All right let's try a little experiment today.
What's actually faster, taking the M2 and paying on the tolls and Lane Cove tunnel etc or
taking Epping Road and not paying any of the tolls? Let's find out.
Hey, I was trying to use the app but it's not like the Ample one where you...
Awesome, thanks man. At least I'm set up now for next time.
All right, trick for new players, if you're trying out the new BP app to pay for your fuel,
you actually got to start it before you fill up, not after. It's not like the Ample one.
Now, the way I'm going to run this is I'm going to say to Google Maps we are taking all the toll
roads and then completely ignore them. What that's going to do is it's going to give us an ETA based
on taking the toll roads and then we're going to see how that ETA changes as we don't take the toll
roads and take a different path. So what we're going to do is go down Epping Road, we get to use
bus lanes and transit lanes and there's a lot of filtering options for bikes. So there are some
advantages for bikes that cars don't have versus the M2 where there are no real advantages for
motorcycles because most of the time the speed is just a bit above 30ks an hour so you can't filter
down the M2 and there's no bus lines or anything like that so there are no big advantages
except you're paying 15 bucks for the privilege.
Yeah, Mazda behind didn't like my filtering. Here's something you've got to get used to if
you're going to commute on a bike, particularly if you're going to filter is you will get tailgated
all the time. People are very very impatient these days.
All right. So if i turn right, I'll be going towards the M2. I go
this way my intent is to not take the M2 to not take any of the toll roads apart from the Harbour
Bridge. Let's see what time we actually end up there. So saying 8:52 is my current eta
by taking the M2.
Stay there. Let's see where we end up.
I'm already doing 70!
Every time I pull up start filtering, it turns green. So we've gained two minutes. 8:54.
So what Google is saying is, if I joined the M2 down here at Pennant Hills Road, that I would
have only lost 2 minutes by going this way. So when I turn left down here at Copeland Road,
let's see what happens. There now initially it's going to tell me to turn around and go back.
All right. So now it's saying 8:55. So I've only gained 1 minute by avoiding the
M2 between Pennant Hills Road and Beecroft Road. Okay, 12-minute congestion on the M2.
Uh, saying I'm still on the fastest route. Well, let's see about that, shall we? So 8:57. Now,
again, it's still telling me it's going to tell me to turn left onto the M2 down at Beecroft
Road, so we're going to ignore that and carry on down Epping Road. Of course,
we're going to filter through all that so let's see what happens.
All right, so we've passed the M2 now it's saying 8:59. It's only suggesting that taking this way
is gonna cost an extra 1 minute and that's for a car because Google Maps obviously can't
consider that I'm gonna take the bus lane and filter and transit lanes etc. So its estimation
is based on a car and it still only thinks it's an extra 1 minute. That is interesting.
Didn't even have to filter that.
You used to see a lot of courtesy on the road, letting people in, and people used to do things
because it was the right thing to do. You'd let someone in because it's the right thing to do.
You wouldn't, you know, you wouldn't tailgate people because that would be the wrong thing
to do. You know you'd be patient because that was the right thing to do. You know it seems
as though that doesn't exist anymore. You know, you wouldn't block the intersection because that
was the wrong thing to do, just like this guy back at Beecroft Road. Right, you didn't do that
because it was wrong but yet now it's every single set of lights someone's blocking the intersection.
All right, so we've now pretty much avoided the entirety of the M2 and coming up is the turnoff
to Lane Cove Tunnel, so we're now sitting at 8:55. So, so far by avoiding the M2 and to be honest, I
haven't had that much of a gain through filtering and bus lanes etc, a little bit, but not a huge,
not as much as I normally do, put it that way. Now, I'm not expecting to get there faster but I'm
also not expecting to pay about 20 bucks in tolls, so there's that. This way is so much more fun.
Now depending on the capacity of the Lane Cove Tunnel at the time, that's where you
can get a big gain from a motorcycle because we can use the bus lane through Lane Cove.
And just looking glancing at the map, just then I saw a lot of red
which suggests that the Lane Cove tunnel may be congested. It does look a little
full. So 8:54 is what it's saying just before the turn-off.
There is 6-minute congestion in one kilometre, you are still on the fastest route.
That's what she said. so now it's saying 9:00.
Bang on nine o'clock, so if I was in a car this would cost me an extra 6 minutes.
If you keep breaking, I can't let you in. You don't understand how merging works?
Back to 8:54.
8:53. Gained a minute.
This person is on the phone. You can actually see them texting but I knew that well beforehand
because of the massive gap that they left in front of them and the swerving they were doing.
All right, so we're about to rejoin, Lane Cove Tunnel is over there,
that's the exit to Lane Cove Tunnel, you can see they're being held up as well
and uh we're in the transit lane and it's currently saying 8:52.
What is the actual time? 8:30. Yamaha dash is saying 8:33. So it's three minutes
fast. What is it with the Yamaha dashes? They must skip a second somewhere and they're just
over time they end up fast it's like they go from 59 seconds to one second
and they miss the zero second in between or something?
All right, now we're reaching another gain point
and this one's the big one, the red carpet all the way into the city.
All right, so we're at 8:50 now, that just dropped then, so again, I think
again an extra 2 minutes there along the Gore Hill Freeway.
Now while this bit is a bus lane, both left and right lanes here can cross over.
Yeah, it usually causes a bit of chaos, to be honest. Sometimes you don't get
the gain here you end up stuck because someone's halfway through changing lanes.
So this is all red on Google Maps which means it's assuming I'm in one of these lanes
to the left or the right of me. 8:46, gained an extra four minutes.
Look at that, getting close to the city now. Sydney Harbour Bridge. It's funny when you cross
this thing frequently you know it becomes just a daily commute you forget just how amazing it is.
You stop and think about you know just a bit of perspective and
you look at the Sydney Harbour Bridge next time we go over and have a look at the rivets. Right.
Those rivets are monstrous, they're huge, right, you imagine how many blokes it takes
to punch those in. Back in the 1920s or whatever it was?
And uh yeah, that's a fair amount of effort, like if you had to punch one of those into
some metal yeah that would take some effort and now just look at how many there are yeah.
I do love it when you get taxis tailgating you.
Along this lane, I can't go anywhere. I literally have zero options. I have a bus in front of me and
I have concrete to the left and the right what are you actually expecting me to do?
And that comes back to what I was talking about, that selfishness. Right, no one stops to think
about the pressure that it puts on other people. People justify their actions these days by I
didn't do the wrong thing and they mean when they say the wrong thing, they mean legally. I didn't
break the rules but what i would love is just every now and then if people said i did the right
thing, and it had nothing to do with the rules. It just had to do with good moral judgment. Treating
each other nicely, doing the right thing just because it's the right thing all right where do.
We end up with time 8:46 and we're pretty much there 6 minutes to go. I don't think it's going
to be a huge amount of gain beyond that so I think 8:46 is our number. So that's pretty good
I reckon? I reckon that's not bad. We actually got here uh what's that 8... uh three minutes, idiot.
...then the time it originally predicted to take the M2 and the Lane Cove Tunnel.
So yeah, so it would have cost, what? It's almost 10 bucks now for M2, it's what 5 bucks for the
Lane Cove Tunnel, so that's 15 bucks. Plus if I was driving a car would have spent you know what?
Calculate that later versus the amount of petrol on this?
So that's fair saving. Right. It's almost 20 bucks
a day just for one trip that's just one direction but yet people still keep driving their cars
Ah that's Porsche the electric Porsche very nice.