Get to Know your Local Transit System

Six months ago, had you suggested to me that I ride the bus to get from point A to point B I might have given you a puzzling look, not sure whether you could possibly be serious. Fast forward to today, and you'll find me happily perched at the bus stop every morning, monthly bus pass in hand.

So what changed? Curiosity I guess, discovering that a bus commute was possible and wondering whether it would be feasible, and/or enjoyable and/or convenient and/or save me some dough as gas prices painfully continue to rise. So there I was one morning, waking up a bit earlier than I needed, $2.25 in hand, unsure what the ride would be like or where it would take me. Turns out the bus picks me up a block from my house, drops me off two blocks from my office door, and leaves me just enough time to grab a reusable mug full of organic, free trade coffee, from an independent coffee stand I never would have found had the bus not let me out directly across the square. Combine that with 45 minutes of reading and listening to music and I feel pretty damn relaxed by the time I get to work.

So I liked the commute, certainly a lot more than driving 20 minutes myself, circling for 10 minutes to find a parking spot and walking 10 more from the parking spot to the office door. Time is about the same, cost, because I have to pay to park in Downtown San Diego, is much less, and stress level is non-existent (save for about one morning a month when I'm inevitably running late and literally sprint to the bus stop and climb on board panting). Like many environmentally friendly gestures I espouse on these pages, I've come to find that a) not only is making the switch not that hard, and b) I actually enjoy the alternative better than the norm.

And it looks like riding public transportation is just going to get easier and easier. Check out Google Transit for instance, a Google Labs product that allows you to type in a start and end address, select an arrival and departure time, and end up with a familiar-looking Google map with your bus, rail, and foot path mapped out. The system's not perfect (when looking for a route home from a lecture that would end at 8:30 pm I was told to take a 6:30 am bus the next morning) and its not available in more than a handful of cities, but its a step in the direction of making public transportation seem both more accessible and more convenient.

My favorite feature about the map, aside from the "walking instructions" it gives you if your destination is slightly off the transport route, is the savings calculator. Using local transit fare, mileage, and the most recent IRS cost per mile figure (used to allow businesses to deduct mileage on their taxes), Google shows you how much money you would spend driving and (usually) what you would save with each bus trip. This alone was shocking to me--to find that it supposedly costs me $5 each time I head to a friend's house; or $11 round trip to drive to work each day. Of course, the Google figure doesn't take into account parking, tolls, etc., and the transit figure doesn't take into account monthly or bulk passes, which at least for me, makes the savings even more substantial.

Now all they need to do is add one more calculation--neither figure (public transport or driving) offers up the environmental impact, something I'd love to see some talented economist out there offer calculations for.