Change Everything
Submitted by Sarah Hay on Wed, 24/01/2007 - 00:14.
This is a community powered site by Vancity for people in Vancouver, Victoria and the Lower Mainland who want to change themselves, their communities or their world. Its got plenty of useful information and insightful stories, on top of a nicely (and locally) designed site. I'm not sure how I feel about changing EVERYTHING... but hats off to the Vancity community expanding the forum.
Romancing the bus
Check out my blog on Change Everything. As an enthusastic transit user, my mission is to shift perspectives of life on the bus, seabus, skytrain, etc.
I do think that Translink is its own worst enemy when it comes to promoting ridership. Ads, when they happen at all, show a jammed bus with everyone crushed together on a rainy day.Of course, it is miserable! Drivign a car on days like that is miserable too but car ads make car driving sexy. A case in point, I notice the page on transportation in the EcoDensity brochure almost oozes wet dog smell. They obviusly don't want people taking the bus: it looks awful. How about ad agencies actually taking the bus for a while (not just once) before they jump to conclusions?
There is so much that is great: not least that your commute is MUCH LESS TIME than driving. If you factor in that with a laptop and a cellphone, you can get all your emails done, that report finished, all those calls made while you travel. Driving from my house to the office takes about 35 - 40mins. The actual time for transit changes, waiting, etc is about 20 mins. The rest of the itme I am either working or reading. Oh, and by the way, that 20 mins between rides, I am walking briskly, often running, between stops. That totals 40 mins free exercise every day. No need for that expensive gym.
It seems to me that most of the people who are prejudiced about transit have never been on it. Sure, there are occassions when you get to cozy up to people with different views of the world from you, but, frankly, that's real life.