Why do I love transit?
Quality time.
Just a chance for me and the object of my affection to spend intimate moments together, uninterrupted by the distractions of home, office and other people.
By object of affection, I mean, of course, my smart phone. Or my tablet. Or my media player. Or, yes, even my book.
My travel time is far too valuable to waste actually driving. Talk about distracting. I don’t know about you, but I find when driving that I actually have to pay attention to stuff. Like other vehicles. And stop signs. And even cyclists.
I’d much prefer to concentrate on that little glowing screen. Or plug in my ear buds to achieve a zen state of oneness that comes even when completely surrounded by other people, many of whom also have little white cords coming out of their ears.
I did a quick survey on the Canada Line the other day. About 30 to 40 percent were plugged in – sometimes more, depending on the time of day. (Commuters at rush hour are more likely to have defined their routines. My regular route includes the No. 19, Stanley Park – and people on that trolley actually look out the windows with a first-time curiosity.)
More evidence of social isolation, critics say, leading to the alienation of contemporary society, blah, blah. Not so much. Indeed, in Vancouver, transit is one place where we get a pretty good sense of who we are as a community. In the city of no visible majority, our commons is our trolley bus, our B-line, our SkyTrain. We are all passengers on the way.
When we’re in our cars, on the other hand, we don’t have the same sense of the collective. Sometimes not even of each other, given that we can’t easily engage in eye contact – the way we assess each other’s humanity.
For some, that inability to select who you want to share space with is a turn-off – and why they prefer the privacy of their cars. But for me, I like the people-watching, the serendipity of the mix, the human comedy on wheels. So long as I have the option to turn to my screen and immerse myself in a downloaded book.
Transit, I’d argue, is also how we learn the elemental social rituals so critical to the functioning of urban society. How a culture shares crowded space is a pretty good indicator of its civility. (Insert complaint here about how little we seem to have learned.)
That’s what made the Olympics work. Why we can move a quarter million people in and out of downtown for the fireworks. And why even during those rather unfortunate incidents after Game 7 it was transit that kept functioning. We knew how to get along to get away.
Not like the old days, I hear someone from the back row say, when people were more polite and the young ‘uns gave up their seats for the old and the lame. I’m not so sure about that either. A few years ago, I noticed that people, when exiting, would shout out a ‘thanks’ to the bus driver. I have no explanation for why it started, just that for some reason people decided this gesture of civility seemed appropriate.
Oh yes, I’m familiar with the stories of more drivers being assaulted, and I know everyone has a story of craziness. (Insert example here.) And how it depends on when and where and what route you take. But I have a hunch that may be offset by so many more different kinds of people using transit these days. Like the guys in the ties.
Wheeled luggage is the 20th century's gift to transportation
Margaret Thatcher is reputed to have said (though she probably didn’t): “A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.” The quote survives because the sentiment has been so generally shared by the decision-makers in our society who decide where the resources get allocated. Not surprisingly, there has been for several generations a bias to providing a lot of free road space, and a tendency to see transit as a social service.
But as transportation thinker Todd Litman noted, there’s at least one reason why that’s changed: “The only significant new mode of transportation to develop so far this century,” he said, “has been wheeled luggage.”
Yup, wheeled luggage – because of which the frequently flying CEOs are more inclined to wheel their way from home or work to the first-class lounge by taking the bus and train to get there.
Travel time can be productive time
And thanks to all those wireless devices, she or he can not only spend that time productively, but the information needed to determine the route to take, and the connection to make, and the time and the cost – all that comes with a click or two on the same little device.
Compare that with the undependability of driving due to congestion, not to mention the cost of parking, and it’s easy to see why the latest proselytizers for transit can be found in the executive suites. And why resources follow. And why once when the more affluent municipalities were determined to keep transit out of their communities, they now line up to get on the priority list.
As reliability and frequency increase, and as social acceptance of transit broadens, there are more people and more different kinds of people sharing the same space with glowing screens and white cords.
So given a choice between a faster trip driving and a slower trip on transit, I’ll take the latter, so long as (a) it’s not too much slower; and (b) I can read or listen. If I can plan the length of my commute with accuracy and dependability, then time spent moving productively is more valuable than time spent moving quickly.
And, darn it, sometimes transit is faster – too fast. I just missed my stop because I was lost in the glow of the little screen and the lure of the white cord.
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