From VoiceOfOC.org
BY
Last October, a coworker and I, who both live near the Anaheim Packing House, had to be in Irvine at 8:30 a.m. for training. Gratefully, I made it on time. My coworker wasn’t so lucky.
We’ve all been there, the freeway at a standstill as the minutes of our lives tick by: late for class, an important meeting, or our kid’s game. Over half a million Orange County workers (nearly 40%) commute over 30 minutes to work, and more than 100,000 travel more than an hour.
My secret to beating the traffic? I took my bike. I know. I know. It sounds crazy, but it was faster to get from Anaheim to Irvine on a bike than in a car.
Orange County is especially well suited to bike commuting. We don’t fight the freezing temps and snow that we’ve seen in so much of the country this winter, and the advent of e-bikes has made bike commuting even more practical. You can get some light exercise, but you needn’t show up to work sweaty. And with e-bikes able to accelerate quickly to a top speed of 28 mph, many commute times are comparable to driving.