I'm tired of Traffic. I'm going to implement a new fuel economy strategy.
If I leave my house for work at 9am I get into small traffic to work. Which is fine. But on the way back I can't get on the freeway, it's barely moving. If I get on the freeway it will take me at LEAST 45 min to get get home. I've been taking the streets from work and it takes me about 45min to get home. The continuous stoplights annoy the hell out of me because on most of them i hit a red light.
So I got 2 options to save myself a headache and my clutch leg.
Option 1: I ask my boss if I can stay 30 min. later and when I leave work wait outside 15-20min then head home. That way I get into some light traffic and still stay in 5th gear on the freeway.
Option 2: My request gets denied I leave work and wait 1 hour to drive my car home.
With light traffic I get to work in about 17 min. With no traffic at all about 15min.
I hope I get to stay longer because I'm tired of the freeway and the streets. The way it's going now I'll never get beyond 35mpg. If I leave later I'll be able to break 40's.
There are techniques for maintaining FE in bad traffic. You'll probably want to get fully used to the MT first, but the goal is basically to leave yourself lots and lots of space to coast without using the brakes. Make a gap, coast through it, make another gap and coast through that...it works best when traffic moves at 10-20mph but doesn't stop completely for more than a few seconds at a time.
Personally I would just take less congested surface streets and enjoy OK FE and reduced stress levels. Finding a gym to delay the commute is also an excellent idea since it would be a double stress reducer! (Did I mention that I don't like stress?)
When I first started working at my current job I had kind of the same issue. If I left at 8 or 9 it would take me an hour to get to work because of traffic. Same with going the other way.
My boss doesn't really care when I come and go so I just started trying out different times of day. I found that if I leave around 6:50 I can get here by 7:30 or even earlier. And if I leave around 4:30, I can get home by 5:00.
Just by shifting my commute by 30 minutes I am able to avoid an extra hour of traffic each day!
haha i get random times for my work schedule so I can get a morning, afternoon, and the rare evening shifts. What I noticed for me is that in the morning, the highways are filled and the streets are empty. In the afternoon both are filled to is peak, and in the evening, well that's the best time to drive
In the end, 5spd in the city sucks in the afternoon and at those moments I wish I had a prius!
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