Everything Changes

When I was a Youth Employment Counsellor for the Job Connect Program I had to interview unemployed youth between the ages of 16 and 24. Most of these youth did not have cars or access to, what we would refer to as, "reliable transportation." In fact, if taking public transit was their ride of choice, we had to ask them if they'd be willing to commute for up to an hour and a half one way.

It was simple. If they got hired at a job across town, they may have to take one or two buses to get there. Based on the transit schedule, the commute could take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour; not including the time it would take to wait for the bus and / or walk from the bus stop to their work.

Just over a year ago I became a transit rider; became full-fledged last December when I started purchasing monthly passes. Today it took me an hour to get to work.

My work is exactly 4.5 kilometers from my home. That's about 2.8 miles for my American friends. According to Yahoo! Driving Directions it should take me 7 minutes to commute to work by car.

That is, if I HAD a car. No car. Just my picture on a monthly transit pass. Yes, it was unusual that it took me an hour, but that's because I was being "practical" this morning. You see, the bus I take to work comes between 4 and 8 minutes past the hour, and I arrived at the bus stop today around 3 minutes past.

But by 13 minutes past the hour I had a decision to make - either continue waiting, in hopes that the bus was unusually late, or walk one block to an alternate stop for a bus arriving around 17 minutes past the hour.

I opted to be "wise" and walk to the new stop, arriving there at 15 minutes past the hour, just in time to watch the original bus pass the first stop a minute later. The second bus came 7 minutes late, and by the time I boarded the alternate bus I had already been away from my home for almost 30 minutes.

Blah, blah, blah... and so on, and so on.

Am I complaining? Heck no. Just blogging. After all, I may have "commuted" for an hour today, but I did NOT have to pay $70 to fill up a compact-sized car.

[Wink.]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 06, 2005 at 9:02 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.