Take Public Transportation

Monday, July 10th, 2023

Lyft and Uber can't be beat for convenience.

Rentable Scooters like Lime feel convenient, but are expensive and dangerous.

I have a feeling that public transportation will be replaced over time by electric vehicles. Already I see the fleet of Waymo cars driving through the city. It even stopped when a firetruck drove from behind it with sirens on....but first completed crossing the street before stopping.

So it's getting close. Especially when the cars can "practice" at slow speeds.

So will there be a future for buses and trains?

It mostly will depend on the costs. For a family traveling together, especially with small children, it's almost cost-competitive to take an Uber since it is priced per ride, whereas public transportation is priced per rider.

All of these, regardless, are way better than me needing to drive a car, despite the shortest immediate distance, to not have to deal with parking or the cognitive overload of driving in a city while kids are asking questions. Now I can answer those questions without worrying whether I will crash.

Unfortunately, the quality of public transportation in the city varies by so much, depending upon neighborhoods. I am all for different flavors of neighborhoods, but some have deteriorated so badly that this morning, for example, I looked for options that might bypass a neighborhood despite the longer distance.

If safety weren't a problem (and it would be great if SFPD and SFMUNI collaborated to find a real-time and historical report on crimes committed on public transportation) then it wouldn't really be as big of a deal.

(Why doesn't SFPD and SFMUNI report this in an accessible way? Why isn't there more public data?)

Some thoughts:

Lower cognitive load

Once on a public transit, I don't need to think that much.

I do need to keep an eye on the stops, and sometimes the sound is too low or the noise to loud to hear easily.

But other than checking not to miss the stops (thought: put an alarm based on the expected time of arrival and just rely on that) I can sit back and think, research something on the phone, chat more directly with my kids.

This lower cognitive load is less exhausting. I find that I am slightly more weary after driving, even if the distance is shorter. With the longer distance, I still find that I could use more time if I am doing research on my phone or catching up on reading....reading that I wouldn't likely do with the drive even if my total transit time were lower.

We'll see how this evolves, though. It's sort of like forced savings account by taking public transit.

Freedom

Till affordable driverless cars hit mainstream, the buses often given me a greater sense of freedom.

I can walk to where I want to walk to and then, when I need to get somewhere, find the right bus or train and go to where I want to go.

I don't have to go back and find my car, drive, and then hope I can find parking, which is especially difficult in San Francisco.

The freedom is similar to how I first felt when I bought a scooter.

I could go to any part of the city and not worry about parking because it was so much easier to find a parking space for it.

But the safety (the number of near misses) and the maintenance (times my scooter was knocked over) made scooters a net negative and ours sat in the garage for years untouched till finally sold.

But with public transit, I have this feeling of freedom, that I could probably go nearly anywhere.

Walking more

One of my goals is to ensure a daily 10,000 steps. If I can get to go to the gym (I may need to escape before the kids wake up because once one of them is up, I can't leave), then I can get my exercise in.

But with public transit, there is always some bit of walking, and that forced walking in between rides is good. It fits more steps in, even the kids who hate any kind of movement, are willing to do it because it sort of sneaks in with the promise of a ride at the next turn.

Tactile experience of the city

Driving is an insulated abstraction. Riding the bus gives me a more visceral, tactile feel for the city.

Yes, sometimes a crowded bus is too tactile, and in this post-Covid world, I'd prefer a less cozy atmosphere.

But that aside, being able to see the city, the stops, the different people (and most of the time, it's like a slice of life, not threatening), in all of its mundane, everyday glory just makes me feel like I am a part of the city.

Touristy thrills

In San Francisco, riding the Ferry across the bay is part of public transportation (but it is also a tourist attraction).

For commuters, the cost is 50% less than what a tourist pays, and the experience is wonderful nevertheless.

This summer, I have taken the kids twice to Sausalito to ride the ferry, grab an ice cream, go to the library to do some real work (Libraries, Homeschooling and the Future of Learning), and then head back. And riding the ferry, itself, is a new experience and a thrill of its own.

A similar thought can be said of riding the cable cars.

Summary

As I continue this summer, I'll find more things to enjoy and appreciate about public transit.

Till the autonomous vehicles hit mainstream (and it could happen in the next five years for all I know), some benefits are:

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