So, no surprise, I’m a transit junkie. I was raised by transit employees – today, April 20th, is my mothers 30th anniversary. Given that I am 31 and a half years old, it would seem that I was about 19 months old when Mom was hired on as a driver. So, despite the motto that “Friends don’t let friends take transit”, this whole transit thing has been a part of my life as long as I can remember. I remember Mom leaving for work just as I was going to bed, working night shifts, then coming home in the morning to see me off to school. I remember spending a couple of days when I wasn’t in school riding the bus around with her, and a nice older gentleman asking me if I was lost (since I was parked in the front seat with a pile of books & toys.) Mom let him know that I was with her. Heh.
Because my mother worked odd hours, I stayed with my grandmother a lot. Since she quit driving the year I was born, transit was her main mode of transportation as well. We’d catch the bus in downtown Cloverdale, near where Nana lived before she moved in with us, and take it all the way out to Guildford Mall. I remember learning a fair amount of transit etiquette from her, like the fact that if the bus was full, I wasn’t allowed my own seat and had to sit on her lap. I remember being quite bitter about that, damnit. I wanted a seat! She also would refuse to use the courtesy seats, even when she was well into her late 70s, because “those were for people who really needed them.” To this day, I’m uncomfortable sitting in the courtesy seats, even if there’s nobody else who needs them.
When I was 10, we moved halfway through the schoolyear, but just a couple of km away from our old house. Instead of switching schools, I was put on the 320 heading to my old school in Cloverdale, which conveniently picked up half a block from my house and dropped me off right in front of my school. I was a rather nerdy child, but I got a little bit of street cred for being the kid who took public transit to school.
(Picture is unrelated.)
Like most other Cloverdale kids, I went for my drivers license when I hit 16 (although lost interest over an ugly winter, and didn’t actually get my license until I was 17. My interest was renewed when my grandmother bought me a car so I could chauffeur her around.) Transit service in Cloverdale was worse then than it is now, and we didn’t live particularly close to any route. A car was necessary. (Heck, it still is. Although with the opening of the new pedestrian bridge over the ravine by my parents house, the 502 is at a lot more accessible.) So, I had cars throughout my late teens & early 20s, including when I lived in Victoria, although commuted by transit most of the time (or at least halfway, driving to park & rides.) But… I moved to Yaletown when I was 22, and realized I didn’t need a car. (Although I did have a motorcycle, but that was for fun.) So I got rid of my truck, and was pretty happy living car-free by choice. And did so until I was 28, when I moved back in with my parents for a few months and discovered again the horrors of living in Cloverdale without a car. (That pedestrian bridge just opened up a few months ago, so getting to transit required at least a 15-20 minute walk… when I already had an hour and a half commute once I got to a bus. Bah. Do-able, but not if I could avoid it.)
Nick & I always had a car. I still had my crappy little Cavalier when I moved in with him, and it became extremely convenient for SCA activities – when you are lugging 60+lbs of armor, having a vehicle is super convenient. We eventually upgraded to a minivan, which made SCA traveling infinitely more convenient. Still, I hated using a vehicle when I didn’t have to. It rarely occurred to me to drive to work even if it would have been convenient for after-work activities, and Nick & I would usually disagree over how we wanted to get downtown for Adventure – he wanted to drive (and pay through the nose for parking) I always preferred just hopping on the bus and not worrying about parking and the whole omg wtf I have a VEHICLE nonsense. And we’d invariably end up standing in the cold for half an hour, but still. Nick & I had different ideas of “convenience”.
Having left the van to Nick (well, because he bought it) I was quite pleased to go car free again. I like taking transit. Case in point: On Monday, I had a day of Adventure. I had one time sensitive errand to run – I had to pick up my replacement Kindle from the UPS by the airport, and the only bus (the C90 Sea Island North!) that gets me to the UPS parking lot runs twice a day, an hour apart. Missing it meant about a 3km walk from Templeton Station on the Canada Line. Which I did on the way back, since my 10 minute stop in at UPS meant that waiting I’d be waiting 50 minutes for the bus to take me back. Naaaah. I walked and I took some nice pictures on the way back.
I started off by having brunch with Dan, and then hopping on the #7 into Vancouver. Dropped Dan off at work, then had some time to kill before I had to hop on the Canada Line to get to Bridgeport Station for that C90. So since Dan works near Waterfront Station, I decided to hop on the Seabus and zip over to Lonsdale Quay, take some pictures and kick around for half an hour, then head back and whip out to Richmond.
Honestly, sometimes Transit impresses the hell out of me. My day was East Vancouver -> Downtown -> North Vancouver -> Downtown -> Richmond -> Downtown -> East Van. And if I’d been paying more attention to the time and not dicking around on the drive, I’d have then gone out to Surrey by Skytrain to go to fight practice, but I wasn’t paying attention and ended up grabbing a co-op car. Oops. (But that wasn’t a transit fail, that was my own “Err… what do you mean I have to be somewhere in half an hour, and I’m still half an hour away from home?”)
And the cool thing? Assuming I didn’t already have a free three zone pass through work, I could have done that entire days travel for $9 for a daypass. Seriously, how awesome is that? NINE DOLLARS. It would have cost me more than that in gas to do that trip, nevermind all of the parking fees, etc. Sure it’d be faster, but I’d be stuck in a car and not taking Awesome Pictures. (Although I’d miss that 3km walk from the UPS back to Templeton Station, too. But hey, I got to see a new skytrain station. And take more pictures.)
I dunno. I love transit. I think it’s effing cool that I can do all of this travel without really thinking about it. I wish I could explain why I like it so much more than driving. It just feels so much easier than driving. I’d rather read, play games on my iPhone, or look out the window any day of the week than drive and stare at Other Drivers. It really hit home later that night when I had to grab the co-op car and head out to Surrey, while I was skipping through radio stations desperately wishing I was on a bus where I could just read my book.
Anyway. I find buses lend themselves a lot more to Adventure, and I love Adventure. I like the car co-op because I admit, sometimes it’s supremely inconvenient not to have a car. I have a dog who is too big (and neurotic) for transit. Sometimes, I buy large things that I don’t want to take on the bus. Sometimes I travel to places that are not serviced by transit.
But most of the time? Bus, please. It’s inconvenient, the weather is hell, and I’ve spent more times cursing buses for not showing up than I can think of, but … I still don’t have any interest in owning a car for as long as I live in Vancouver.
Things that are awesome? Dan’s a transit junkie, too. This pleases me.
My Opa worked for Transit too for at least 20 years (although he retired around 2000?) so I’ve always been a transit junkie as well. Used to ride around with him and my mom during his Cloverdale runs in the late 80s/early 90s and stop off at the Scotia Bank where my Oma worked at the time. Before Ben moved out to Vancouver with his car, I relied on transit to get me everywhere and even after he moved out I would still use it to get to work (Vancouver) or school (Surrey) from home (Burnaby). In fact, I never even got my licence (for a variety of reasons) but never felt like I lacked anything because of the abundance of good (ranging from excellent to ‘I learn to work around it’) transit.
Now living outside of Edmonton, there are no buses. AT ALL. At least out our way. There is nothing within reasonable walking distance. Every where we go requires driving, which requires me to get a licence. Not only does it feel wasteful to drive everywhere, it’s also very isolating. There are many many many things I miss about Vancouver, and accessable transit (being able to get out of the house without having to worry about gas or parking or anything) is definitely one thing I miss.
(I hope that’s coherant! It’s been a long morning so far. Also, tl;dr lol)
I grew up in Surrey and really had no interest in a vehicle of my own (being a spoiled rotten child whose parents drove EVERYWHERE). I didn’t get my license until I’d been forced to take transit for 2 1/2hours from Langley to Annacis Island at 4:30am DAILY, and was actually living in South Surrey where the nearest bus stop was a 20min walk away before I got a car.
I LOVE West End transit. I love being able to walk out my door at any moment and know a bus will arrive in less than 8min right outside my door. I do NOT love the lack of safe buses from the clubs downtown at 3:00am, or the early shut down of the train. I do not love Translink raising the costs of passes instead of lowering expenses or raising usage. But I DO love the friendly drivers, the (relatively) clean buses and trains, the West Coast Express and the fact that I don’t have to pay another $50 for parking in my building’s (unattended) lot.
There are just so many transit workers around. I found out today that Carol Ann’s teachers’ dad is a Transit Operator around my seniority (recognized the name but don’t know the fellow), I probably knew jhezika’s Opa since I worked almost exclusively at STC after 1988 and it was a pretty small, tight knit group at the time. It has been a good place to work in spite of some issues. I hope you feel the same way 30 years from now, too.
Wow. An all-zone adult day pass here is only $4.75. I take public transit even when I have a car for several reasons: 1) often cheaper than gas as you pointed out, 2) Don’t have to worry about parking, 3) less stressful than driving with all the idiots they license, and safer 4) better for the environment, and 5) I can do other things with my time during the commute, such as homework or work, because I’m not the one driving.
Yeah, it sometimes takes longer, although that’s mitigated by #5 above, and sometimes it’s not as safe as far as personal safety from muggers/gang members/general miscreants, etc, but that’s not a huge worry.
Donna’s Mom: yeah, you probably did know him – his name is Dick -big tall Dutch guy with a loud voice. He’s a bit of a dick (pardon the pun!) so you might not have pleasant memories! Before he retired he used to ride his bike from home (North Delta) to the Surrey bus yard everyday to and from work.
Jhezika: Sorry, can’t place him on that amount of info but he probably knew me because their were only 2 or 3 “girls” driving in Surrey in the late 80′s early 90′s. Some of the drivers in Surrey were really senior and they were real “men” of the 50′s. I remember one nice fellow asking me where I’d been all his life to which I replied that for the first half of his life I had not been born. So you see, there were lots of “Dick’s” not just your Opa. Ahh, yes, good times.
Jhezika: Sorry, can’t place him on that amount of info but he probably knew me because there were only 2 or 3 “girls” driving in Surrey in the late 80′s, early 90′s. Some of the drivers in Surrey were very senior and they were real “men” of the 50′s. I remember one nice fellow asking me where I’d been all his life to which I replied that for the first half of his life I had not been born. So you see, there were lots of “Dick’s” not just your Opa. Ahh, yes, good times.
Relatively good transit is something that I still miss, now that I have been away from the urban metropolis for almost 10 years now. I have had to commute 100 km (one way) for work, 4 days/week for the last 4 months, and I would rather be reading a book or doing homework than paying attention to the road. Much as that job is coming to an end so I have to look for work again, I am actually almost relieved to be able to stop driving. Commuting by car – what a stupid concept.