Photo by Lingaraj G J, used under a Creative Commons license.
Ask any number of people what they value in life and you’ll probably find time, money and peace of mind somewhere at the top of their priorities.
Yet so many of us seem willing to forfeit large amounts of these things for the supposed ease and comfort derived from our beloved cars, even if they do eat away at our finances, drive us headlong into never-ending, stress-causing traffic and suck away at our time.
Fear not though my friends, there is an alternative, and it’s name is public transport.
It sounds simple, but leaving the car behind and taking public transport could save you more than you think.
Save your money
Besides the thousands you’ll initially splash out on the car itself, with tax, insurance, repairs and all that money we spend on fuel factored in, that vehicle costs us more than a pretty penny.
Add up all those expenses and work out how much your car really costs you over the course of a year. Then compare that with how much it would cost you to travel by public transport. If the latter works out cheaper, what are you waiting for?
The money you save could be invested in your long-term goals or simply saved up for a rainy day.
Save your time
Unless you’re David Hasslehoff in Knight Rider, once you’re driving your hands and mind are fully occupied.
On public transport however, your time is your own. You could spend your journey reading that business management book you recently purchased, write down ideas for your next big project, put together the day’s to-do list or even get your e-mail dealt with before hitting the office.
Whatever it is you decide to do, it’s surely better than being a slave to your steering wheel for the entire journey.
Save your sanity
Ever found yourself hunched over the steering wheel on a hot day, your heart racing, breath quickening and mind succumbing to rage and madness as an immobile sludge of traffic surrounds you from all sides and leaves you stuck in gridlock, going nowhere fast?
Try taking the bus instead.
The belligerent traffic still won’t budge, but now you have your favorite music playing on your iPod and you’re either so engrossed in that new book you’ve been dying to read, busy jotting down some great ideas for that big project of yours or taking care of any number of other things that you hardly notice the chaos beyond the bus.
All is good, you’re calm, and you arrive at your destination completely stress free and ready for a productive day.
Which one sounds better?
Save yourself
When you drive to work, the amount of exercise you get is minimal; a few steps from the front door to the car, then a few more from the car to your place of work.
When you take public transport on the other hand, it practically forces you to add a bit more exercise into your life as you walk (or hey, why not jog a little?) to catch the bus or train, then again once you jump off and head to work. If you’re struggling to fit exercise into your lifestyle, this is a quick and easy way to add activity into your daily routine.
Save the world
Our final point is probably the most obvious, but it’s still worth mentioning.
It doesn’t take an eco-genius to figure out that the more cars there are on the road, the more emissions there are pumping junk into the atmosphere, increasing pollution and bringing the world one step closer to an untimely demise.
By leaving yours in the garage and taking public transport, you’re doing your part in bringing that pollution down and ultimately saving the world.
The major problem with public transportation is… it just sucks. I am a law student in Des Moines and I have a free pass to ride on the bus whenever I want. However, I rarely use it because the hours the bus runs are limited, especially late at night. I have to be in my first class by 7:30 in the morning. I am often not done studying until 10 at night, and buses have stopped running by then. Just to get to my school (if I skipped my first class, because there’s no way to get to my school that early from my place, even jumping on the first bus) I would have to transfer at the bus depot downtown then backtrack to where my school is. What would take me 15 minutes by car, could take over an hour or more by bus. I lived in Europe for six weeks the summer before last… COMPLETELY different. Our cities here in the U.S. are spread out, suburban, and not designed in a way that public transportation may be a practical and effective way to get around. This might be a bit different in cities like Los Angelas, Chicago, or New York, but in most cities in America public transportation is a joke.
The transit system we have here in the Toronto area is quite good and whenever I have to go downtown, I don’t even drive down anymore. Rather than get stuck in traffic for an hour, the train gets me there in 20 minutes. There are places where I still drive, eg., the ski slopes which are two hours away. But I have been to places in Europe like Berlin where their transit system is even better than Toronto’s. It’s almost like every part of the city is connected by trams, buses or subways. In places like Berlin, there really is no need to drive a car. Mind you, there are still times when I do like driving – I would much prefer to go on a date in my car rather than in public transit!
I agree with Alan’s comment. Public transportation in most US cities is just not feasible. I live in Orlando, and I just checked out the bus trip planner on our local city bus website. For me to get across town (about 30 miles,) I would spend over two hours on the bus, and I’d have to walk nearly 6 miles. That’s if I were able to catch the express bus into downtown, which runs to late for me to use to get to work on time. This is about a 40 minute commute by car.
It was actually kind of funny… in order to get to work on time (7:30am) it told me to start the night before at 10:30pm. Things are just too spread out here and there is a huge lack of support for enhanced public transportation. Folks have been trying to get light rail here for the past 10 years, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen any time soon.
I like the idea of taking public transporation, as I’d much rather sit back and read while someone else drives me to work. Maybe someday we’ll catch up.
It’s frustrating how so many governments (here in Australia, in the US) prioritise road projects over public transport. It would be great if a lot of people started campaigning for better public transport and the government listened!
It’s truly a tragedy how US cities of the Car Era have been built. It is impossible for most people to get around without cars. Almost all dollars go into the roads and parking lots and decks boondoggle (plus the wars for the oil) and public transportation scraps are left for the poor who have no other options. It’s as if when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat for the white guys, that the white people just decided “hey, we’ll stop riding buses!” (I’m “white”, by the way).
I live near the sprawling city of Atlanta (which has some nice urban and green pockets amidst the sprawl) and the state of Georgia provides no state tax dollars for public transportation. Buses only get local city dollars and federal dollars to operate. At least I’m personally fortunate in that I am able to bike to work, which is very relaxing, stress-relieving, and great exercise. Just wish more people could safely walk and bike.
The US is in the Dark Ages when it comes to getting around in a human-friendly manner.
Blessed by a pretty good system of public transport in the Netherlands, we ditched our car over two years ago. It has indeed saved us a lot of money, and we’re getting more exercise from riding the bike to the station for example. Even though it takes a bit more time to get to most destinations (although in rush hour it may actually be less), you get much more time to spend on reading books, the newspaper or just gazing out of the window with an empty mind, watching the landscape go by. We love it & never look back. In the rare occasions that we do need four wheels, we rent a car. So far that has happened exactly once for a weekend getaway.
Public transportation may save you money but it does not save you time at least not in STL. Metro is so bad here that I decided to get a car so that my family and I will depend on Metro less. Sure some of us still have to use it but not to the extent we were before. There are so many problems with the way Metro is that I can’t blame anyone for not using it and for not supporting it. Its hard to support a system that doesn’t even try to improve itself.
Even if only one of these reasons were true, I’d use public transportation rather than a car. I love listening to audio books and commuting is one of the best times for it. After I finished school audio books have been my primary way of educating myself. I even wrote a blog post yesterday about audio books.
Here’s the link if it’s interesting to you: http://myhappierlife.com/2011/10/05/audio-book-education/