I had a brief and glorious hiatus from the world of commuting - no frustrating rush hour traffic, no scraping off my frost-covered car at 7am - but alas, with my new full-time office job I'm right back in it, and therefore right back into thinking how to make the best of my daily voyage to-and-from work.
I am indeed blessed with a relatively good commute: I have the option of driving, biking, running or taking the C-train (Calgary's name for light rail transit). I had an excellent time biking to work this summer, cruising past long lines of traffic on the shoulder...ahhh. But we recently had a big snow fall which put a hiccup into my regular bike routine. So the last couple days I drove one day and took the C-train today. The C-train is great, albeit time consuming (1 hour each way with walking to-and-from the train) but it's time reading a book or taking a nap, i.e. reasonably productive. Compare this to my drive, which is about 30 minutes each way, but it's 30 minutes of unproductive time sitting in rush hour stop-and-go traffic, where I sit and get stressed out wondering if I'm going to be to work on time. I consider myself a very patient person in most situations, but sitting in traffic, idling my car and breathing in fumes certainly tests that patience.
Compare this now to riding a bike to work. It seems like a no-brainer in my opinion- but it surprises me how alone I feel out on the paths sometimes. I'd expect more people to catch on to this amazing phenomenon: cheap, fun, good exercise, fresh air and so on...absolutely great! Commuting by train, bike, or other non-motorized methods such as running, walking or even long-boarding, are what I consider to be very civilized forms of travel.
Compare these pictures:
I am indeed blessed with a relatively good commute: I have the option of driving, biking, running or taking the C-train (Calgary's name for light rail transit). I had an excellent time biking to work this summer, cruising past long lines of traffic on the shoulder...ahhh. But we recently had a big snow fall which put a hiccup into my regular bike routine. So the last couple days I drove one day and took the C-train today. The C-train is great, albeit time consuming (1 hour each way with walking to-and-from the train) but it's time reading a book or taking a nap, i.e. reasonably productive. Compare this to my drive, which is about 30 minutes each way, but it's 30 minutes of unproductive time sitting in rush hour stop-and-go traffic, where I sit and get stressed out wondering if I'm going to be to work on time. I consider myself a very patient person in most situations, but sitting in traffic, idling my car and breathing in fumes certainly tests that patience.
Compare this now to riding a bike to work. It seems like a no-brainer in my opinion- but it surprises me how alone I feel out on the paths sometimes. I'd expect more people to catch on to this amazing phenomenon: cheap, fun, good exercise, fresh air and so on...absolutely great! Commuting by train, bike, or other non-motorized methods such as running, walking or even long-boarding, are what I consider to be very civilized forms of travel.
Compare these pictures:
Okay, so I realize that there are lots of factors here- some people don't have the luxury of having multiple methods of commuting easily accessible from their house. I must say I'm blessed to have a bike path by the river for my commute and a quick walk to the C-train station, but I realize some don't have great bike paths or a train station close by. But, that being said, some people who do have a station nearby simply claim that the C-train is too expensive.
This got me thinking...what is the true cost of commuting? So I whipped up this chart:
To sum it up, I estimated the daily cost of each method of transportation (based on what I consider to be average fuel economy, distance of commute etc.). This resulted in a daily cost of $1.70 per day to bike, $6 per day to ride the train and whopping $9 per day to drive! This chart also doesn't take into account hidden long-term costs like the huge health benefits from riding your bike and the stress reduced from taking the train as opposed to a car in rush hour.
So what I'm trying to get at is, a great city is one that realizes that the car commuting system is inefficient, polluting, dangerous and expensive. A great city will focus on building a strong transit system and pedestrian path system in high density communities, rather than building far-reaching, sprawling roads to distant suburbs. Imagine if all these people in this picture were each driving a car, how packed it would get on the roads!
And think, if you bike even half the year, that's roughly 250 liters of gas that you're not burning into the atmosphere and later breathing in. It is said that 5% of gas burned moves the person and the remaining 95% moves the car. Why is such an inefficient mode of transportation so widely used? There must be other ways! And lastly, study upon study has shown that more time spent in a car translates into poor cardiovascular health, an expanding waistline, a rise in blood pressure and increased stress.
Let's start by hopping on our bike or heading to the train station tomorrow morning.
Pictures from here, here, here, and here
Let's start by hopping on our bike or heading to the train station tomorrow morning.
Pictures from here, here, here, and here