Monday Love to your Travels and Transport

“ A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transportation.”

?~?Gustavo Petro

Well, seeing as how it’s been an uneventful week in current events with nothing really to comment on, I thought it would be a good time to expound upon a nice peaceful topic.

If you’re like pretty much everyone else in the world, you have to get from place to place. For some, it’s an occasional experience, for others it’s a daily commute. Your options for how to do so are often determined by the infrastructure of where you live.

For the vast majority of Americans, public transit is either abysmal or not available at all. Car culture reigns supreme. Our friends in other parts of the world often have more options. Available or not, I agree with Robin Chase who said “Transportation is the centre of the world. It is the glue of our daily lives.”

It’s the prevailing attitude about it that I wish to refute. Contrarian that I am, I’m happy to make and stand by this statement: I love public transit!

As Erol Ozan wrote, “You cannot understand a city without using its public transportation system.” As I wrote recently about the subtle pleasures of airline travel, I notice the silver linings everywhere I look when I have the opportunity to enjoy public transit. In fact, I look forward to it!

Back in the 90s, I spent several years having things exactly backwards. In the early part of the decade, I lived in San Francisco and owned a car, even though MUNI would have been quite adequate for my needs. A vast amount of time was spent searching for parking, not to mention the brutal expense of parking tickets due to my tendency to flout the law.

Then my circumstances changed, and I found myself living in Santa Rosa without a car. Sonoma County has a serviceable bus system, which I navigated along with my 10-speed bicycle. I fortunately found work in Healdsburg, which was accessible by one of the main lines that had racks on the front for my bicycle.

So I went from having a car in a city where I didn’t need one, to not having a car in a rural area where they are de rigueur. What I discovered once I was in the rhythm of it was how much more relaxing and stress-free it was to get myself back-and-forth to work using the combination of the bus and bicycle.

Now, decades later, living in the East Bay, I’ll occasionally have the opportunity to leave town, which involves a trip to the airport riding BART. Aside from the ear-piercing screech when it goes under the bay and the occasional ‘entertaining’ passengers, it’s a smooth ride with a predictable timetable. Timing your trips with Bay Area traffic is a roll of the dice.

The state of public transit says so much about a society. I feel a sense of awe at the sheer scale of human cooperation and public service that goes into good transit. In France, we catch the TGV high-speed rail directly from the Paris airport. It whisks us to a commuter rail station that brings us to 10 minutes away from our house. As an American used to car culture, the TGV is nothing short of astonishing.

Riding transit is a democratizing experience. You get to be shoulder-to-shoulder with all walks of life. There’s far more opportunity to appreciate your fellow human beings than being stuck in a steel and glass bubble on the highway.

You often see a side of the country that is invisible from the highways. For instance, riding the SMART train through Marin one realizes that there is a vast sea of low income mobile home parks that are invisible from the 101. Taking the overnight Amtrak to Oregon brings you at dawn through an expanse of wetlands and waterfowl miles away from any roads or highways. The train in Eastern Utah and Western Colorado goes through desert canyons where there is no room for a road.

When you are able to fold transit into your dance of daily life, there’s a far greater opportunity to relax. Taking a nap, reading a book, or simply chatting with fellow passengers is nothing like being stuck behind the wheel.

You may live somewhere where there is only a minimal opportunity to include transit in your day-to-day travels. But if there is, it’s worth figuring out how to add it in. When you’re visiting another city or country, it can be a challenge, but it’s worth it to navigate the system, even if you are renting a car.

During uneventful times like these when there’s really nothing in the news worth discussing, it’s nice to appreciate the things that well-functioning democracies have to offer.

And with that, we dance on through another week! Much love till next Monday!

M+

Mark Metz Director of the?Dance First Association

Publisher of?Conscious Dancer Magazine

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Monday Love is the weekly inspirational newsletter written by Mark Metz, publisher of Conscious Dancer and director of the Dance First Association. Join our mailing list and learn about membership at www.consciousdancer.com