I spent a couple of hours this morning traveling by bus and LRT to run a bunch of errands, and I’m not sure if it was unreasonable or not.

Friends and acquaintances know that I’m very loyal to NU Grocery for zero-waste shopping. They unfortunately couldn’t continue in my neighbourhood a couple of blocks away, so I visit them once or twice a week in Old Ottawa South. It’s a roughly 25-minute cycle away, but I just didn’t feel like biking today. It’s winter and there’s no way I’m using my scooter to get around.

It finally took me two-and-a-half hours to visit NU via bus, LRT and walking, then make my way by bus to the core to visit the Rideau Centre and the newsstand for a paper. My plans were scuttled when Shoppers didn’t have an item I was looking for, which led to a short hike to another Shoppers that I didn’t realize was closed leading to another bus trip to another Shoppers, and then a final bus trip home.

I should stress that for most of the legs of my trip I didn’t have to wait any unreasonable time for a bus – most in about 5 minutes. In lighter traffic those all made good time and were relatively direct. Transitioning from the train at Lees there were no buses arriving in a timely way, but it was a less-than-10-minute walk to NU.

But all those legs added up. I’m trying to imagine driving that same trip – would it have been a lot shorter, keeping in mind that those two-and-a-half hours were inclusive of actually shopping* and I’d have to find parking? Dunno.

I do know scooting to and from the LRT stations would have been a lot faster. Maybe this summer when I can get my machine back on the road I’ll do a comparison.

The Mastodon post here is the last of an ongoing thread I kept from the start of the trip. Follow that here.

(*Shopping at NU is an experience as much as an errand. I enjoy the pouring and filling and weighing and measuring, but it’s not a quick dash into the store and out.)