2007
oh how i cannot bear the thought of you
maura @ 9:41 pm
After a long and busy day spent driving around in the damn car I’ve come to some conclusions. The real issue with the car is that it often embodies two sides of an obsession of mine: efficiency.
Public transportation is good (among other reasons) because it’s (usually) relaxing time that I can use to read, think, write (albeit slowly on the visor), even snooze a bit. Time in the car is stressful (traffic, paying attention, trying to park) and it is not even useful for one single thing*, it’s just gone.
* Except singing along to New Order or Allen Clapp. But I could probably do that at home too.
But, often driving saves time**. Take today, for instance. I probably would have spent nearly twice as much time running around using subways and buses than I did with the car. Which was actually the reason I took the car in the first place — I didn’t have the time to spare.
** Though not as often as you’d think, because parking can be evil.
But #2, is 2x time that I can do something useful worth taking public transit over driving?
Today it was sleeting by the time I got Gus from school, adding another variable to the equation. And I fully concede that waiting for the bus in front of the bakery (“I want a cookie! I want a cookie! I want a cookie!”) in the sleet would have sucked. And I got lucky and found parking right on our block.
But #3, I feel like an evil fossil fuel consumer when I use the car. And I get stressed out thinking about possible parking pitfalls. So there’s the mental cost of driving.
But #4, sometimes it also stresses me out to think that it can take nearly an hour on public transportation to go six (6!) miles. How can that be?
So, I guess it’s a draw.
