Do you actually know the thrill of using public transit?

Having spent a lot of my life with the belief that public transit is inconvenient and messy, or a great sacrifice over car travel, I wonder sometimes if people understand what a net affirmative joy it is to get around by bus, train or foot.

I grew up in Southern California where by law adult walking can be exercise but not transportation.  See Steve Martin driving next door below from LA Story. 

By the time I was 16, in possession of a driver’s license and a whiny dependency on borrowing my parents’ cars, I would no sooner dream of walking the mile to my best friend’s house than I would to outside without clothing.  Public transportation, meaning buses and trains, seemed about the same.  Took too long.  Too inconvenient.  Too many down and out people.  Too expensive. 

It wasn’t until I spent some time in New York and Paris, where basically everyone in the world gets around by public transportation instead of private car, that I experienced the joy, the freedom and sure pleasure of the senses of taking public transit. 

Then, as a mom toting around 2 children, I kinda forgot.  The early days of strollers, bike and Burleys gave way to carpools and minivans.    I kept walking for exercise, and, because I live in downtown Sacramento, sometimes for transportation.  But I basically avoided using public transit unless I was visiting “a transit city.”

Recently as the Sacramento Regional Transit Authority (or RT) added an every 20 minutes bus to the Sacramento International Airport, I started taking it again.  This made me realize that the days of the Google Maps app makes it infinitely easier to use transit than in my days growing up.  I put where I want to go, click on the bus and bam there is the exact bus or train I need to catch at the exact time with the exact fare at the exact corner. 

So lately I have been randomly taking buses and trains that I wouldn’t have previously done.  What I notice is that the time really doesn’t matter.  It’s lovely to have someone else drive.  It’s lovely to look out the window, read a book, or, more likely, dive into my Twitter feed (@snicholsblog, y’all).

And “having to walk” for a leg of the transit, even with stuff is also a great joy.  My body is moving.  I’m getting a little exercise.  It’s a delight. 

On vacation, it’s even more fun.  Yesterday on a sunny afternoon in Portland, Oregon (where it had been calling for rain all day), I chanced a 45 minutes stroll from NE Portland near Burnside over the bridge to Powell’s City of Books.  After power finding elusive used books on my list, I hit Google maps, saw a bus was stopping in 2 minutes across the street from the store, crossed in time to hop on and was back to my friend’s house in under 15 minutes.

The whole thing was a great delight for me, my senses and my life.  I wonder how many are denying themselves this joy telling themselves that it will be a net deprivation?