It took me 10 minutes to drive to work today. True, when I lived in our last apartment it took 10 minutes to walk to work, but we've moved. The bus takes about 30 minutes to get here, but about 45 minutes to return to our house (it's a different route through a shopping center).
My work hours mean that I could get to work and return from work outside of normal rush hour traffic, and there's free parking available at the school.
After yesterday's terrible transportation experience I can't help thinking about taking my car back. But I'm sticking it out for a while longer and we'll see if I can keep it up.
There are benefits of using public transportation that make it worth my while to waste an additional 55 minutes a day on a bus.
I get just a little exercise in since I have to walk to the bus stops. The stops are really close to where I live and where I work, so it's a bit of a lame excuse. On the way to work I stop off at the little corner shop and get a paper and a $1 cup of coffee for my bus ride. All in all, I kind of like the trip to work. Buses run every 10 minutes, so worst case scenario I have to wait 10 minutes in nasty weather. I'm not sure it's such a bad thing, even though I hate it, for me to experience the weather.
The way home from work is a little less enjoyable. It takes a longer time and its more crowded. If I need to stop off at Target I can get off and do my shopping, but then I have to carry the stuff with me on the bus and a seat isn't guaranteed. I can read my book without too much fear of missing my stop because a few stops before my own is a T station and it's like a mass exodus. You can't quite miss that.
And finally, I don't have to worry about parking, gas, or my carbon emissions. In the summer when it's nice perhaps I'll ride my bike. Work is only about 2 miles from my house.
The question is, is it worth it? It's only 2 miles, not like I have to drive long distances everyday (in NM I would drive 65 miles per day). If I drove I could conceivably work out in that extra 55 minutes. I wouldn't have to worry about the weather. What if I got a smart car? What if I bought a scooter with a covered hood? (and then I remember that I want kids and neither option would be a good long term investment)
So for now I'm sticking it out, but no telling which way I'll go. As concerned as I am for the environment I'm still working through whether or not 20 miles a week is worth 4.5 hours of bus time.
2 comments:
It must be nice to have a real choice in the matter. And it looks like there are some definite pros/cons each way (I think having the chance to sit and read instead of worry about traffic sounds quite nice) :)
I did once look up the possibility of taking a bus to work from my house. It is possible. And would take 1.5 hours each way (including several long stretches of walking along roads with poor/lacking sidewalks in iffy parts of town). Driving takes 10-15 minutes and about 7 miles. I did that analysis a couple of years back, and they've since slashed the public transportation budget and cut a bunch of bus routes (including some near me I gather). So it would probably be worse now.
When I say "iffy" I mean like the stretch nearest to my office building, where the post office counter is protected by thick bulletproof glass (even the ones in the city didn't have that particular feature...). I'm quite happy to have barbed wire and armed guards protecting our parking lot.
If I worked downtown St. Louis, my trip each way would only be about 45 minutes (its about 35 by car, so that's not really that bad).
And dropoff/pickup of kids at school isn't a possibility. Nor is biking (the shortest non-highway route is basicaly deserted...no way am I riding alone through there, though the distance would be totally do-able for me).
This is where having a rich husband comes in handy :) Well, okay, not rich, but definitely better off than I've ever been. Until I met my husband I would have been living in the suburbs like I have most of my life. Its cheaper, you can get more space, and it's a way of life I'm used to.
I don't know if I could have afforded to live in the city on a teacher's salary even if I'd thought of the idea pre-Eurohusband, at least with my old ideas about where or how to live. There are subsidized houses or low income buildings that would have been available, but I never would have considered it.
But I've got to admit, I love living in the city. I love the option to walk or take public transportation pretty much wherever I want to go. If I were on my own now I'd probably try to stay in the city, despite the likelihood that I'd have less space and shell out more money.
Maybe I'll (we'll) come full circle someday. I know that with kids life would be pretty different. The school district I'm in is pretty bad. You have to bid for schools and it's a city wide lottery system. There are some pretty bad schools my potential kids could end up with, so it would either be private school or a move to a better district.
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