In a 'situation' the first choice is often to drive home, failing that to ride ( L, Bus, subway) and then to walk.

These all require different mindsets, planning, equipment and time.

First choice is drive, second choice is catch a ride with a coworker (preferably Amanda :D), third is call someone to get me (probably not an option in a disaster), fourth is to try talking the boss into hauling people home using our huge rigs, fifth would be walking to one of the many nearby shops and buy a bicycle. Sixth would be buy a cheap motorcycle from the place across the street.

Seventh would be jump a train, the tracks pass right by both work and home. However, I'd most likely end up cut in half which would be a bad thing.

-Blast

If you cannot drive home, a ride from someone else might not do any good. Nor would using a different vehicle magically solve the problem of disrupted roadways.

Bicycles and motorcycles can get through where cars cannot, so they are worthy of consideration.

Public transit in a survival emergency? If it has dedicated routes other than those that are impossible to drive home, okay. So the bus doesn't look like a strong contender. Rail in any flavor, maybe.

A flood emergency brings the idea of water transport into play.

Walking is pretty much the fallback.

A premium would be placed on the earliest knowledge of developing problems and quick, appropriate response. Driving before the traffic snarls up, for example, even if it means bailing out of other commitments.

Home to job #1 = 1.2 miles. Normally drive, but walk when it snows: to get home involves going up a hill with a sharp corner. If there are snowflakes in the air, someone is always wiped out, and blocking traffic in both directions.

Home to job #2 = 15 miles. Normally drive, but could use one of the work motorcycles to get home, if need be. I've walked it, but only to say that I did. No public transit.
[/i]Edit: [i]If it was just for one night, I'd stay there.

Very true, but it depends on the situation. Houston floods on an almost regular schedule, however I didn't know this when I first moved here. A storm hit during working hours that flooded many roads. The Honda Civic I owned at the time was trapped in the company parking lot but my coworker with the Ford Expedition had no problems driving me home.

I highly recommend learning if any coworks live near you. This can help even in small situations like car trouble. And if something happens where you all have to walk home there's safety in numbers.

-Blast

Never forget it's possible to combine methods of transportation. I've used methods that got me closer than walked many times.

When in doubt, hoof it out.

It is very important to learn lessons from history. To think you can plan for something without looking at history is dangerous.

Let’s just put terrorism into this scenario and look at resent terrorist attacks in three cities, NYC, Madrid and London. Each of these attacks affected the transport systems, Madrid and London attacks were specifically targeted at the transport systems. The London attack was a sustained attack hitting tube lines and surface roads. In both Madrid and London the transport systems ether ground to a holt or were closed. In NY the shear scale of the attack instantly affected the transport systems.

In all cases the roads were clogged by many thousands of people moving away from the attack location. Then the arthritis started closing off areas to evacuate them, this put even more people on the streets and the road systems ground to a holt and traffic backed up for miles in all directions. Vehicles had no where to go because the roads were blocked by traffic in front and behind including side roads. Add to the fact that the emergency services need to move through this traffic to get to the site of the attack. The authorities will eventually want to turn all the traffic around and clear many of the streets so that the roads are clear for searching for secondary devices, evacuation and emergency services.

Now let’s scale up the scenario to an earthquake, dirty bombs, floods, metropolitan tornados, ice storms or snow. Adding to the fact you may not even be able to reach your vehicle. Transport systems may be blocked by debris, vehicles damaged by falling debris and mass casualties in the street.

Reaching your vehicle may be the desired option to get you home but if that is possible the transport systems may be blocked or very slow moving. Being on foot may be still the best or only option.

It is important to build this fact into you planning. You spend the majority of the day at work; if you work in an office have a kit that will allow you to walk out. Be mindful that you might not have a home to go to so your kit maybe the only things you are left with.

Let the situation dictate your action, it might be a case that you are in relatively safety at work, consider whether it might be a better option to stay put and spend the night or two there. The chances are the building you are in is built to a higher standard than your home; this is true for tower blocks. Many large office building have redundancy built in, they may have back up power systems, large water storage facilities and enough chocolate, crisps and other food stuffs in vending machines and colleagues desks to feed a small army.

Don’t get into the trap of thinking a vehicle is your plan or the answer to your problem. It is not, it is a tool that if you have to hand can aid you in carrying out you plan.

Option 1 is move close to work. Maybe I'm just lucky but our city as the cost of doing business downtown kept going up most of the larger companies built office buildings on the north side of the city outside the outerbelt. I've worked here since 2001 and had to drive 20 miles each way. Last year when we were looking at moving I found all these nice houses between 150k and 200k in all the nice suburbs and then found this house for 169 right across the street in a small subdivision. I did everything I could to get in the house across the street, went real easy on the inspection, paid all the closing costs nstead of asking them to, etc. So I now work .5 miles from work. If somehting happens I can work home, bicycle, etc. Even if I were to be laid off from my current job there are lot of other companies around this area so while I would have liked to have been further outisde of the city to have some more land I can;t compain about having everything I need within a mile radius.

Eugene,

Living that close to your place of employment, have you considered that the emergency situation at work might also encompass your home turf?