![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I've been thinking about this a lot, actually, and I think I've figured out a major stumbling block. For example, I'm planning to go downtown today, and for all the right and ethical reasons, I should take the bus. Parking is a pain and costs money, it's another car on the road, it's extra gas I don't have to use, etc. So I went to the trip planning website for the MetroKC, and I figured out my trip.
It will take me nearly an hour to get downtown, and nearly an hour to get home again... presuming, of course, that the bus during rush hour isn't full and I can get on the first one I try.
That's an hour each way for someplace I live only 10 miles from vs. twenty minutes each way on my own. Dude.
Now, I'm unemployed currently, so you'd think it wouldn't be a big deal. Bring a book, read, listen to music, whatever. And if I didn't have the gas or the money for parking, I would totally suck it up and deal. But in reality, it's a huge deal, because I don't own a laptop and I'm writing for money right now, and I could get between 500 and 1000 words done during that time -- and that may not sound like much, but it is for me, and it's 500-1000 words I would have done and not have to redo again. I've got deadlines that I'm over, I've got a burning need to get paid, and I don't think I'm actually willing to donate that extra 40 minutes each way to the cause -- especially since I could take one of those extra 40 minute blocks and hit the gym on the way home and still have an extra 40 to get between 250 and 750 words done.
The problem with in-city public transit is that it presumes my time is less valuable than the gas/economic impact/environmental impact my driving would make. For someone else, it probably is. For me? Right now my time and my brain is all I have. This is why I'm looking forward to the train, because at least it won't take an hour for me to get from the station to downtown.* This is just crazy.
*It should be noted, I took public transportation when I lived in Chicago. It took a crazy long time to get across the city -- roughly an hour. However, it took at least that long to get across the city by CAR, often longer. I saved time taking it, even counting in the walk from the station to work and the sketchy industrial neighborhood it was in. I miss Chicago public transit (and I really never thought I'd say that).
It will take me nearly an hour to get downtown, and nearly an hour to get home again... presuming, of course, that the bus during rush hour isn't full and I can get on the first one I try.
That's an hour each way for someplace I live only 10 miles from vs. twenty minutes each way on my own. Dude.
Now, I'm unemployed currently, so you'd think it wouldn't be a big deal. Bring a book, read, listen to music, whatever. And if I didn't have the gas or the money for parking, I would totally suck it up and deal. But in reality, it's a huge deal, because I don't own a laptop and I'm writing for money right now, and I could get between 500 and 1000 words done during that time -- and that may not sound like much, but it is for me, and it's 500-1000 words I would have done and not have to redo again. I've got deadlines that I'm over, I've got a burning need to get paid, and I don't think I'm actually willing to donate that extra 40 minutes each way to the cause -- especially since I could take one of those extra 40 minute blocks and hit the gym on the way home and still have an extra 40 to get between 250 and 750 words done.
The problem with in-city public transit is that it presumes my time is less valuable than the gas/economic impact/environmental impact my driving would make. For someone else, it probably is. For me? Right now my time and my brain is all I have. This is why I'm looking forward to the train, because at least it won't take an hour for me to get from the station to downtown.* This is just crazy.
*It should be noted, I took public transportation when I lived in Chicago. It took a crazy long time to get across the city -- roughly an hour. However, it took at least that long to get across the city by CAR, often longer. I saved time taking it, even counting in the walk from the station to work and the sketchy industrial neighborhood it was in. I miss Chicago public transit (and I really never thought I'd say that).
