I begin my morning commute by waiting. Every morning after dropping my wife off at the bus station, I queue up behind a long line of idling cars. We poise on an incline, brake lights glowing red with impatience, exhausts steaming toxins into the morning; and we wait.
We wait because some idle engineer thought it democratic for everyone to spend the same time getting to work. So now commuters from distant suburbs whisk unimpeded to their destinations while those parsimonious souls who thought they could economize by living close to work; wait. The closer they live to the city, the longer they wait.
I hate waiting. I hate it not out of a desire for instant gratification so much as a sense of stymied progress. In the summer I bike the trails to work and enjoy, not resent, the long journey. The commute is a study in American progress. We simply like getting places and will spend long hours everyday getting somewhere that we could simply live closer too.
© Greg Schiller, 2007
Author: Greg Schiller
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Comments: 20
No argument there, but one thing the Cities does have is wonderful bike trails.
I used to bike into downtown Minneapolis from Chaska, a distance of 22 miles, in the summer. During the winter, I picked up the 53J right in front of my door. One day in summer, I waited with my bike for the bus to come by and challenged it to a race. A little more than an hour later, I stood in front of the Gateway Ramp in downtown Minneapolis and grinned as the bus pulled in.
The big problem we have here.....is so little daylight in the winter. I do not like riding a bike in the dark.
For instance if traffic starts building up, slow down the traffic behind it by flipping on digital speed limit signs that say "50 MPH". Instead, we make the poor schmuck in the inner-ring wait so the traffic from the outer-rings can speed in to jam up the flow.
Senator Dick Day said "Just go"! If no one is waiting and the lights are functining, I just go.
C'est la vie.
What I'm finding is that there are becoming more options for commuting between the suburbs and downtosn but there are very few bus routes that go from the city to the suburbs at any time but weekday rush hours.
Most agree that we need better mass transit but disagree on where the highest need is and how it should (or shouldn't) be funded.
Minneapolis does have some nice bike trails. That is one advantage of living and working in the city. My frustration living in the suburbs is that my work is theoretically within walking or biking distance. It's a four mile drive but as the crow flies only about a mile. Realistically though there is no sane or safe way to bike or walk there. It would be either cross-country or braving traffic on the already over-congested local road and crossing hwy 169.
There are no simple answers, I'm just thankful for my short commute.
Hey, I just moved up to the cities from a town of 500. :)