Public Transport

I like to drive. I enjoy the freedom that comes with hitting the open road and exploring new places and seeing new sites. I pour over maps, planning routes, and dreaming of places to see on my next road trip. (Incidentally, this dovetails nicely with my highpointing quest.)

With high gas prices, and especially lacking a car this summer, I've discovered something new: public transportation. Growing up, "public transportation" meant the school bus, a slow, smelly contraption driven by a grumpy driver, and filled with rowdy kids, none of which were friendly to me. Needless to say, this harrowing experience poisoned my impression of public transportation for many years. In fact, my first practical use of a bicycle was commuting to school as an alternative to the bus.

Even after moving to Austin and using the university-provided shuttle system to get to school, I was still pretty wary of using "normal" public transportation. Few routes are useful to me, and the times that I have managed to ride the city bus, the experience pretty much paralleled my school bus nightmares of years ago. I've learned that public transportation in Austin (and other cities in Texas) consists of an underfunded, poorly-planned system that attracts the more uncouth elements of society. There's nothing wrong with that, per se, but it does tend to scare away those of us who would otherwise use the system more often.

But, spending the summer in the Bay Area (and during my trip to Portland for OSCON), I've learned to love a well-planned public transportation system. Using buses, trains, light rail or my bike, I've been able to get just about everywhere I've wanted to, from airports to sports stadia to church or just sightseeing. It's been great, and has really opened my eyes to how useful a well-implemented public transportation system can be. It's opened my eyes to what public transportation could be (and I hear things across the pond are even better!)

Maybe I should start planning highpointing trips around public transportation.