometers inside the passenger cabin, so you can see exactly how fast the bus is travelling. If the bus crosses local speed limits, the speedometer beeps, much to the irritation of the gas-happy driver.

7:15 am: I arrive at University station, which runs on the Kowloon-Canton (East Rail) line of the MTR, Hong Kong’s train network. This particular line is overground, and the oldest in Hong Kong – built in the early 1900s by the British government keen to secure influence in Southern China. The trains are clean and modern, helped by metal seats (uncomfortable, but easy to clean) and a no-eating policy that has landed me in trouble on more than one occasion.

7:16: Trains typically arrive within 1 minute, and it is a fifteen minute ride to Tsim Sha Tsui, the terminus of the line, and tourist capital of Kowloon, the second most important region in Hong Kong.

7:30: A short walk along Nathan Road past world-class hotels, hawkers selling fake watches, and a torrent of people brings me to the Star Ferry, Hong Kong’s oldest but most celebrated way of crossing Victoria Harbour. It is half transport, half tourist attraction, but for less than 50 US cents, it offers an elegant way to cross the harbour. The harbour itself is spectacular, flanked on both sides by skyscrapers that rival New York.

7:35: Five minutes on the ferry, and I’ve arrived at Wanchai, a business area, but also a party center on Hong Kong Island itself. A short walk, an elevator ride up to the 48th floor, and I arrive at my desk. It’s time to work.

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Coogee to Chatswood Commute

I wake early for my daily commute. It’s a long journey from the Eastern suburbs to the North Shore. At the bus stop on Arden Street near Coogee Beach, I wait for the 08:10 372 bus. The express X74 zooms by, but unless I want to walk half a kilometre to the train station when I get into central Sydney, the normal 372 route suits my purposes much better. The breakfast stall near the bus stop does a brisk business in fresh juices, coffees and pastries as the rush hour starts to build. The beach is quiet and calm in the early mornings, glittering in the sunlight.

As the blue and white bus bumbles up to the stop, I insert my weekly travel pass into the ticket machine, which beeps importantly then spits it back out again. We drive uphill and past the suburb of Randwick and Kensington. Then it’s all systems go in the bus-only lane of Anzac Parade and into the city. The route to Central Station takes about half an hour, but if the traffic is bad (and it inevitably is) it can take me about forty minutes before I alight at Chalmers Street in Surry Hills.

A pedestrian subway leads me underground, into the main entrance of Central Station. It is a long walk, maybe five to ten minutes depending on what kind of shoes I’m wearing for the day, before I reach Central Station. Another swipe of my travel pass, and then I hop onto 08:50 yellow North Shore & Western line from Platform 16, towards Chatswood. The trains have spacious, generous carriages, with an upper and a lower deck, but even so, it is extremely crowded in the mornings and evenings.

The train trundles through Town Hall and Wynyard before bursting out into sunlight near Sydney Harbour. Crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge is my favourite part of my commute. The reason why I generally choose a seat on the upper deck of the train is to drink in the splendid view of the Opera House, twinkling in the sun, off to the right. From there it is another six stops to Chatswood, past the bourgeois suburbs of Milson’s Point, North Sydney, Waverton, Wollstonecraft, St Leonards and Artamon. It takes me a full hour to get door-to-door on my daily commute but the view of the Harbour and the Opera House makes it all worthwhile!

New York City On Time

1:10 pm:
It is too hot to run without sweating, but I’m too late to walk and make a train. I wish I’d worn an undershirt as I sprint down Foster Avenue to the Newkirk subway station.

1:12 pm:
I dodge an old woman pushing a handcart and slide through the door swinging shut behind her. My subway card is out and ready. I push through the turnstile and dash down the stairs to the platform where I weave through the disembarking passengers. Both trains are there, the B express through Brooklyn and the Q Broadway express. I have one second to decide.

1:13 pm and three seconds:
I have to get to 8th Avenue and 38th street in Manhattan by 2 pm. My one second thought goes something like this: The B skips Cortelyou, Beverly, and Parkside in Brooklyn, but takes three stops to get to West 4th in Manhattan where I’ll transfer to the A/C/E and ride another three or four stops, depending if I catch an express or not, before getting to 8th and 42nd, whereas the Q hits the three stops in Brooklyn, but only stops three times after crossing the Manhattan Bridge before Times Square, so the B will be one less stop if I can catch the uptown A express and the added time of a transfer will be negligible compared to the two avenue blocks I’ll have to walk to get from the Q station in Times Square to my office.

1:13 pm and four seconds:
I jump into the closing doors of the B train, get stuck, and wait for the conductor to open and close the doors in what is either is an attempt to release me or an attempt to crush my body for delaying the departure. There is a woman with a stroller, two teenagers, and a group of five soccer players all moving toward the middle of the train where the last two remaining seats are open. The train lurches forward, knocking them off balance, and I take advantage, sliding into a seat and closing my eyes. I drift into a mass transit half-sleep and vaguely hope the woman with the stroller made it to the other seat.

1:45 pm:
The conductor says something about transferring to the F, V, D, A, C, and E trains, pulling me from my trance. I stand and wait with the stroller woman (apparently she didn’t get the seat) for the train to slow and let us off.

1:46 pm:
The doors open and I leap ahead of the woman and her time-consuming stroller, run up the stairs two at a time, and get to the upper platform just as the A train is closing its doors. I jump in, get stuck, and wait for the conductor to open and close the doors and release/crush my body.

1:54 pm:
The doors open at 42nd Street – Port Authority. It is too hot to run without sweating, but I am too late to make it by 2 pm without running. I run up the stairs. I run through the underground station to 40th Street.

1:56 pm:
I run up more stairs. I run to 38th Street, narrowly avoiding being hit by a van at 39th.

1:58 pm:
I stop in front of my office, retuck my shirt, and walk in, sweaty, but on time.

Wimbledon to Borough Markets

In the lovely leafy suburb of Wimbledon, commuters have two choices to get out of Zone 3 and into central London – the train or the Underground. I always choose the train, because it’s faster and more comfortable compared to the District Line, which creaks its way past fourteen stops before it intersects with the Jubilee, the tube line that will take me ultimately, to Borough Markets where my modelling agency is based.

At rush hour, the Southwest service comes every three to four minutes but each carriage is filled with commuters coming in from Woking, Guildford and Chessington, to name but a few of the outer suburbs. I jump on the 08:14, which will get me to Waterloo by around 08:35, and head for a strategic handhold near the middle of the carriage. At , two stops away, most of these sober, dark suited workers will alight for other Overland trains to other London destinations and sometimes if I’m lucky I manage to snare a seat. It takes almost twenty minutes from Wimbledon to Waterloo, as passengers push, jostle and shove to get off or on the train, so a seat is a rare and treasure thing for sore, aching feet.

After Earlsfield, Clapham Junction, and Vauxhall, the train pulls up to Waterloo. I jump off the train, diving into the mass of humanity that flows out of the station, head out the barriers and down escalators into the bowels of the London Underground.

Here the fun really begins. The Underground station at Waterloo is a mess of neon lights, people, buskers, “travelators”, and escalators. Pick the wrong entrance and you could find yourself wandering around following “This way to the [insert name] line” signs for what feels like ages. I dodge the traffic across Waterloo station, head past the benign, life-size elephant made from chicken wire and go down the escalators towards the closest entrance to the Jubilee Line. This little manoeuvre saves me time threading through the traffic below-ground.

Counter-intuitively, the closet tube stop to Borough Markets is actually not Borough on the Northern Line as many would have expected, but London Bridge. From Waterloo it is only two stops to my destination, a short journey which takes three to four minutes on a good day; five to six if there are delays. My total journey time from the south west to south east takes about half an hour, inclusive of transit times.

Join me on my journey

Capilano Transit Center to Fairmount McDonald Hotel by Bus

Edmonton, in Alberta, western Canada doesn’t do public transportation that well. Or rather, it doesn’t do a lot of it. The car rules here. It’s a city that was built for the motor vehicle. Not only because it sprawls for miles and miles, but because for six months of the year the ground is covered in snow and the average winter temperature is about -20 Celsius.

But there are some people who don’t drive. My name’s Tegan; and I am a public transportation user.

In Edmonton, public transportation means the bus. It’s the only credible public transportation system Edmonton has, which could be why it’s operated efficiently. The buses are frequent and run to schedule. In fact, most times the drivers are so conscientious that they get their buses out a few minutes ahead of schedule, perhaps overlooking that this approach is the same as arriving at a stop a few minutes behind schedule – at least for those who plan their journeys using the published timetable. Therefore, it always pays to be a few steps – and minutes – ahead of the bus driver.

My daily journey involves walking from my house to the Capilano Transit Center, which, depending on the weather, can take anywhere from between about five and eight minutes. The streets are quiet with only the odd motor car crawling past.

The 7.35am bus is usually already in the transit center (naturally!) when I arrive. Not only are Edmonton’s bus drivers conscientious, they’re also considerate. Even when the driver’s away getting a coffee, he or she will always leave the bus doors open so you can board, which I do. I sit in my usual place: window seat in the first row of the rear section (driver’s side).

The bus sets off relatively empty. As the journey progresses, the familiar faces get on. The slim woman who sits at the front and sometimes carries a guitar case; the big guy who sits behind me and spends most of the journey good-naturedly moaning to his traveling companion about whatever’s sticking in his craw that morning.

The bus takes no more than around 20 minutes to get downtown, which is my destination. In the winter, as the bus climbs the hill to the downtown core, we passengers are treated to the spectacle of the rising sun’s colors painting the river valley below. And then once the bus turns the bend, it’s time for me to alight at the Fairmount McDonald Hotel. Many of my fellow passengers get off with me at this stop, where we then swiftly move through the city to our respective buildings.

Commuting by Ferry in Sydney

If you live in or near one of the harbourside suburbs of the Australian city of Sydney, the most pleasant way of commuting to work in the Central Business District (CBD) is by ferry.

As the ferry approaches Circular Quay, be inspired by the majestic Sydney Harbour Bridge, the largest steel arch bridge in the world, and the iconic Sydney Opera House glistening in the sunshine.

Sydney Ferries operates a network of services across Sydney Harbour and down the Parramatta River. The main ferry terminus is at Circular Quay, from where you can either walk to your office or take a bus or train.

On some of the ferries, there is a cafeteria service, so that you can relax and enjoy a coffee and perhaps even your breakfast on the way to work.

Suburbs with quick and easy access to the CBD by ferry include Milsons Point, Kirribilli, Balmain East, Greenwich, Neutral Bay and Double Bay. From other suburbs, it is still possible to commute by ferry but it will take longer – the journey from Sydney Olympic Park to Circular Quay, for example, takes about 50 minutes.

There are regular services in the morning and evening commuting hours on all of the ferry routes, making it possible to commute from almost all of the 39 wharves serviced by Sydney Ferries. The only wharf from which it would not be possible to commute is Parramatta, since the first ferry from Parramatta does not arrive at Circular Quay until about 11am.

The most cost-effective way of commuting by ferry is to purchase a weekly, quarterly or annual TravelPass ticket. There are two types of TravelPass: one that allows you to travel on ferries, buses and trains and one that is valid for travel on ferries and buses only. A TravelPass ticket gives you unlimited travel within the colour-coded zone that you choose. Further information can be found on the sydneyferries.info website.

On a fine day, sit outside of the main cabin and enjoy the fresh air and the wonderful views of Sydney Harbour. A variety of scenes will enfold before your eyes – unspoiled countryside, small islands, the skyscrapers of North Sydney and the CBD, and perhaps a super-sized gleaming white cruise ship visiting Sydney for a day or two.

On your way home, the same views will look different in the twilight as the sun gently sets over Sydney Harbour. Your journey home will help you to put your working day into perspective.

Angel to Canary Wharf on the Tube, London

Angel is one of the deepest on the network and a long bank of elevators leads down into its depths. It is located on the Bank branch of the black, or Northern Line, in Zone 1 of London’s Underground network, between Old Street and King’s Cross stations.

I catch the 08:28 or 08:31 southbound train to Morden, though sometimes if I am running late it might be the train after that. They come about every 3 to 4 minutes, if there are no delays on the tube. If delays occur, the platform is often packed three deep and everyone has to wait while stress levels climb. Unlike trains, commuters don’t usually board a regular carriage – often it is just the one that is least packed, or the one you manage to squeeze on. By the time the Northern Line gets to Angel, it would have passed by high traffic areas like Hampstead, Camden and Kings Cross – so perish the thought of an available seat! We are packed like sardines on as the tube whizzes past Old Street, then Moorgate.

After about seven to ten minutes, the tube stops at Bank station, and the human confluence spills out of the carriage, only to be replaced by a fresh set of elbows, knees and shoulders all squeezed tightly in. Rush hour on the London Underground is not for the fainthearted. I sometimes choose to change for the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) here if the Jubilee Line is experiencing delays. To reach Canary Wharf, I catch the Lewisham bound DLR from Platform 9, which departs every five minutes. The journey to Canary Wharf from Bank takes eleven minutes and is a pleasant ride above ground.

If the Jubilee Line is running smoothly, I stay on the Northern Line until it gets to London Bridge. Here, I change for the eastbound Jubilee Line, which departs every two to three minutes. The Jubilee comes more often than the DLR, and there are also fewer stops along the way, which is why I choose to change at London Bridge rather than catch the DLR from Bank. The Jubilee is London Underground’s newest line, and the only one to interchange with all other tube lines. That’s why it’s always packed to the gills with commuters. It takes only eight minutes on the Jubilee before I am at Canary Wharf, at the end of my daily morning journey.

Join me on my journey

Dealing with the weather on your cycle commute

There’s no getting away from it, at some point every cyclist has to deal with the weather. The rain is most cyclists’ number one weather foe. Some cyclists deal with it by not cycling in it; others deal with it by dressing appropriately, gritting their teeth, and peddling through it. If you want to join the latter camp, then you need to buy good waterproof apparel. While the commuting cyclist can, in the main, get away with wearing his or her everyday clothes to ride to the office in, when it comes to dealing with inclement weather, clothing that’s been designed and manufactured specifically for cyclists is the better option. For example, a jacket designed to be worn when cycling will be longer at the back than the front. This is so that when you’re bent forward cycling and the jacket rides up your body, your lower back won’t be exposed to the elements. Similarly, a good quality waterproof cycling jacket will not only prevent you from getting wet, but will wick moisture away from your body when it starts heating up so you’re not left sweaty, and will be equipped with ventilation zips to help keep you cool. As with cycle carriers, most cycling clothing is designed with reflective piping to help you stay visible when it gets dark. Waterproof and windproof jackets and pants can be folded up and stored in your carrier for use in bad weather.

One item of cycling apparel that’s especially useful if you’re cycling any real distance is a pair of padded tights or shorts. These are made from Lycra and fitted with padding in the seat to provide comfort and cushioning when in the saddle. These are particularly useful for the cyclist who sometimes finds that riding leaves him or her feeling a little numb in the derriere.

While you can quite happily cycle in your regular working clothes or leisure wear, good performance cycling apparel will last longer, make your ride more comfortable, and protect you better. And there’s no need to worry about looking as though you’re competing in the Tour de France (you should be so lucky!); most cycling clothing is discreet without flashy logos or symbols.

If you want to buy good quality cycling apparel, some brands to look out for are Altura, Campagnolo, Descente, and Pearl Izumi.

Read more: work facilities for cycle commuters

The cycling commuter

The recession, global warming, or your ever increasing waistline… whatever your reason for wanting to trade in your four wheels for two and start cycling to work, don’t wait any longer. Ask anyone who’s recently made the switch and they will tell you that they wish they had done it sooner. There could be one small aspect of cycling to work that’s holding you back though – the thought of how you’ll look, and feel, once you get to your desk after cycling the four or five miles to the office. Some people never get to reap the many benefits of commuting to work by bike because they believe that it’s impossible to do so without having to spend their day feeling sticky and uncomfortable, in clothes that are creased and grubby. But all it takes is a little know-how and that can easily be avoided.

Read more: Dealing with the weather

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