BIKE: commute advice: downtown to apple

[Mike Dahmus]

Jonathan,

I biked from Clarksville to the vicinity of Oak Knoll / 183 about 300 
times  (had 3 or 4 offices in the vicinity at 2 companies over a few years).

See:

http://www.io.com/~mdahmus/cgi-bin/slideshow.cgi?show=workcommute

(has most of the route - you'll want to pick this up at either Shoal Creek 
or Bull Creek - now that I go from my house in North University to 
183/Braker, I usually head west on 38th to Medical Parkway, up MP to 45th, 
jog over one block and cut through Rosedale to Shoal Creek at that point. 
Woodrow is also a good north route, especially now that Shoal Creek will be 
going under construction for the foreseeable future -- you can cut over to 
the north Shoal Creek corridor on Morrow and then take Shoal Creek up to 
Steck, which is where I prefer to cross Mopac and get to Mesa).

E-mail me if you're missing anything from here.

- MD


On 07:21 PM 1/26/2005 -0600, Michael Bluejay wrote:

>On Jan 26, 2005, at 7:02 PM, Jonathan Fretheim wrote:
>
>>I'm starting a new job at apple up by the oak knoll exit off of 183.
>>
>>Does anyone have experience with a best route to get there from downtown?
>>
>>I live around 18th and San Antonio (if you need a starting point).
>>
>>I'll probably bus & bike the first coupl'a days until I get the feel of 
>>the place.  (as you know, sometimes a sweaty unfamiliar guy asking where 
>>to change clothes isn't the best first impression you can make with huge 
>>corporations).
>>
>>Anyway, thanks for any practical advice.
>
>
>Not familiar with that area, but glad to hear someone else is biking to 
>Apple.  I was about the only one who did so when I worked there, even 
>though it was much more accessible (290 when I started, and then we moved 
>down the road to E. Anderson Lane).
>
>Let's hope your success is better than mine.  I rode my bike to the site 
>the day before my job started so I knew I'd have the route down because 
>there were lots of confusing turns through the neighborhood.  I thought I 
>was set, but the next day, my first day of work, I missed one of those 
>turns and wound up going in the opposite direction of where I needed to 
>go.  I eventually realized it and turned my bike around, wondering if I 
>could still arrive in time, when I got a flat.  I jogged my bike to a gas 
>station and tried to call a cab but they wouldn't dispatch unless I had a 
>street address; the street names of the intersection I was on wasn't good 
>enough for them.  I asked them to hang on while I walked a few steps away 
>from the phone to look for the address numbers on the gas station window, 
>but when I got back to the phone they'd hung up on me.  I wound up locking 
>my bike at the gas station and begging a ride from a guy there filling up 
>his car.  I was substantially late which was embarrassing for my first 
>day, but they apparently didn't hold it against me.
>
>Apple had planned to move much farther north when I was there but they 
>postponed it after Williamson County changed its mind about handing out 
>tax breaks to Apple because Apple "supported homosexuality", since Apple 
>granted benefits to same-sex partners of Apple employees.  I remember one 
>of the commissioners who said, "I just know if I'd voted for this then 
>people would have pointed at me and said, 'There's the man who brought 
>homosexuality to Williamson County.'"
>
>I was conflicted about that whole thing.   On one hand I didn't think that 
>any local government should hand out be handing out corporate welfare, 
>domestic partners program or not.  But the intolerance of the Wmson. 
>County Commissioners bothered me. Though on yet another hand, the whole 
>debacle meant that my commute for the five years I worked at Apple was 
>much, much shorter than it would have been otherwise.
>
>One thing that miffed me at Apple was that if you worked at the California 
>campus you got credit in the employee store for every day you walked, 
>bused, carpooled, or biked to work, but they gave no such credit for 
>Austin employees.  I was surprised that the employee newsletter was candid 
>about why:  They're required by law to take steps to decrease employees' 
>car use in CA, but there is no such law in Austin or Texas.
>
>If you're doing tech support I have some great tips for calming down irate 
>customers, which probably won't be a part of your training.
>
>-MBJ-
>
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Mike Dahmus
mdahmus