Riding On City Busses

      Last week was "Commute Another Way" week. Commute Another Way Week promotes eco-friendly habits and encourages people to commute another way under the assumption that they usually drive cars. The event is heavily advertised and suggests that people bike, walk, car pool or even ride the bus to work that week instead of driving. I probably heard ads for this dozens of times a day on the radio. Presumably there were just as many television advertisements and mentions of it on the news. There were also posters up in the B.A.T. City Buses where I live.
      You would think, from the level of advertising that you would have seen a lot of pedestrians on the morning commute or in the evening. You'd think there would have been a lot of bikes around. You'd think the buses would have been packed. You probably wouldn't think that everything looked exactly the same. There were no more people on the buses than usual and no more pedestrians than I would normally see.
      My theory on the lack of commute-another-wayers is that they're all secretly terrified of changing their routine. They don't know how long it would take to walk or bike so they can't do that. They don't know how to decipher the bus routes or what the fares are or even how to find that out. They don't know anyone conveniently close enough to carpool with. And so they assuage their guilt by assuming that lots of other people will be doing all those things. Except everyone seems to have assumed the same thing.
      Environmental impact wise the campaign would do a lot better by explaining to people how to go about commuting another way. Suggest they go on a test walk/bike the weekend before to see how long it takes to get to work. Tell them they can easily go online and find the bus routes, fares and times in most cities. Explain that even carpooling with your spouse counts as carpooling. I have a feeling that if people weren't quite so terrified of changing their habits they'd be more likely to do this.
      What did I do during commute another way week? Was I being a hypocrite driving my car? Of course not. I got to work the same way I go to work nearly every day. My commute takes about forty-five minutes total in the summer and about an hour in the winter and I arrive at work fifteen minutes early. This past winter I would walk up to the top of the hill and cross a busy main street so I was on the correct side to flag down the in-bound bus which I would then ride to Pickering Square where all the buses meet up every half hour. I would switch buses to the line that went to my place of work and arrive there about an hour after I had left my house and fifteen minutes before I was scheduled to come in. Now that it's not so cold I leave about forty-five minutes early and walk down to Pickering Square which takes about twenty minutes at a casual pace. I then get on the bus line that goes to my place of work and arrive there usually just about on time. I am occasionally a few minutes late through no fault of my own but my boss completely understands. I told her I rode the bus before she hired me.
      It is occasionally inconvenient to ride the bus to get where you want to go but when you live in a city it's a nice way to get around and it's very inexpensive. It's also a good way to reduce your carbon footprint if you're the kind of person who's concerned about that kind of thing. And even if you're not concerned about that kind of thing it's always a good point to bring up in conversation if someone else is pointing out how they have a Prius or something else equally pretentious. Or if you're having a pissing contest in how good a person you are. "Oh yeah, you recycle? Well, I recycle and I ride the bus to work."