My Transportation Evolution

Since living in San Francisco, I have changed as a person in at least a few ways. I have changed in terms of my outlook on life, but, more concretely, I have changed several aspects of my lifestyle. Today I’m going to talk about transportation – how I get from place to place.

The early days: car
I arrived in San Francisco with a 1994 Lexus ES300. It was an incredibly smooth ride, the car was fast, and it looked nice. After getting a raise at work I decided to buy a new car and ended up with a 2006 Honda Civic Si. This might have been my favorite car that I have ever owned. It was sporty-looking and did 0-60 in 6.9 seconds with a manual transmission. But I soon realized how foolish it was to have a car in the city, mostly because of the cost. I paid $300/month for parking (which was probably unnecessary), $300/month in car payments (again, unnecessary – there was no reason I needed anything better than a 15-year-old Civic), $150/month in insurance and $50/month in gas. So several months after buying the car, I sold it. Great move.

Pros: speed of arrival (to most places), convenience in some situations.
Cons: cost, environmental concerns, lack of convenience in most other cases, lack of exercise as part of a lifestyle, difficulty in finding parking, stress while driving, stress when worrying about maintenance, the dividing effects that private transit has on our culture, encouraging a sedentary lifestyle, danger to myself, pedestrians, bicyclists, and other motorists. I didn’t think there were this many cons when I first started thinking about this post, but now that I started typing it, it almost seems as though I am missing some cons.

I ditch the car: bus
After ditching my car, I took a bus most places that were more than a dozen or so blocks. This was fine but I still was irrationally averse to more physical exertion.

Pros: very inexpensive (a Fast Pass is only $45 per month), proximity to other people.
Cons: unreliability of MUNI, lack of exercise as part of a lifestyle, not as fast as a bike.

I get on my feet
At the beginning of 2007, I think it was January 2, I stepped on the scale and it read 198.5. From that moment I was determined to lose weight. Part of the strategy, besides diet and non-lifestyle exercise (that is, exercise for the sake of exercise) was to walk to work every day. I lived two miles away from work and this couldn’t have been a better decision. Sure, on lazy days I would take the bus. But I would say that four out of five days I would walk, both ways. What a beautiful walk it was, too. I started in Russian Hill then walked through Nob Hill and a little bit of the Tenderloin before arriving in north-eastern SOMA. If you’ve never walked through Russian Hill and Nob Hill, I encourage you to do so.

I found that I genuinely enjoyed walking. So I started walking most places that were within two or three miles.
Pros: lifestyle exercise, more intimately discovering the neighborhoods, fresh air, more energy.
Cons: usually slightly slower than the bus (but really only slightly), not as fast as a bike.

Penelope and I meet
I had been wanting a bike for a while and finally got one in mid August of this year. Her name is Penelope and she is green and covered with stickers. This has completely revolutionized how I get places. It has also changed my daily lifestyle. I feel in tune with the “biker culture.” I go to critical mass, I roll my right pant leg up. I’m fit, in shape, feel great when I get off the bike, feel great when I am speeding down a giant hill. In short, I am in love with biking. I’ll take my bike on pretty much any trip. I ride it on two or three round trips to school every week, which is about eight miles each way. The ride to and from school actually ranges from a little faster to a little slower than taking MUNI. Of course on the way there I need to factor in time to stop sweating and change clothes.

Biking sometimes requires a lot of planning ahead: Do you need/have a change of shirt? Do you have an appropriate route mapped out that doesn’t involve hills or highways? Can you bring your bike inside of where you are going, or onboard the train or bus that you are riding? But generally it is incredibly convenient; you just hop on, ride out, and lock the thing up right outside of your destination.

Just last night, Peter-man and I took an exhilarating ride out to 46th and Taraval, got a couple of beers at Riptide, and then rode back. We got to the bar all sweaty, but I didn’t really care. Biking has given me a new outlook on sweat; I don’t mind being sweaty anymore. It’s a very human thing to do.
Pros: lifestyle exercise, faster than almost any form of transit for medium-length trips, inclusion in a common culture, exhilaration from the ride
Cons: sweating, bicycle maintenance, potential for becoming a splatter mark on someone’s windshield

My next form of transit? Probably teleporting.