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Commuting from Discovery Bay

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  1. #11

    Join Date
    Feb 2011
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    Need to factor in walking to the bus stop, waiting, going to sunny bay, 20 min bus ride, walk 2 min to MTR, wait up to 6 minutes for a train, then to tsing yi, escalators, walking, waiting for minibus, then off to GC.

    That doesn't factor in full buses, you have two of them, very possible, and tuen mun road traffic, if any.

    And GC to tsing yi in the morning must be a headache. I've driven couple weeks to tsing yi station and took the airport express into town. In the end wasn't worth it. Only get to relax 10 minutes on the train.

    It is easy to say you can do work and emails on public transit but I find by the time I sit down and relax, I can't be bothered to do so on most days. Some days can but it isn't great productivity like some people make it out to be.

    I factor in walking when I calculate my commute time too.


  2. #12

    Open Casket, I fully agree with you about kids commuting. We know plenty of kids that commute from Shenzhen to Hong Kong which involves several buses and a border crossing. Yet it's also sad that parents come home late and have barely energy to spend time with their own children. Hence, a balance is needed. My wife doesn't work at the Gold Coast, but at the other end of Tuen Mun. We've tried public transport from DB and it's 1 hour and 30 minutes.

    As Lord Dashwood pointed out, living in DB and having a car is also quite expensive. Gold Coast living is much cheaper and if you live near the highway on-ramp it's a 15 minute commute by car to Tsing Yi and another 25 minute shuttle bus from there. Knowing my boy, I know that he'll make a productive use of those 25 minutes, take a nap, and the other 15 minutes will be spend traveling with his dad. I don't think that's too bad. In return they get to eat breakfast with their mom and all of us will be home at 4:30pm to spend the rest of the day together.

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  3. #13

    Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by nagernager:
    Open Casket, I fully agree with you about kids commuting. We know plenty of kids that commute from Shenzhen to Hong Kong which involves several buses and a border crossing. Yet it's also sad that parents come home late and have barely energy to spend time with their own children. Hence, a balance is needed. My wife doesn't work at the Gold Coast, but at the other end of Tuen Mun. We've tried public transport from DB and it's 1 hour and 30 minutes.

    As Lord Dashwood pointed out, living in DB and having a car is also quite expensive. Gold Coast living is much cheaper and if you live near the highway on-ramp it's a 15 minute commute by car to Tsing Yi and another 25 minute shuttle bus from there. Knowing my boy, I know that he'll make a productive use of those 25 minutes, take a nap, and the other 15 minutes will be spend traveling with his dad. I don't think that's too bad. In return they get to eat breakfast with their mom and all of us will be home at 4:30pm to spend the rest of the day together.
    Just to add...I agree generally about kids commuting but this is pretty short school bus ride...not a 90 minute cross border slog! Most of my school life I rode my bike but there were a few years where I caught a school bus...perfectly normal!

  4. #14

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    Morning commute from gold Coast to tsing yi won't be 15 minutes by car. First you can't take tuen mun road as the bus lane are one from 7:30 to 9 so you are stuck taking castle peak road and you will need 25 to 30minutes
    If I were you I would look a mount haven residence in tsing yi. They have shuttle bus to tsing yi mtr where your kid can take the bus to school and they is a public bus from Mount haven to tuen mun. E33 I think

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  5. #15

    Beuze, you're right and thanks for your advice, in the morning I'll have to take Castle Peak Road, so your estimate is correct.

    I came to the same conclusion about Mount Haven in Tsing Yi and it's the only place we'd consider there. Tsing Yi around the station or Tsuen Wan West is too crowded and noisy for us. Mount Haven also saves me from buying a car. Another option is Park Island, shuttle bus to Tsing Yi for the boy and shuttle bus to Tsuen Wan for my wife from where she can catch a direct bus to her work. We'll have a look at those before deciding.

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  6. #16

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    Original Post Deleted
    I'm glad to see that you are still unable to ignore a piece of accurate information - as I said, I did it on Saturday, the time was from the DB Plaza to GC Plaza and was as stated. It wasn't on a morning commute and as I downloaded the DB app, I knew when the bus left so there was no waiting at the DB end, we had a smooth connection in Sunny Bay (waited 3 mins for train - as indicated by the board when we walked into the station) and waited about the same for the bus in Tsing Yi to GC. As others have indicated Tsing Yi to Gold Coast via uncongested freeway, as it was on Saturday, is about 15 minutes. The 140M is a particularly good service and often does not stop once between Tsing Yi and the Gold Coast (on Saturday it did stop precisely once) - but I certainly would not buy a car to by-pass a bus that travels at the speed limit on the shortest, fastest route (and CAN use that route in rush hour). So - I gave an example because I happened to have it to hand and it added information to the discussion. Others have given the other caveats. In the direction of Tsing Yi in the mornings the main caveat is that the 140M is sometimes full at GC and would certainly be full closer to the freeway entrance.

  7. #17

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    And on the subject of how long should kids commute, perhaps my acceptance of bus journeys stems from the fact that I had a 1.5 hour commute between the age of 11 and 18 - on two buses with a 20 min wait at a particularly cold and wet bus stop in between the two. It didn't hurt me and I considered it perfectly normal at the time (I only had one friend who didn't have a long commute to school - as we were the only grammar school in the district pretty much everyone came a long way by bus). I used that time to learn about commerce... in my 20 min wait I went to the local sweet shop and purchased sweets by the pound, and then sold them individually at a huge markup when I got to school (where there were no alternatives). Raked in the money (ok, perhaps a GBP a day or so, but it was a fortune back then lol). Kids will always find some use for their time.

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