Rouse on Transformation

On November 15^th of 2010, I began a small experiment.  The lease on my car ended that day, and I just turned the car in and took the bus home.  I decided to see what life would be like without a car.

My office is close to a subway stop and there is a bus stop near my home.  I only had to figure out how to get them connected, as well as the schedules of all the pieces of the route.  For those times when I would need a car, I joined Zipcar.  They have several cars located across the street from my office.

This experiment continued until June 18^th of 2011 when I acquired a new vehicle.  Thus, it is obviously feasible to live without a car.  However, with hot summer upon us, and my ultimate admission that it is inconvenient to not have a vehicle, I am back among the driving public.

This experiment showed me that I could dramatically reduce my transportation costs, from $700 per month (for lease, gas, maintenance and insurance) to $60-80 per month (for subway and bus fares and an occasional Zipcar).  However, this does not include the cost of my time in transit, which increased substantially.

A cross-town meeting would require determining the mix of subways and buses needed to get from here to there and back.  I had to build in extra time to handle schedule variations.  This sometimes resulted in my arriving at a meeting an hour early because the connections happened to dovetail nicely.  I was only rarely late.

I would catch up on my email or read magazines and other materials during these transit times, so the time was not really lost.  Nevertheless, were I not on public transportation, or waiting at a transit stop; I would not have spent my time this way.  Thus, there was certainly some inefficiency.

I met quite a variety of people on the subway, and especially on buses.  For many cases, my first impressions were dead wrong.  Most people seemed poor, and perhaps unable to afford their own vehicles, but occasional conversations uncovered graduate students, aircraft pilots, and lawyers.  In general, people were quite friendly.

I have become a fan of public transportation.  However, for me to fully transform my mode of transportation from private to public, three things need to change:

• The transportation network has to be more robust, enabling me to efficiently get between more places.
• Route planning has to only require a glance, not a web search, either at a posted map or a smart phone app.
• Schedules need to be much more predictable, with the time until next subway or bus arrival displayed at each stop or on another smart phone app.

Succinctly, I need a system much more like Washington’s than Atlanta’s.