Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Public Transportation
Many of you may or may not know this about me, so I'm going to just put it out there - I don't drive. I mean it, I can't drive, and it's not from a DUI. I have no idea how to drive. Okay, that's not true, I mean I know you get in and turn the key but that's where things get a little fuzzy. My main issue is remembering which pedal is the gas and which pedal is the brake, something very essential to drive AND stay alive.
Being license free has not been as much of a hindrance as you might think. I've done quite a bit without a license. I've gone on several road trips, where my role was navigator AND I got to sit in the front passenger seat the whole time. I also never got to sleep, drivers can be mean when you don't take a turn behind the wheel. I've lived in several cities - Chicago, Boston, and currently San Francisco. I can tell you that out of these three Chicago has the best public transportation hands down. I can also tell you that San Francisco has the worst hands down.
Rush hour is a crapshoot. Everybody is waiting for the same three trains but they run the other two. I regularly tell people it's going to be an hour even though this city is seven miles by seven miles. Even if I drove I wouldn't drive because there's nowhere to park, unless you want to pay $0.25 for 10 minutes. My commute this morning was a prime example of the beautiful system known as MUNI. I live on the southwest side of the city. This area is a huge commuting population. My neighborhood is very residential and most people take public transportation to work and school. Since I also happen to live next to a BART station, which is rapid transit (express trains if you will) connecting SF to Oakland this is the optimal choice for getting to work in 20 minutes versus an hour. Many other people also choose this option. Unfortunately, we have to take Muni for 10 minutes to get to BART and MUNI wasn't having it today. I, and the other 20 people at my train stop stood for 30 minutes while 5 trains went in the other direction. 5 trains!! By the time the train arrived in our direction there was only one car and the driver was on his cell phone.
The worst part is, after waiting 30 minutes for a train to get to BART, I was only 10 minutes late to work. I gotta move closer to BART.
Being license free has not been as much of a hindrance as you might think. I've done quite a bit without a license. I've gone on several road trips, where my role was navigator AND I got to sit in the front passenger seat the whole time. I also never got to sleep, drivers can be mean when you don't take a turn behind the wheel. I've lived in several cities - Chicago, Boston, and currently San Francisco. I can tell you that out of these three Chicago has the best public transportation hands down. I can also tell you that San Francisco has the worst hands down.
Rush hour is a crapshoot. Everybody is waiting for the same three trains but they run the other two. I regularly tell people it's going to be an hour even though this city is seven miles by seven miles. Even if I drove I wouldn't drive because there's nowhere to park, unless you want to pay $0.25 for 10 minutes. My commute this morning was a prime example of the beautiful system known as MUNI. I live on the southwest side of the city. This area is a huge commuting population. My neighborhood is very residential and most people take public transportation to work and school. Since I also happen to live next to a BART station, which is rapid transit (express trains if you will) connecting SF to Oakland this is the optimal choice for getting to work in 20 minutes versus an hour. Many other people also choose this option. Unfortunately, we have to take Muni for 10 minutes to get to BART and MUNI wasn't having it today. I, and the other 20 people at my train stop stood for 30 minutes while 5 trains went in the other direction. 5 trains!! By the time the train arrived in our direction there was only one car and the driver was on his cell phone.
The worst part is, after waiting 30 minutes for a train to get to BART, I was only 10 minutes late to work. I gotta move closer to BART.
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I don't mine public transportation when I use it. It's usually easier for me to drive the 10 miles to work and drop my son off on the way there.
Does Amtrak count? My family and I used it to go to New Orleans just before Katrina last year.
The trip down was uneventful, though Amtrak trains stop in the middle of nowhere for unknown reasons. On the way back, we were delayed by the hurricane just before Katrina for two days. My sleeper was moved to just behind the engine because my assigned cabin had a bad bunk. The porter switched with me.
The engineer blew his horn every few minutes, which made sleep impossible, and around three in the morning an unidentified female opened my berth asking for Duane. By sunrise I was ready to kill freaking Choo Choo Charlie
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Does Amtrak count? My family and I used it to go to New Orleans just before Katrina last year.
The trip down was uneventful, though Amtrak trains stop in the middle of nowhere for unknown reasons. On the way back, we were delayed by the hurricane just before Katrina for two days. My sleeper was moved to just behind the engine because my assigned cabin had a bad bunk. The porter switched with me.
The engineer blew his horn every few minutes, which made sleep impossible, and around three in the morning an unidentified female opened my berth asking for Duane. By sunrise I was ready to kill freaking Choo Choo Charlie
# posted by 
: 5/24/2006 9:39 AM
: 5/24/2006 9:39 AM << Home
