Today I attended two transportation events. This has nothing to do with my Low Car Diet except that thanks to it all my thoughts are pretty much permanently on the subject. First, I attended a fairly useless brown bag lunch where a speaker outlined federal and local sources of transportation project implementation funding. I was familiar with most of the sources, and fairly annoyed at the textbook (i.e. unrealistic) portrayal of our regional transportation agency, also know as our metropolitan planning organization, the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission. (You can view the SPC’s website here but, be warned, do not click the Project Region box…it’s scary.)
The second event was better. It was the cityLive! event for July: “Getting There…From Here: Transportation Solutions for Our Region.” The expert panel, including my boss, had some interesting things to say. A spin-off from the event is that organizers are asking the public to help in the creation of a regional integrated transportation plan by posting their ideas to a wiki. You can visit The CitiWiki Project here. Please contribute your ideas. It’s like monkeys with typewriters, eventually, we’ll get Shakespeare.
My travel today was not so much difficult as draining. After a week of extensive walking, I did my share today as well. I had a minor setback when my BlackBerry’s connection was down for a while and I had to remember which bus to take all on my own and I did miss one bus that I had intended to take. Otherwise, I was just moving slower than normal.
I look a lot of pictures today but thanks to Verizon, only these three (kind of gross ones) survived:
Finally, a moment on costs. In preparation for my new transit-based lifestyle, on Monday I bought a book of Zone 1 tickets from the Port Authority. That is $20.00 for 10 tickets. There is no deal here, the tickets just ensure that you always have the correct change. However, I need to admit poor judgment at the time of purchase. I chose the ticket route over purchasing a weekly pass for $20.00, which provides unlimited trips within the one week period. I would have saved tremendously with a weekly pass. To calculate, I have taken 23 transit trips this week. Now, some of them were transfers, which saved me $1.50 on those trips, but it’s clear that I spent more than I needed to by paying for individual trips rather than buying a pass. Let’s say that 5 of my trips were transfers- that would mean that I took 18 trips at $2.00 and 5 trips at $0.50. That comes to $38.50, which is significantly more than the cost of the weekly pass. Lesson learned.
Today’s tally:
Walked: ~7.5 miles (It’s no wonder I’m exhausted and hungry!)
Bussed: 7 trips
Carpooled: 2 trips
Drove: 0
Today went pretty smoothly. I successfully utilized the transfer option on public transit (pay $2.50 instead of $2.00 and get a second trip within three hours of the first) for the first time ever; I actually used a transfer three times today. A bigger victory is that I wasn’t late all day. I was even early to work- that’s a minor miracle.
(This morning, this sign reminded me of the gas I don’t have to pay for.)
One thing that I learned to appreciate about the transit lifestyle today is the way you sometimes you have no choice but to take it easy. Waiting between buses can be annoying, in the snow perhaps, but on a beautiful day like today, I really appreciated the excuse to slow down, grab a smoothie, take in the city sights. I took some pictures while meandering through Downtown:
Now for a little piece on costs…
Today I reserved my first Zipcar. I have been planning to spend the weekend in Chicago visiting my aunt. Until the Low Car Diet came along, I was planning to drive my car out there, because it’s still cheaper than flying. When I committed to LCD, I still secretly wanted to drive my car to Illinois because driving a Zipcar would eat up most of my $500 credit. However, now that I am indoctrinated to the LCD, I can’t bring myself to violate the terms because, you know what, I can do it.
In order to minimize the cost of the rental, I am planning to leave at 3pm Friday and return by 3pm Monday so as to limit my rental to three days (i.e. 3 24-hour periods). With taxes that brings my estimated rental costs to roughly $227, according to the Zipcar site. However, the daily rental fee of $66 only includes 180 miles of driving. Thus, with my aunt’s house being about 450 miles from here, I am going to have to pay the overage charge of $0.35 per mile on both legs of my trip. This will push the cost of my trip up to the $400 mark.
Now you can understand why I wanted to cheat. It just seems absurd to pay $400+ for a trip that would cost $170 for gas and tolls in my own car. In this case, though, I am lucky to get getting the whole trip for free so what do I care? It’s just tolls for me, baby. The lesson here is that if you wanted to go car-free and depend on a car-sharing program for auto transport, you would probably want to look into flying somewhere beyond a three-hour radius of your home.
Going with Zipcar for my Chicago trip not only makes the most sense for me because the LCD promotion pays for my whole trip, but because I get to stay true to my commitment to explore the low-car lifestyle in a complete way. Furthermore, I get to drive cars that I never have before. For my trip to Illinois, I have rented a Honda Civic hybrid. I am exicted about driving a Honda (the best car there is) and a hybrid (limit those fossil fuels). This is gonna be fun.
Today’s tally:
Walked: ~2.75 miles
Bussed: 6 (for the record, “bussed” includes incline and T trips as well)
Carpooled: 2 trips
Drove: 0
Wow. Day Two was rough. I had a lot to accomplish today and not having a car made it more work than it used to be. The challenge for me continues to be timing things correctly (knowing me, that is no real surprise).
Today started off well when I got up extra early to catch the bus to work. However, I dawdled too long when getting ready and missed the bus by just a few minutes. That meant that I had to wait about 40 minutes for the next bus and I was late for work (again).
Around lunch time, I traveled by bus to Downtown and that went smoothly. After work, I took the bus home and I had no problems but my bus had a little run-in with a woman’s car. That caused a bit of a delay to my trip- about 20 minutes.
After a brief stop at home, I headed off to an appointment in Shadyside. Because I am impatient and because I like the exercise, I decided to walk Downtown and catch a bus from there. It’s simpler too, to take only one bus (I am still working up to a transfer). The problem with this trip was that I left the house way too late- at 6:30pm for a 7:00pm appointment. It was already 7 by the time I made it to Grant Street. I scuttled over to the Busway to wait for the EBA. Thank goodness for the efficiency of the Busway; I made it to my appointment at 7:30pm. Though late, it could have been worse.
(the nice view from the Busway)
After my appointment, I made a quick stop at the Whole Foods for some dinner and then headed west to make my way home. I stopped at Negley and Centre to wait for the 71A. Then I got curious as to when I should expect it so I tried looking up the schedule on the Port Authority website using my Blackberry. Unforunately, neither the PAT website, nor the Google Transit site, are accessible by my Blackberry’s browser. I was nearly defeated when I was inspired to download the Google Maps application to my phone. Great scott! That was the solution I was looking for and more. With Google Maps on my Blackberry, I can use GPS to find my exact location and then search directions from that point to anywhere else; directions are provided for travel by car and by TRANSIT. AMEN. I highly recommend this.
Today’s tally:
Walked: ~6.25 miles (Whew! I am tired!)
Bussed: 7 trips (to work, Downtown, home, Downtown, Shadyside, Downtown, home)
Carpooled: 1 trip (to work)
Drove: 0
Busy day!
I haven’t yet proven my low-car-ness and yet I am already in the press just for trying. Check me out:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: City councilman among those giving Zipcar a whirl
The day of initiation into my new, low-car lifestyle began like any other weekday. That was a problem. I woke myself at the usual time, leaving myself just 10 minutes for the drive to work. However, if I was to turn in my car keys at the Low Car Diet event at noon, I would have to take the bus to work because I wouldn’t be able to drive home. Thus, I was late for work.
My options are outlined as follows. In order to get to work at 8:30am…
…by car, I leave my house at 8:20am.
…by bus, I have to leave my house in time to catch the 7:54am 41D, or the 7:59 41G, at South Hills Junction, which is a 3/4 mile walk. Alternatively, I could catch the 7:50am 41E at the stop directly across the street from my house, which is supposed to get me to the Junction by 7:56am (in time for the 41G), but that would cost an additional $0.50 for the transfer and cut my exercise. The 41D and 41G get me to the office in Brookline at 8:10am and 8:12am, respectively, before I am required to be there (the 41G requires a 1/3 mile walk from the bus stop to the office, which adds a few minutes). The challenge is that the next 41 doesn’t come to the Junction until 8:41am, which would obviously make me late.
I have consistently driven to work. It’s obviously faster, and certainly more convenient, but it’s also cheaper. Yes, it really is. My calculations are as follows:
My 2003, Ford Focus ZX5 gets approximately 20 miles per gallon in city driving conditions (yes, I realize that this is quite poor and, yes, I am ashamed to own such a gas guzzler). The drive from my house to my office is approximately 3 miles. At $4.00 a gallon, give or take a few cents, it costs me $0.60 to drive each way to work. That significantly less than the $2.00 each way that the bus requires.
Ok, back to yesterday.
Here is my total travel tally:
Walked: ~3 miles (to work, to zipcar event, to lunch, to home, to kickball)
Bussed: 3 trips (to work, to zipcar event, to home)
Carpooled: 2 trips (to bar, to home)
Drove: 0
That’s pretty “low car.” Not bad for my first day.
Today, I began on a journey. You could call it a road trip but I am not taking my car. I am one of 17 participants in a 30-day promotional program being offered by the national car-sharing company, Zipcar. Zipcar has offered participants in this, “Low Car Diet,” the following perks in exchange for giving up their car keys for a month:
- Free Membership
- $500 in Driving credit from July 21 – August 15
- An August bus pass from the Port Authority
- A City of Pittsburgh bike map from Bike-Pgh
- A gift certificate from Venture Outdoors for a free 1 hour kayak rental for two
- A one week guest pass to South Side Athletic Club – A case of Vitamin Water- A bottle of Give Water
- A coupon for Domenique’s Hair and Tanning Salon for a free tan or $10 towards a product of your choice
- A book of coupons for Bruegger’s- A coupon for 10% off merchandise at Honus Wagner Sporting Goods
- A coupon for a free shoe shine at Ullrich’s Shoe Repair
- A plethora of Zipcar swag
