You Can't Get There from Here

Much to the chagrin of nearly everyone who's related to me, I am a confirmed city gal. I grew up in a small town and will carry it in my heart forever, but the woman I am now needs a city if she wants to go on being who she is. (And she does. How did I start this paragraph in the first person and end up in the third? Settle down, brain.)

This summer has been nice to re-acquaint myself with the place I grew up, spend some time with assorted relatives, and enjoy some of the benefits of funemployment (like long bike rides at 2 PM on a weekday). But the thing I hate about being here has grown increasingly heavy to me, so that I have to either get out or be crushed:

Life here requires owning a car.

Not even an e-assist can make this
place better without a matching
designated bike lane to anywhere.

I appreciate the car as a tool. That's why I've been a member of carsharing services like car2go and Zipcar. But much like the high-powered carpet cleaner we rented to clean my grandmother's house a couple weeks ago, it's not a tool that I should be required to have at hand all the time. AAA has put the average annual cost of car ownership in the U.S. as over $8,000 for many years now, and quite frankly, I have other uses for that kind of cash. I'm not the only one.

There is neither public transit nor a decent bike route between here and Indianapolis. If I want to go to the theatre, or get on an intercity bus, or even visit a bookstore, I have to get my hands on a car. Even closer to home, if I want to go get something out of my storage unit that doesn't easily fit into my bicycle pannier, I end up begging for a lift for the two miles across town--this was a problem just last week when I needed to make a quick dash to my storage before heading out of town, and my mother had grandma's car. My queendom for a cargo bike!

(Those same cargo bikes can be used for hauling kids, by the way, and frequently are in places that have sensible bicycle policies. Don't even start about me only being able to live car-free because I'm not a parent. It's not necessarily true.)

This is a song I have sung many times, and will continue to sing until the U.S. finally catches on that people need options. Public transportation, carsharing, bikesharing (or just a local cargo bike rental), decent bicycle infrastructure--these can all put a dent in the burden of car ownership for people, in small towns and large.

And until that happens, people like me will continue rejecting the otherwise perfectly acceptable places where they grew up to find a better fit for our lifestyles.

Getting There

It's no secret I mostly travel by bike. It's faster than walking, more fun than taking the bus, and cheaper/happier/blood-pumping-er than driving. Despite being a reluctant car owner (I should have just had my sister put it in her name, really) for a few months now, I remain a transportation cyclist. Plus, bikes usually get better parking spots than cars (and wow, do I ever hate hunting for a parking space with the car).

Not what buses in Austin look like.

However. Sometimes it's so freeing to just take transit. Especially when my destination is downtown--I take something to read en route, and at the other end I just hop off and walk a block or two to my destination. No bike lock, no parking space, no traffic jams, just an easy trip.

Alas, not every trip is downtown. Not every trip can be laissez faire, I'll-get-there-when-I-get-there. People who rely on transit need it to get them to work, to the doctor, to the supermarket, and back home again in a reasonable amount of time.

Unfortunately, there are stigmas attached to public transportation in much of the U.S., including here in Austin, which have contributed to people not riding, or lack of funds for transit agencies, or both. Even more unfortunately, as long as transit is seen as 'for poor people' or taking money away from other forms of transportation-- or both-- it will likely remain underutilized, underfunded, and under-useful.

So, why talk about it here? Because I think the stigmas are silly. I think the aversions are overblown. I think people who complain every day about having to sit in traffic without even bothering to research solutions maybe need a gentle reminder that if they take the bus instead, they can at least get some working or reading or listening to music done while someone else drives, which might get their workday off to a less stressful start.

I would love for public transportation to always show up on time and go all over the place, for the sake of those who have no choice and for those who do, so that it's the easy transportation choice when someone just doesn't want to hunt for a parking space. I don't know how we get there from here. But I wish we would.

"I've never seen anybody use it!"

Wednesday used to be my day for writing about life without a car, and my enjoyment (or otherwise!) of the local public transit, car sharing, and bike lane network. I've kind of gotten away from that, but for your reading pleasure: A post about the local train.

We moved apartments last month, away from one that was great apart from its location on the very eastern edge of town to one more in the middle of things. Our new apartment is close enough to a train station for me to take the train to work now, which I've appreciated. Since I work part-time, I leave at 2 PM and can usually get a seat on the train with no problem for the ride home. Going to work, though, is another story.

The trains are packed full at peak times. Packed. As in, some days I can't even get close enough to a bar to hang onto because of all the people in the way. The evenings are worse than the mornings, I discovered last week, but the mornings are pretty bad (and look to get worse now that schools and universities are back in session).

This was a little field trip we took with our interns from
work last summer. Middle of the day, many seats filled,
bike racks occupied even before we got on
(at the second stop on the line!).

I'm not too disgruntled about this. The train is doing exactly what it's meant to do-- move a lot of people quickly. If a couple of routes a day are full, great. That's exactly what the transit system needs to justify expanding service.

But it took a while to build up to this. When I first moved to Austin in 2010, the train had been operational for about four months and the great joke going around was that the train cost millions of dollars and three people were riding it.

Apparently, that notion took hold and refuses to die, despite standing-room-only trains for most of the day. Just this week, a visitor to the office told me, "You know, I've never seen anybody on that train." He said this minutes after I had pried myself out of the crowd to get off the train and head to the office.

I told him, "You must not be looking at it right." He was kind enough to believe, after I described my daily ride, that the train is indeed full for most routes of the day.

It's funny to me how long people can hang on to something that we heard once. It seems obvious enough to me that train ridership would increase gradually over time, and I'm not surprised to hear that there weren't thousands of people crowding all the platforms the day the train began service. But that's changed now (okay, we're still not up to thousands-- the train doesn't have that much capacity), so maybe after a couple more years I'll stop hearing about how there's "nobody" riding the trains.

Or maybe not. Texans do love their traditions, after all.

Are there any pithy but untrue statements that you hear a lot? Or is there an idea you're hanging on to that you may need to let go of?

Public Speaking and Bicycles

It's been an exciting weekend in Austin for bike-related stuff. And I was right in the middle of at least some of it.

This weekend was also the Hotter'N Hell 100, a massive bike ride in Wichita Falls, TX, that draws thousands of cyclists from all over the country. When my employer asked if Chad and I would like to go (I work for BikeTexas part-time now, instead of merely volunteering), we decided that we didn't. Neither of us is that keen on long car trips or huge crowds, plus it was my final weekend before starting grad school (which starts TODAY, btw. Yikes!), and I wanted to relax and enjoy it, not be running around working. Plus, BikeTexas didn't need my help; ten people from the office went to run the booth and whatnot. So I stayed home.

Chad was my official photographer!
Here we're all waiting for our turn to
speak. L to R: Austin City Council
Member Chris Riley, me, and Austin
Bike Program Manager Annick Beaudet.

However. On Friday the local transit system opened a new bike shelter at one of the train stations, and the city had a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new set of cycletracks (separated bike lanes). These events happened at 9:15 and 10:30, respectively. As the lone person available to represent BikeTexas, I was duly selected and sent.

It was really fun. I had one minute to speak at the bike shelter opening, of which I took about 45 seconds, because I talk fast. I got up to the podium, and the microphone was pointed waaaaay up, because the person speaking before me is really tall. I didn't bother trying to adjust; I just stood on my tiptoes and talked loudly so the mic would pick me up. The CEO of the transit system had to step over and lower the microphone for me. I don't always represent BikeTexas, but when I do, I'm completely inept with the technology.

Here's the schmoozing bit. Me with
Chris Riley.

Anyway, we (Chad and I) hung around schmoozing with the local dignitaries and CapMetro officials until the southbound train came clanging down the track and pretty much everyone there had to hop aboard for our next event. Yep, it was a lot of the same people at both things. We got the train downtown, and most of the city officials and other local bicycle advocacy people took off on their bicycles to get to the ribbon cutting. But, Chad is bicycle-free, so we walked to the nearest bus and took it instead. We got there just a few minutes after the city and other advocacy people, so transit turned out to be a pretty good deal.

Riding my bike! On a
cycletrack! In a skirt!

People spoke (not me this time!), they cut the ribbon, and we all jumped on our bikes to try out the new cycletrack. It works!

So! I spoke in public for the first time in ages, nobody fell down (except Chad, getting on one of the buses), and we're only a little bit sunburnt. Great day.

What's your latest adventure?

This is What Democracy... Walks Like

Today's my car-free day here at Cheekyness. Yesterday was the primary election in Texas, in advance of the general in November-- the parties got to vote for who they want to run in the general. I'm not about to invoke politics into the poli-free zone that is my blog, so just in case you're wondering: I'm not a member of a political party, but Texas is an open primary state, so I can vote in either primary election. Usually I choose the one with the more interesting races. Sometimes I sit out the primary and let people who are actually interested in their party's outcome do the choosing (although not often).

This time around, there were interesting races on both ballots, so I set out early to vote before I went into BikeTexas. They've moved our polling place, for reasons passing understanding, so instead of being in a busy shopping center like it has been since we've lived here, it's in a YMCA (a really nice facility, by the way) that is in the heart of our precinct. So far, so good, yes? Well, not so much. This precinct includes a lot of low-income families and people who are transit-dependent, not to mention mobility-impaired. The YMCA is 3/4 of a mile away from the nearest bus stop (and about a mile from the next nearest), and it's on a busy highway with no sidewalks leading to it.

What does lead to it? Weeds. Lots of them. And wildflowers. I'm all for wildflowers, but I'm not so into wading through them while pushing my bicycle (I needed it after I got done voting, but I can't ride through weeds that well). I was also genuinely concerned for my own safety; it's not unheard-of for pedestrians in Austin to be hit by out-of-control cars, even when the pedestrians were well off the road. I would hate for all the internet comments on the news story to be about how it was my own fault, and how dumb I was to be walking there, etc., etc., so I tweeted:

I did make it in one piece, cast my ballot, and then headed out again-- this time, to cross the highway so I could catch a bus 3/4 of a mile down the road on the other side. The opposite side of the road turned out to be even thicker with weeds and even harder to push through. Sigh...

Needless to say, I sent an email to the county clerk's office, thanking them for their service to the voters of Travis County, but asking them to please consider moving our polling place to somewhere that is more accessible to transit users. After all (I didn't include this bit in the email), nowhere in the Constitution does it say that one must have a car to participate in the democratic process, and I don't think it should be a requirement, even in car-loving Texas.

What do you think about polling places? Is there such a thing as an ideal location?

The Depressing Route

It's the day you've all been waiting for: the glorious return of Have Bus, Will Travel!

Yes, I know that no one has been waiting that much. However, today's little adventure is all about route #37, which it the bus that comes by my apartment. You know the saying "Familiarity breeds contempt," yes? It does. A lot of contempt.

A fountain at UT that is on the 37 route. (More pics coming
ASAP! My camera is on the blink!)

This route is long and has a lot of stops. A trip from my apartment to UT, in theory, takes 35 minutes. In practise, it's more like 45-60 during rush hour, because we stop at every stop. If I stay on and go all the way downtown, it's a 45 minute trip that can stretch to over an hour. And it's usually packed, hot, and noisy. The worst trip all day is the one right after school gets out, because there are four schools on the route and so the (generally) already-full bus has to take on massive groups of kids. I will say that the kids are always well behaved (better behaved than most of the adults, anyway), but they have us seriously outnumbered. And any small ones, like kindergarten or first graders, have to have a seat, which is hard to manage. And kind of a dumb rule, IMO: When it's that packed, how could they possibly fall down?

To their credit, CapMetro has adjusted the schedule a couple of times to address the problem, but with no success so far. At least they're trying, but in the meantime I go out of my way--to the next nearest bus line 1/2 mile down the road--to avoid taking this route. On the other hand, we used to have an express version of this route that was at least 15 minutes faster, but it was eliminated last summer, despite all my e-mails of protest. I'm still mourning its passing.

Anyway, on to the highlights. From my house to downtown, the bus passes two libraries, four schools, four shopping centres (one of which is quite nice; I'll write a whole post on the Mueller shopping centre one of these days) and one cluster of locally owned Mom & Pop-type shops, a handful of bike routes, two hospitals, and UT. One could, in theory, get a lot of places while riding this route, if one were willing to sit for a while. There are faster buses in the neighbourhood, though.

So, not my happiest bus post. But I'll balance that out by posting about the bus route near my house that I love, I promise.

Resolved, or Wait, It's Another New Year Already?

The other day we were discussing New Year resolutions at a casual game night at church (because it's not a proper game night without a bunch of party animals having a quiet conversation in the next room, right?), and I mentioned that I generally post mine on my blog. This got a round of undeserved amazement: I tell people my resolutions? On the internet? Guess they don't know that I don't have any of those 'hound and badger' kind of readers. You know, the ones who will pop up on February 1st to ask how those resolutions are coming.

Source.

Easy things first-- my fitness resolutions for 2012:
Cycle 1200 miles
Run 800 miles
Choose walking instead of the bus for short trips
Use the gym at UT that I'm already paying fees for (specifically, the pool)

Life goals:
Graduate! (Okay, this is an easy one, since it would be really hard to screw up at this point.)
Read 100 books.
Finish my NaNoWriMo novel and do at least some editing so I can get my CreateSpace free books this year.
Meet at least one person at church every Sunday. I tried this a couple of years ago and it worked out well; I imagine it will work even better since we're still the new people at our current church.
Finish my Have Bus, Will Travel project.
And for goodness' sake, remember to take my vitamins and wear compression socks.

I think that's all for now. But I do make new goals fairly regularly-- at least every couple of months-- so these are sure to evolve as the year goes by.

Did you make any resolutions? Are you anti-resolutions? Do you think bloggers who share their resolutions are a bit crazy?

Owning a Choice

As I've shared many, many times before, we are car-free at the Cheeky house. We made this decision when we moved to Austin in July 2010, deciding to rely on the local public transportation and cycling. Since then, we've also added a local carsharing scheme to our repertoire, and we've taken a taxi or two in the past 18 months. Apart from the occasional snafu (usually the reason for the taxi) or having to turn down an invitation every now and then, it works.

Yep, this is where I live. Source.

Sometimes, though, it doesn't work. Sometimes we get an invite to a Christmas party with people we really enjoy hanging out with but they live out of reach of the bus system. Sometimes we forget to buy Chad a new bus pass and have to scrounge for change when we get on board. Sometimes we'd just like to go downtown on a Sunday evening but dangit, the buses stop running at 9:30 PM. And sometimes we just like getting home from church in a timely manner without having to wait 30 minutes for a bus.

A lot of times, people will offer us a lift to or from wherever we're going. A lot of times, we accept. Every now and then we'll outright ask for a lift. But I don't like doing that, because being car-free was our choice. It wasn't forced upon us. And I don't feel like we have the right to allow our lifestyle choices to become a burden on other people. Besides, I feel that as an advocate for non-car alternatives, I shouldn't be turning to car-owning friends every five minutes and asking for a bailout. I can hardly say that I'm living without a car just fine when I'm not.

And there's that little detail that for the majority of the country, choosing whether to have a car or not is not even on the radar screen. There's the group that can't possibly afford a car, no matter what, and have to get around however they can. Then there's the group that lives or works in areas where there are no alternatives to car ownership. And some fit into both categories, which is even more a cause for concern. And that's one reason why I advocate for alternatives to car ownership in this country: We shouldn't be forced into one default mode. We should have choices. And no one should have to feel that their choices or circumstances make them a burden on others.

Do you ever take car-free trips? Is it even feasible for you?

The (Not-So-) Magical E-bus

So it turns out that it's not called "NaBloWri Except When I Forget Mo". Dang.

Way back when we first plotted out Have Bus, Will Travel, I shared that there were a few routes that were just too impractical for me to take. Among them was the E-bus, the late evening/early morning service that runs between student housing centers and the downtown entertainment district. Since I neither live in a student area nor do I go downtown at night, I thought I was never going to take that bus.

Whaddya know, I was wrong.

Last Friday evening, I went to a birthday party for one of the really sweet, really tolerant 'normal' students who I've become so fond of over the past year. Sprained Ankle, in fact, is her wildly inaccurate nickname around Cheekyness. She's a lovely person and très fun and it was her 23rd birthday and she kindly invited me to come. So of course, I took 10 seconds to think long and hard about how I don't really do late nights or loud music and before agreeing to go.

Confession: I'd never been to a college party. I've been to parties where college-age people were gathered, but the loud music, bad dancing, crazy talking stereotypes you see on the movies? Not once until last weekend. You know what? It was fun. And there really were impossibly beautiful people there.

Anyway, the bus! As the evening wore on, the group decided to head downtown, so we made our way to an unusually crowded (by my experience) bus stop. And then the bus pulled up, already packed. That made me really nervous, because I so have personal space issues, and also because we were worried that we might not all get on the bus. Despite being rather independent when it comes to transportation, I was not excited at the prospect of having to ride a bus downtown with complete strangers if I got separated from the two people in the group who I knew.

I worried for nothing, since we did all get on, but the driver had to change the sign in front to 'Drop-Off Only' once our group was in, because there was no more room for anyone else. But then he also had to follow his normal route downtown, which strikes me as beyond silly. Why not have a back-up plan to go straight there once the bus is full? Running the complete route just results in a lot of frustrated people standing by the bus stops.

So, I'm on a really packed bus, fortunately standing (more or less) between the two people I know. This turned out to be a good thing, because at one point Sprained Ankle (in front of me) lost her balance and fell into me, so I fell into the guy behind me, who is one of our fellow consultants at the Writing Center. He was paying enough attention to catch us both and get us back on our feet. (God bless the strong young men who work at the Writing Center!)

Overall, what is the E-bus like? Lots of shouting. Since it was so packed, and since everyone was excited about heading downtown, they were all trying to talk over each other. And since it was her birthday and she was extra-giddy, Sprained Ankle led us all in our school song and a cheer. Apparently this is normal E-Bus behaviour, except that it's usually reserved for on the way home (i.e., once everyone is drunk), not the way there.

And when we got off downtown, everyone-- or at least the ones in my earshot-- thanked the driver. They may be rowdy, but they have manners.

And that was me on the E-Bus. I probably won't be repeating the experience anytime soon.

In a Hurry? There's a Bus for That.

In our continued mission to use Capital Metro to see all the wonders of Austin, Chad and I had a go at a couple of express buses: The 982 and the 983.

This is the Lakeline P&R,
which is also a train station.
Enlarge the pick to see the
"Kiss and Ride" sign in the
background, designating
the drop-off zone.

First of all, the express buses are nice. Cushioned seats that recline, reading lights, free wifi, very quiet inside-- I can see why people prefer these buses over the regular ones. All we were missing was the in-flight movie. The point of the express buses is to get people from downtown to the outskirts of town in a reasonable amount of time, so they have fewer stops and take the freeways. So, we didn't get off and on like we would normally do, but instead rode each route from one end to another.

Both routes stop mainly at park and rides. So, I totally see the wisdom in this; you drive to a (free!) park and ride, take the bus into town, and then back again, saving the hassle of dealing with traffic and having to find parking. And all of the P&R stations that we stopped at had plenty of cars in them, so people have caught on that this is a good idea.

A couple of things in particular that I noticed: 1. The freight rail track runs down the middle of the freeway. I've seen this before, but it bears repeating, I think, just because it's such a good idea. Way to use space wisely! As to which was first, the freeway or the tracks, I don't know, but putting them together just makes so much sense. 2. The P&R stations, while being very nice in themselves, are some distance away from shops and even (in a couple of cases) residential areas. My transit-oriented self would like to see a transit station more as a part of the neighbourhood than stuck off to one side so that no one has to see it.

We actually rode all three
of these buses, but you'll
have to wait for the 383
report.

So, here's our picture of one of us with the route sign, as usual. If you enlarge the pic, you might be able to read the larger sign, but I'll just tell you what it says:
Park-N-Ride Parking Rules
No Soliciting
No Littering
No Loitering
No Peddling
No Advertising
No Loud Music
No Skateboarding
No Overnight Parking
No Alcoholic Beverage Consumption or Open Containers
So now I'm wondering... how long do I have to wait for a bus before I go from "waiting" to "loitering"?

Conclusion? Well, the express buses aren't much use to me, since none of them come to my neighbourhood. But I think it's a brilliant idea. And the P&R concept is so well done, apart from my aforementioned qualm. Definitely something I'd use if I were in a position to do so!

Have you ever used a Park and Ride or similar scheme?

I'll Meet You at the Station

I bet you all thought I forgot about my bus adventure, didn't you? Well, I'm here to tell you that I haven't forgotten, but for some reason our schedules got more tight, not less, once my internship finished, so we've had fewer trips than anticipated. Weird.

The train after we got off it.

Anyway! We've managed to get a few train rides in, one of which I live-tweeted the other day (I bet that was *lots* of fun for my followers). A bit of backstory: An urban rail line in Austin was approved by bond election quite some time ago, and was followed by delays, more expense than anticipated, and the sort of thing that makes taxpayers really frustrated. By the time we moved here last summer, it was up and running, but really empty most of the time. Now that it's been going about 18 months, ridership is up and the people who ride it regularly are agitating for service on weekends; meanwhile, people who don't live near enough to a station to get any benefit out of it are still complaining bitterly. Not without some justification, I suppose.

I missed all the controversy, though, being a recent arrival. So let me just skip straight to the fun bits. The downtown portion of the Red Line runs right next to the local bikeway, so I love it when I'm riding through just as the train is coming or going; the signal gates stop the traffic, but I get to keep going. Fantastic. There's a cool drawing on Wikipedia of Austin in 1873, and you can see the rail line on the east side of town. There is still a lot of old railing around over there, mostly paved over, but you can still see it. Kinda cool really. I often wonder, when riding along, if that's the sort of thing that I notice because I'm on my bike that I might miss if I were in a car. That was a bit of an aside, but the point is that the railway downtown still runs in more or less the same place as did in the illustration.

Waiting for the train.

The best thing about riding on the train is the little slices of life that you see in a hurry as they go by. There's a park that the train passes through that I want to go to, only because I've seen it so many times. (It's on two different bus routes, so it's a planned stop for the future.) There's a house right on the rail line that has a sign that reads "I ♥ Local", except it's a tomato instead of a heart. I love it. The bit where the train passes under the freeway feels like a tunnel but isn't. Dozens of backyards stand open to the train tracks (no privacy fence, or the fence is too short for the tall train), revealing their drying laundry, their toys, or just people enjoying the sunshine. We see them all for a couple of seconds and then move on. It's strange and totally normal at the same time.

Another funny thing about being on the train instead of watching it from atop my bicycle: the intersections click by so quickly. Really. We zoom through them, leaving them behind in one quick swoosh, so fast that it hardly feels like we've been there at all. But for the drivers who are waiting, it isn't quick. The signal jangles, the gates come down, and traffic waits. And waits. And waits. It has to be especially irritating at intersections near stations, because the train triggers the signal before it stops at the platform. So, anyone waiting at the intersection has to wait for people to load and unload before the train will finally pass and the traffic be free to flow again. I was on a bus a few months ago and saw a firetruck and ambulance get stuck that way, and of course the train driver doesn't know who is waiting and can't do much about it even if he or she did know. The operators don't control the signals. Some days I wonder: Do the same drivers get stuck at the train every day? It seems that they would, since people leave for work at about the same time every day, and the train runs on a fixed schedule.

When I'm on the train, I feel like there is so much to share about the experience. But really, it's transport. Point A to Point I, stopping at points B through H in between. A fun experience, but hard to describe.


Does your town have a train? Do you ever ride it? Do you ever get stuck at train signals?

A Faster Bus

Weeks and weeks and weeks ago, Kerri asked if the bus system in Austin is viewed as only being for marginalized members of society, as it is in many other places in the US. Alas, the answer is yes. And since I don't have a new Have Bus Will Travel story for you today, I'm going to answer this question to the best of my ability. And talk about a couple of other bus-related things, too.

Back in February, I interviewed one of the VPs of the local bus system, Todd Hemingson. And for some inexplicable reason, my notes from that interview have gone missing. I'm afraid I may have shredded them without thinking when I was purging my home of last semester's excess stuff. Oops! Good thing I have a reasonably good memory. Anyway, one of the things we talked about is the stigma that buses are for poor people-- it's pretty strong in Austin, but in other places that Mr. Hemingson has worked (including Portland, if memory serves) that hasn't been the case. And he'd like to see CapMetro work to erase that stigma so that more people would feel like the bus was a viable choice instead of an unfortunate down-on-its-luck relation to the motor vehicle that turns up at family reunions and has a lampshade on its head by the end of the evening. (I'm pretty sure those weren't his exact words.)

They'll have their work cut out for them in Texas, where the automobile is king. Not only that, but the bus stops so frequently that it is a lot slower than taking a car (and for some routes, it's slower than a bike. Even me on a bike. Very, very slow). Plus, there's that minor detail that most of the riders are low-income, and some riders take the bus home after working a their hard-labour jobs all day and don't smell like roses, and of course from time to time a homeless person will see in the bus a sort of mobile shelter and hop aboard. Due to the frequent correlation between mental illness and homelessness, I can see how this might be off-putting to someone who is not accustomed to such sights.

So, like I said, a bit of a hard row for CapMetro to hoe if they want to encourage people at higher income levels to leave the car at home. For some routes, however, the bus does have a lot of high-income riders-- the express buses and the trains. I think there are a couple of reasons for this: One, express services and the train connect to Park and Ride stations. It's easier for people who live in surrounding towns to drive into Austin as far as a Park and Ride and then take the bus/train the rest of the way. Two, they are a bit more posh. Okay, that's totally subjective and kind of jerky, but hey, these are the routes that charge extra, stop less frequently, and have free wifi. Not to mention the nice cushiony seats. Posh.

Look, it's bendy! Source.

Which takes me to (holy crapiola, this is getting long) the newest addition to the CapMetro array of services: Bus Rapid Transit. It's coming to Austin in 2013; the two busiest bus routes in town will be replaced by BRT lines to move more people faster and, it is hoped, attract new riders. And I think this may well be the impetus that people who would take a bus if only it were faster have been waiting for. I mentioned in my ride recap of the #1 that it's the busiest route in Austin, to the tune of 17,500 riders per day-- no wonder the bus crawls along. The BRT stops will be farther apart, but will be the bendy buses! And people will be able to get on through all the doors, instead of just the front! I do love me some bendy buses, even though the first time I was on one, about 14 years ago in Mexico City, I feared for my life (we were standing in the joint. I was afraid of being squished). Anyway, the plan is to carry more riders (a bendy bus carries 102 people and has the capacity for four wheelchair users and (we hope) six bikes) faster. I'm looking forward to seeing it in action.

I know a bunch of you live in places with no public transport, so... Would you ride a bus or train if it were available? Do you ride public transport now, if you live in a transport-enabled city? Have you ever been on a bendy bus, either at home or abroad?

Kick Butt, Route #7!

My title, alas, has nothing to do with Route 7 itself, which is about as normal as bus routes get, but rather about a coffee shop along the way: I thought Kick Butt Coffee must have about a dozen locations in Austin, because I feel like I see them everywhere, but it turns out that they just have two locations, and I go past those places often enough for it to seem like there are a lot more of them. There's probably some deep meaning in that. The original Kick Butt is on the #7 route, though, and so I made a note of it when we went by.

See? Vintage. It says so right on
the shop.

So! Another route, another ulterior motive; there are shops along North Loop Boulevard that I've wanted to peek into for a while now, and this route goes right by them. Brilliant! There were a lot fewer shops, though, once we got there and started looking around, than I had thought there were when I went by on my bicycle. Among them were a bunch of vintage shops, an anarchist bookstore, and a place that declared itself to be "Austin Chronicle's Best Naughty Store 2010". We did not go in to investigate.

After a hop back on the bus (which involved some sprinting in 100+ heat, but the driver was nice enough to wait for us), we zoomed through campus and downtown-- well, as much zooming as one can do on public transportation. South of the river, there are a bunch of houses that are so high up off the street that the sidewalk leading to the front door is actually a staircase. Presumably, this is to ensure their view of the river, although I don't really know. Further down, the houses become apartments, just like everywhere else in the city. And when I read about this bit of the journey in my notes, it reads, "I wonder how close the sa". I have no idea what that means, nor did I know on that day when Chad nudged me awake. Yes, this route put me to sleep. Not a good sign.

I think this was outside the anarchist
bookstore.

Further south, there were some hills and trees to ooh and aah over, and then... The End. This is the first time we've ridden a route straight from one end to another (we usually get them somewhere in the middle), which was kind of nice because at the southern end we were able to get a flyer bus back to downtown and save some time over taking a regular bus.

Something I thought about while riding: A few years ago, the Lubbock buses started a route that went from the mall to the newest Target, which is in the middle of a nice shopping centre. Unfortunately, the route had to run through a neighbourhood that was filled with car-owning, public transport-disliking, letter-writing people, who lobbied the city until the route was discontinued. And I thought of that because there was quite a stretch of this route where we didn't pick up any passengers, and I wondered if this is another neighbourhood where no one who lives there needs the bus, but the route runs through it to get to the transport-needy people on the other side. Whatever it is, in Austin the bus is more of a part of life than a nuisance to be expelled, for which I am very thankful.

Have you ever been to an anarchist bookstore? Would you fall asleep on the bus? Do you prefer to get to a bus stop on time to avoid the sprinting?

All the Ones

On July 4th, Chad and I had a whole day free from any outside commitments; no class for him, no internship for me. So we decided on this day to tackle the longest, and busiest, route on our list: Route #1.

The transit center at the northern end
of the route. It's a park-and-ride, and
is really pretty cool.

Actually, we were quite lucky to get a three-for-one deal on this route. There are two regular #1 routes, the 1L and the 1M, which share the middle portion of the route with some slight deviation from one another at either end. An express route, the 101, also covers this particular line, but it was not running on July 4th due to the holiday. As mentioned, this is a busy, heavily-traveled corridor through Austin, one that runs almost as far to either end as we can go on a bus; basically, we covered the length of Austin in one day. One long, tiring day.

Because of the busyness, this route runs frequently; on a regular weekday, if your travel needs take you anywhere on the shared portion of the route, your wait is likely to be less than 10 minutes. It's slightly less frequent on weekends or holidays, but we never waited longer than 20 minutes all day. Additionally, CapMetro just received a federal grant to start a Bus Rapid Transit service in Austin, and this route will be one of the first to get the faster buses. I participated in a webinar about that yesterday, so much much more about it is coming soon!

One of the shops on South Congress.
This was my favourite store that I
saw the first time I ran the half-
marathon in Austin. Please do enlarge
the picture and identify all the
famous people.

Anyway, my poor unsuspecting husband had no idea, when I suggested we take on the longest route on our free-est day that I had an ulterior motive: There are all sorts of fun shops on South Congress that I've wanted to visit ever since our first trip to Austin for the marathon in 2009. Life and forgetfulness have intervened often in the year we've lived here, but I finally managed to get myself and my husband to this row of quirky, locally owned shops. Unfortunately, most of them were closed for the holiday, but at least we got closer to them than ever before. More photos from the trip are here.

And when it comes to sights to see, that's about it. There are lots of shopping centres along this route, a few libraries, two universities and a college, but for sheer coolness, nothing beats those few blocks on South Congress. I will say that we passed a couple of liquor stores with amusing names: Metric Liquor, which is on Metric Boulevard but makes me think it's weighed in grams instead of ounces, and Passionate Spirits, which I don't want to dwell on too much. What this route does have is lots of connections to other bus routes, lots of living spaces (of the single-family house and the apartment variety), and lots of shopping centres that are easy to get into from a bus. Which is what makes it such a popular route; what it lacks in scenery it more than makes up for in function. Goodness knows I've hopped onto this route from campus multiple times, usually to get to a connecting bus. It works, and works well.

And the Super Target at the
southern end of the route. I think
all stores with "Super" in the name
should be required to have capes.

Now, this north-to-south, easy connectivity also attracts all the crazies that ride the Austin buses. Not only is this route crowded, but it's like a little "Keep Austin Weird" fest just being on this bus. We got on one that was particularly crowded, and a young man standing near the front told us to move back so people could get on. Um, excuse me? Are your feet glued to the floor so that you can't move back? I didn't stop to snark at him, though, since I was intending to move back anyway, but sheesh. Another young man, who I temporarily named Mind-Altered, was loudly regaling his friend with a roommate's story of his (the roommate's) latest conquest, and how Mind-Altered told him, "I don't want to hear this!" I wanted to ask him, "What makes you think the rest of us want to hear it?" As it happened, we ran into Mind-Altered and his pal about three more times before the day was done. At another stop, a man got on and searched about 10 different pockets in his cargo pants and knapsack for his bus fare before finding it. Then, once he got a seat, he practised martial arts moves with his arms until we got to his stop. And finally, not so much "weird" as "wow", a dozen-ish French-speaking students got on the bus and had us completely surrounded for the last couple of miles of the route. I really need to learn that language.

So, what have we learned? Sometimes the routes will be more utilitarian than pretty. And people-watching opportunities abound, no matter what.

Is there something in your city that's more function than design? Do you see/use/visit it?

"This Is More Fun."

I knew our trek on Route #30 was going to be a good one when it started off with a conversation with a wee boy and his mum. The wee boy was giggling with pure joy at the universe, and his mum told us how much he loves to ride the bus. She finished up with, "We could bring the car, but this way is just more fun." Yes. Yes, it is.

We're in a drought, but
this trail still manages to be
green and friendly.

The 30 passes a couple of parks and through a really pretty neighbourhood before our preferred first stop near the Austin Nature Center. There's a trail head immediately behind the bus stop, so that's where we headed. The trail is gorgeous and blessedly shady (it was around 100 Fahrenheit on this Friday afternoon), winding around a dried-up creek and including plenty of trees, plants, and informational signs. There's also a Lookout Point, which naturally we climbed up to, cursing our own stubbornness as we went. The Nature Center is really close to a freeway, and for this country-bred girl it's a bit surreal to be in the middle of forest and still be able to hear traffic. And yet, that's more or less what happens.

Our next stop was Barton Creek Square Mall, because we wanted as much contrast between nature and city as possible. The drive there was what really made it worth it, though, because the mall is near the Barton Creek Greenbelt, which meant hills full of trees, and as the bus came over a hill we could see for a long way. I was totally awed, because I never get tired of scenic vistas.

One downside at Barton Creek Square is the placement of the bus stop. I don't know if it's the mall's design, CapMetro's, or both, but the bus stop is situated so that passengers have to cross traffic and walk along the edge of the building (no sidewalk) past an unloading zone and behind the handicapped parking spaces before getting to the building. No "Watch for Pedestrians" signs, no crosswalk markings on the lot, nothing. It needs a redesign. I would imagine these not-ideal conditions extend to anyone who parks and has to cross the parking lot. Definitely needs a fix.

Now, I had previously thought that we had hit the heights of posh peeing the time we used the loo at the Scottish Parliament building. But I was wrong, because the facilities in Nordstrom are far superior to the public loos in Scottish government buildings. After we finished our visit, I remarked to Chad that it was probably the poshest pee I'd ever taken, but he disagreed; apparently the men's at the Radisson (where we dropped in for a visit last week) is fancier than the men's at Nordstrom. The women's, on the other hand, is much better in Nordstrom. Do with that information what you will.

As we wound our way from Barton Creek Square to the South Lamar Transit Center, I watched out the window and thought about how little I know of Austin. I'm very familiar with the swath of city from downtown to our apartment, but that's it; I've only become acquainted with a small sliver of the place I currently call home. And I suppose that's the real meaning behind this project, and probably the sort of motivation that convinces people to take staycations instead of going somewhere far off: There is plenty to be discovered right here. As we rolled down streets I've never seen and saw glimpses of neighbourhoods I've never visited, I was glad that I chose this stunt over any others that came to mind. It really is more fun.

More pictures from Route #30 are here.

How well do you know your city? (I won't specifically ask for public restroom comments, but by all means, feel free to volunteer them.)

Health, Beauty, and the Wonders of Route #3

Source.

First things first... Happy Canada Day to my Canadian friends both in person and in the interwebs. May your barbecues be tasty, your parades be perfect, your fireworks be bright, and your insect repellent be strong. And please, enjoy your fireworks in extra measure on my behalf, because the Austin fireworks for Independence Day have been cancelled due to drought.

But never mind that; you came here to read about Day 1 of our Exploring Austin Quest, didn't you? (Real name coming soon, after everyone has had enough time to finish voting on it... VOTE NOW in the poll in the sidebar! -->) For our maiden voyage, as it were, we chose Route #3-- the northern half, that is. This challenge may take longer than anticipated if we have to break all the routes in two!

Remember my rule about asking for help? Well, the first thing I did was break that rule. Oops. Route 3 is detoured by construction, but rather than call and ask customer service, I went with what the online trip planner said to do. Unfortunately, a computer is only a high-speed idiot, and it does not keep abreast of the latest road construction detours all by its onesie. So, the stop it sent us to was closed. There was a sign at the closed stop, telling us the nearest stop to use, so we went there, only to discover there is no stop at the intersection it sent us to. The long and short of it is, we walked about a mile before we ever got on the bus.

I'm sure this is a slightly irreverant
use of the prayer garden.

But, once we got going it was all good. The #3 goes through the medical district, some fun shopping areas, and aaaaaalll the way up north to a couple of adjoining shopping centers, where we got off. Our first visit was to this prayer garden at a church, where Chad decided to pose with the locals, before we headed over to see the wonders of the Great Hills Market. Two things of note here: First, I'd been intending to look for Kiss My Face brand soap as soon as I run out of my current brand, and I found it lurking in the Austin Beauty Store; second, it appears that Chad and I are incapable of walking past any frozen yogurt shop without going in. And they've been popping up all over Austin like a creamy, frozen plague. I liked mine; Chad did not like his.

These may be the strangest bedfellows
ever, but hey, after seeing the colon
and rectal doctors, who wouldn't want
to get their hair done?

And then back on the bus to get Chad to class on time (his class is on the #3 route; that's pretty much why I chose it for a day he had class). I got off with him to take pics of the fun shopping and medical districts around where he goes to massage school. Yeah, I said "fun medical district", because oddly enough, it is. Check out that picture to the left. Seriously, do it.

So, we'll have to go back for the southern half of Route #3, and I can only hope that it's as entertaining as the northern half. If you want to see more pics of our journey (and why wouldn't you?) go here.

Are you Canadian? Do you like frozen yogurt? I don't dare ask your opinion of the colon & rectal docs, but I'm sure you'll tell me if you are so moved. (Ha!)

The (Beginnings of a) Plan

This was the flyer route that used to
serve our street. It has since been
eliminated, to my great regret.

As mentioned Monday, we're taking our use of the local bus system, and thus our exploration of Austin, to a whole new level. In theory, we're going to ride all of CapMetro's 84 separate routes around Austin. I may have bitten off more than I can chew here.

But actually, it's not as fantastic (or as bleak, depending on which way you look at it) as all that. First off, we've already ridden the buses that come by our apartment from beginning to end multiple times, and will almost certainly be using them to get to the other routes, so we need not count those (although I'll probably write about them, if I can get over that "familiarity breeds contempt" thing).

Since the train can go either direction,
it kind of reminds me of Doctor
Doolittle's pushmi-pullyu.

Of the rest: Some routes have an associated flyer (express) route that covers the same territory: no need to take both. A few routes are short, specific shuttle services that we will only take if we need to. Nine buses are late-night services that come nowhere near my neighbourhood; I love the bus and I love blogging, but not enough to stay out until the wee hours and then have a long walk home just to write about it. Then there are a couple of other maybes, like the express bus that actually leaves town. So, subtracting all the "definitely not"s and "already done"s from the list, I'm left with about 50 definites and five maybes (I get a different number every time I count).

I see a lot of this in my future.

Of course, it wouldn't be a project without rules, so here they are:

1. Always plan ahead.
2. Ask the bus drivers for help when confused. (I'm really bad at this; I'd rather blunder around any day than actually ask for help. Well, no more!)
3. Take a notebook, the camera, and a spare set of batteries on each trip.
4. Find at least two interesting places to stop on each route.
5. Write the blog post right away after a trip so I don't forget everything.

So, the real question today is: What should we call this adventure?

It's All A Stunt!

I don't know when I first heard of "Stunt Journalism", but the phrase finally registered with me a few months ago when I read Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project. At one point, Gretchen was feeling melancholy about the whole deal, especially when she found out her presumably-original idea actually had a whole genre already, and that maybe she wasn't as original as she thought. (Other recently mentioned examples of stunt journalism are Eric Brende's Better Off and Vanessa Farquharson's Green as a Thistle. Then there's The Today's Show's Where in the World is Matt Lauer?.)

Source.

It probably helps that unlike Gretchen, I'm not already a published writer with an editor waiting for the results of my experiment. I be but a simple narcissistic blogger, as it were. But when I read the phrase "stunt journalism" and realised that it's exactly the sort of thing I like to read, my reaction was not "Meh. Everybody's doing it," but "Oooh! Great idea! I want one! What kind of stunt can I do?" Yes, while there are many bandwagons that I avoid, there are others that I not only leap onto, but relentlessly chase down first.

The only problem left for me, then, was to decide what my stunt would be. While an all-out green living onslaught, à la Colin or Vanessa, sounded appealing, I think I have about all the green living one marriage can take at the moment. I flirted with the idea of doing a from-scratch cooking series, kind of a Julie & Julia thing, minus the expensive ingredients and the masses of butter and the lobster-killing. But the internet is crawling with foodie blogs, by actual foodies (like my classmate Natalie over at The First Kitchen), not people like me who will eat anything if it's covered in enough salsa or chocolate, and don't really care about the taste of anything else. I had pretty much decided on doing a tour of Austin's locally owned cafés and trailers, seeing what kind of greasy food could be gotten on a low budget, but that plan was contingent upon me getting a summer job. Six weeks and as many "thank-you-for-applying-but" emails later, the café plan has been abandoned.

Finally, it came to me. I'm already a fairly tremendous fan of our local bus service, which gets me around and has allowed me to meet all sorts of people. I'm already documenting my car-free life a bit. So, for my first foray into stunt journalism, I shall use and abuse Capital Metro. I'll ride all the routes. I'll see all the sights that are in reach of public transportation. I might just make their PR person tear out her hair when I start tweeting about the good and the bad of my journeys with them. And you can read all about it here, starting this Wednesday and continuing until I run out of places to go (but definitely before the end of the year-- I don't want this challenge to go on forever). When I told Chad about this plan, he immediately said, "I was thinking of doing that, too!" So, he's in, with a brand-new CapMetro Regional Pass that allows him onto the trains and express buses (instead of his normal, boring pass).

Do you like stunt journalism? Do you think this is another sign I've lost my mind? Is there somewhere in Austin that you'd like me to go to and write about?