How I get to work

I liked my morning commute in Japan. We lived on post, and I could take the car to work. From walking out the front door to walking into my office, it took no more than 15 minutes.

In Germany, though, it's really different. We live off-post in downtown Wiesbaden -- about a mile away from the Hainerberg Housing Area, and about six miles away from Clay Kaserne. It was a deliberate choice, but it meant I had to figure out how best to get to work, and where to park the car. Here are the options:

1. Park in the underground garage and drive in.
   • +Convenient parking
   • +shortest travel time
   • +good for post office trips
   • -€200 monthly fee for parking
   • -uses the most gas (20km/day * 20 workdays/mo * $0.25/mile = $60/mo for gas)
2. Leave car at Hainerberg, take the shuttle in
   • +the shuttle drops me off at my work building
   • +no driving, no gas
   • +free parking
   • -I'd have to leave the house by 6:20 to catch the 7:00 shuttle
   • -can't carry home large/heavy packages
   • -gate access is unreliable, so I'd have to walk 15 min from the city bus stop to the shuttle bus stop
   • -€90 for a monthly bus pass, or else walk 20 minutes to Hainerberg; rain, snow, or shine
3. Leave the car at Hainerberg, & city busses to Clay Kaserne
   • +free parking
   • +no gas
   • -€90 monthly bus pass/li>
   • -takes longer, & requires a half-mile walk from the gate to work
   • -bus driver strikes would mess this up
   • -gate access at Clay Kaserne is unreliable, too
   • -can't carry home large/heavy packages
4. Take the bus to Hainerberg, drive to Clay Kaserne.
   • +can get groceries and mail on the way home
   • +best backup plan
   • -still need to ride the bus
   • -still need to pay ~$60/mo for gas
   • -still need to deal with unreliable gates at Hainerberg
   • -still need to deal with bus driver strikes
5. Get a "nighttime parking pass" from the underground garage
   • +all the convenience of parking nearby and driving in
   • -€65 for the monthly parking pass
   • -$60 for gas
   • -Must leave the parking garage by 9am every day of the week (Sat/Sun too)
   • -CANNOT park before 7pm M-F, 5pm S/S (this is the biggest problem)

While there's no single solution that works best for all situations, I've settled into what I think is a good routine. It works like this:

1. Wake up in time to get ready and still see the kids while they're getting ready (6:40-7:10)
2. Using either a monthly pass or a Sammelkarte ticket (€2.30), take the city busses to Clay Kaserne, and walk the 800m to my office building.
3. If the weather's crazy bad, or I need to get something from the post office, I go to to Hainerberg, get the car, and drive in
4. If there's a bus driver strike, I walk to Hainerberg's Berlinerstraße gate (where I typically park the car)and take that in

The worst case scenario (and this has happened before) is when I see the Berlinerstraße gate showing "green," and get off the bus, only to find out that -- due to cold weather or something -- the gate is not actually working. In that case, I have to make my way to the main gate (which is about a mile away), get on the base, and then double back to where my car is parked.

I've also had situations where I arrive by bus to the Clay Kaserne walk-in gates, and they're not working, which requires me to walk a half-mile along the fenceline, on a road with no sidewalk, to get though the vehicle gate, whereupon I have to walk another half-mile to get to my office.

Either of those scenarios constitutes what I call "a bad day." More on this in the next post.