I’m 100% an urbanite again. Amazing what that does to one’s psychological state. Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting a few of pics related to my new commute. Maybe if I’m luck I’ll even be able to start posting regularly again!
For now I simply am posting this photo I have from a couple years ago, while simply visiting Seattle and wondering what it would be like to live here.
A Space Needle
…and one more…
Out...
On the 15th I’ll start a new commute route for a new job. I’m pretty stoked, as this one is more what I like. I used to have a commute in Portland like this:
…or like this…
Then I changed that one for greater opportunities in Seattle and my commute turned into this:
…and I’ve again made a move for a great opportunity and an awesome urban commute of this:
…or this one.
Needless to say I’m looking forward to spending 10-15 minutes getting to work each day versus the hour long commute each way before. I’ll have more about these locations in the future. For now I just wanted to post these commute maps for reference. Interesting changes that I’m really stoked about.
I still, have the big wopper of a blog entry coming on Vancouver, BC.
Today I jumped aboard King County Metro Bus #26 headed south bound through downtown Seattle to King Street Station. At this time of the morning, 6:19am, the streets are tranquil and oddly lit with the night lights. As the bus pulls up at 6:29am, 7 minutes late with 6 passengers on board, I swipe my ORCA card to pay the fare and take a seat toward the back.
The bus rolls through the wet from rain streets. The street and building lights glaring like golden decorations all along. Barely a soul moves, except for the rare early riser and oddball bum or transient. A person walking down one street howls some nonsense, as his sanity cracks. The sky is overcast gray, one can tell even with darkness still caressing the early morning.
I get off the bus in the old town Pioneer Square are one block north of King Street Station. I’m now running pretty late compared to my intended arrival time. I’m glad I decided to get the bus just before the one that would theoretically get me to the station on time. So now instead of early I’m just barely on time. I make no dally and attain my tickets from the ticket clerk and stand in the line to get a seat assignment.
After standing in the line of the century old process of seat assignments, I text my lady after realizing I failed to provide a wake up call. She’s forgiving thankfully and wishes me a good trip. I bid a good day to her.
With a steady walk I roll the dice to get a good cappuccino and croissant from Zeitgeist 2 blocks from the station. I arrive, as always when they’ve just opened there are only a few people inside and nobody is in line. I walk right up and order. A few minutes later the candid young lady working provides me a cap and ham and cheese croissant. I’m set, and back to the station I go.
As I walk into the station I literally beeline straight through and onto the train. Again, dice rolled and perfection in timing. I’ve made the train with a decent bit of quality food and drink for the trip. I sit down in car 8, seat 15, and sip on my cap and nibble a bit on the croissant. The coffee is delicious, an absolutely spectacular brew. The croissant has an elegant, light suppleness to it. With an almost sweet aftertaste, a perfect complement to the cappuccino.
We depart perfectly on time at 7:30am. The flanged wheel is again moving me in luxury to my destination. The plush leather chair, not even business class but mere simple peasant class, comforts me as the breaking night gives way to the sun that can’t be seen. The train is a perfect temperature today, people being quite at this time of the morning. I lean back knowing that the last decade of my life, ridding myself of automobile, putting myself into walkable communities, and throwing the suburban nonsense into the trash has been the right decision. This ease, simple and elegant, down to earth and real, sustainable in so many ways, tasteful and subtle just brings a smile as we roll smoothly on through southern Seattle.
Every few minutes though, when leaving Tacoma and Olympia we go through the desolate and lifeless suburbia where mediocrity screams out as the leading mindset. Not a soul risen or working toward a goal. Providing souls for urban jobs and imitation of the rural life. However leaching off the wealth of the urban life and mocking the rural life, it holds no place anymore with the death knell of the cold war. It just drags upon American society with vast auto dependency and no real war survival need. Having bred cursed mentalities of land entitlement and assumed rights to jobs – suburbia is an odd and crass place. But I digress, the beauty of the rural land surpasses the suburban ideas that frustrate me at the moment.
About 30 minutes out of Tacoma we roll through the beautiful nature, disturbing barely a soul as we traverse the country side. The trees along both sides of the tracks break the frequent farms and fields. Green is intense with a speckle of orange and yellow leaves among the trees. The rural residences of the red counties caressing the land to feed the blue counties full or urban people. The parallels of America that make this country; urban and rural landscapes.
With these thoughts of the beauty of rail travel, I bid this entry fini.
Note: SOV == Single Occupancy Vehicle, which is what about 98%+ of cars on the road are, one driver operating the vehicle on an inefficient trip to do X.
As I was sitting on the bus, which was actively removing over 90 people from SOV use I started thinking. How many of these people do NOT need to be on the road? How many people are confused and just think they need to be SOV? How many of these people could take transit, could live in a better location or more intelligently? How many of these people, if auto transport wasn’t so heavily subsidized, could even afford to be taking frivolous trips like this? How much wealth redistribution through transportation dollars encourages needless trips that clog Interstates, Highways, arterials and other routes? Not to even mention the environmental damage of the excess and unneeded trips.
Common Fallacies for People Living in Smart and Intelligent Cities
“I need a car because of X situation that I have!”
This is a nonsense argument for the vast majority of people traveling to and from work. If X is a child, or a last minute errand to run on the way home, or other item that is an outlier situation to the normal commute. So many people use this excuse and have not thought through their situation.
If you have a child all the more reason to encourage more intelligent, non-auto centric lifestyles.
If the child is sick or injures themselves at school, which is the often cited argument, it doesn’t hold up because if it is a big enough emergency you DO NOT and SHOULD NOT drive directly to them. The emergency services in the United States are for that specific reason. They’ll most likely get there before you and you’ll most likely endanger lives of those around you “hurrying” to get to your child. If the child just needs picked up from school, in most cities there are a number of alternatives to you running to them and bringing them home. There are taxies, zip car options, and more. You just have to think without the absurdity of saying it is a necessity for you to maintain and keep an entire car just for the sole purpose of an emergency that may or may not happen.
If you’re excuse is even less, such as X being something like karate class or a meetup after work, then again the planning you have done is poor. If you live in any decent city, if you’re traveling so far out of your way for a meetup that it requires a car you’ve grossly mismanaged your life. Keep things close, keep things local to you, keep things within reasonable reach.
…and don’t just do these things because it’s more intelligent to use transit and be a more responsible member of society. Do it because it servers YOU better. Imagine not paying auto insurance, having a wide selection of cars at your disposal instead of JUST ONE (ZipCar, Rentals, etc), imagine no car payment, no maintenance, not paying for gas(ZipCar), not worrying about “parking” every time you go downtown, not having to step into the most dangerous mode of transport in the country. Just imagine not having to deal with those things. With a little thinking – in the good & smart cities in the US – you can get rid of these concerns and problems. You can be a part of the citizenry that isn’t causing the problems associated with the sprawl.
…and I promise you, your life will be better lived for it.
Here are a few of the cities where people should and could drive less en masse.
All of these cities, and there are more too, are cities that offer enough transit, bike, and other alternatives that more people should really think through and look at options besides car ownership or leasing. There are literally millions of trips per day, millions of gallons of fuel, millions of hours of congestion time, and millions of dollars to save if additional people just think through their lifestyle paradigms a little.
It doesn’t take much, just being smarter about your day. I’m done with my transit rant of the day. So help me though, if someone comes up with the above excuse again I’m gonna…
Live better, peace! – Transit Sleuth
I need a vacation. Not to go somewhere exotic, but just to stop and write up my latest bits of travel and such. Some of the things I’d really, really like to get to soon.
That’s just a few that I have in the queue. There are lots more, but my time has literally disappeared in 2010 as I’ve re-focused heavily in my career.
Hopefully I still have a few of you guys (Al M, Chad, and others) out there checking or subscribed via RSS feed. 😉
Anyway, I’m hustling and hope to have the bits about Vancouver up sooner than later!
Transit Sleuth 