Transport / ride shares / etc

[Famous Mortimer]

I have an interview for a job tomorrow! Bloody immigrants, coming over here, taking all our low-level office drone jobs! Anyway, it's just the other side of Chesterfield, and I live downtown. Is there a good ride-sharing service, something like that? I presume at least a few of the people who work nearby live in the city. Any good websites you know of? Learning to drive when you're 41 is a slow process (for me, anyway).

Any help, recommendations, would be appreciated. Even if it's just to say "put something up on the notice board when you start working there".

[GeddyWrox]

Have you looked into Ride Finders?
http://www.sharetheridestl.com/

I haven't used them because I live so far out it's not likely I'll match up with other commuters. But you might have some luck.

[tlombard]

Just the other side of Chesterfield? That's a journey. I would guess that your best bet would be a posting at work? I'm not even sure. Metro goes out to Chesterfield and the route from the Clayton Metrolink station isn't that bad (I've taken it just to kill time and read when I was bored and didn't feel like being bored at home) but it definitely won't get you past Chesterfield. I think Chesterfield Commons/Spirit Airport are as far as it goes but it does take a pretty direct route. It takes 40 from Clayton with a quick loop at the transfer center on Ballas and 40 and then another loop off the highway for Chesterfield Mall and then heads back west on 40. The route number is 258. You could catch a blue line train at Union Station just a couple of blocks away, take that to Clayton and get as far as Chesterfield Commons/Spirit Airport in a fairly reasonable time that isn't much longer than driving once you get the timing/schedule down.

Heck, with traffic on 40 at times, the stretch to get out to Clayton might even come close to making up the time lost for the two loops the route takes off of the highway. When I lived by the airport it was actually faster for me to walk half a block (pretty big block actually) to catch a bus down St. Charles Rock Rd. to the Metrolink station and then after riding the train to Grand, I would walk the last three or four blocks. From door to desk was 45 minutes consistently every day while driving took an hour on a good day thanks to 13.5 miles of the 15 mile trip being 170 and 40 during rush hour.

[cardinalkarp]

I have an interview for a job tomorrow! Bloody immigrants, coming over here, taking all our low-level office drone jobs! Anyway, it's just the other side of Chesterfield, and I live downtown. Is there a good ride-sharing service, something like that? I presume at least a few of the people who work nearby live in the city. Any good websites you know of? Learning to drive when you're 41 is a slow process (for me, anyway).

Any help, recommendations, would be appreciated. Even if it's just to say "put something up on the notice board when you start working there".

If you intend on keeping that job for any length of time, you'll need a car. That's WAY too far to do on a daily basis w/o having your own transportation.

[Famous Mortimer]

I know that, but finding jobs within a more reasonable commuting distance is not going well.

[JoeMcKim]

St. Louis isn't a good city to have to rely on public transport. But if the job is within a reasonable walk from the Metrolink then that would probably be your best bet.

[Schlich]

St. Louis isn't a good city to have to rely on public transport.

For daily routes it's really not too bad. For spur-of-the-moment transportation its horrendous.

[JoeMcKim]

It's not bad if you live directly alongside one of the metrolink or bus routes. But if you live in South County or West County it's really inconvenient. Plus a bus ride to work takes like 3 times as long as driving yourself. Depending on how long you have to wait for a bus, busses make a lot of stops and don't go overally fast. Maybe if you got on a bus with a bomb on it and Keanu Reeves, it's a really slow process for day-to-day needs.

[tlombard]

It's not bad if you live directly alongside one of the metrolink or bus routes. But if you live in South County or West County it's really inconvenient. Plus a bus ride to work takes like 3 times as long as driving yourself. Depending on how long you have to wait for a bus, busses make a lot of stops and don't go overally fast. Maybe if you got on a bus with a bomb on it and Keanu Reeves, it's a really slow process for day-to-day needs.

I used the gps on my phone once on a stretch of St. Charles Rock Road where nobody ever gets on or off and that bus regularly topped 50 in a 35! You really didn't want to be standing because the bus was full on that stretch if anything happened

[JoeMcKim]

Well I guess that it depends on how often there is a stop and how much time inbetween pickups.