The wife's comfortable routine

The wife offers this update on her transformation into a transitarian

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Riding transit is settling into a comfortable routine. it's not hard to change one's mindset when planning the day: you think about where things are in relation to the bus/train route. It turns out, lots of places are accessible that way, with a little walking. And especially downtown, you don't have to hassle with finding a parking place and feeding the meter, or paying an exorbitant fee. In an ideal week, I forgo the 84 home from Starfire and relieve my son of the burden of having to pick me up. I continue on the train and meet the husband at 65th Street, where we board the 82 and ride home, chatting and reading. (OK, I'm chatting, the husband is trying to read.) I love it!

A big plus when riding? Using the cell phone is not dangerous, you can yak all you want, look up numbers without getting into an accident, and no one will give you dirty looks. OK, if you talk too loudly, people might get mildly annoyed, but usually the bus is rather noisy and you can't hear much.

Sure could use those cup holders.

Work has been grueling and having to leave at 5:30 to catch my bus helps to keep things sane and in perspective. The ride home is still relaxing most of the time, except for a tinge of anxiety at the Starfire stop, wondering when the 80 will arrive. However, all you have to do is think about driving in rush hour traffic, and you get over it. After riding for six weeks, I can't say I find fault with any drivers as far as system shortcomings. The shortcomings lie with the limitations of the routes and times.

Today I had an appointment downtown and decided to take the day off. My goal is to make this a day off without having to drive. My husband shooed me out the door and I waited a few minutes at the stop for my coach to arrive. He cannot be content without my calling to tell him I'm on the bus. In 1/2 hour I was at the 65th Street light rail station, and from there I took the train to 23rd and R, then walking to 20th and O After my appt., I indulged myself by walking up 21st to the Lucky Cafe and had a rare breakfast. From there it was a block and a half to J Street, where I had just enough time to sit down and take my bus pass out before the 31 arrived to take me to Sac State. At Sac State, I had to wait about 15-20 minutes for the 82, but how nice it was to read, watch people, and listen to music.

You realize that driving in a car shuts you off from the world and practically imprisons you in a little metal box. You are not in control; the road and the traffic are in control of you and your experience.

Later this evening, I will again walk out of my door and get on the bus to the new Chipotle's at Watt and El Camino to pick up dinner. The husband, who works later, will be taking the 82 home and will either meet me at the restaurant, or I will get on his bus for the return home together. Silly as it may seem, I think this sounds fun and I'm looking forward to it!

First one, then another . . .

The wife is turning into a genuine transitarian. This is quite surprising.

Yesterday, she had a doctor's appointment. She figured out the bus and light rail combination she needed to get from Rancho Cordova to Midtown in time for her appointment. And, most important, she accepted the requirement that she walk a half-mile to her destination. After the doctor's visit, she walked to J Street and took the bus to Sac State, where she caught the No. 82 home. Today, she has a meeting downtown. She will carpool in with her boss and then go home on the bus.

When we were running errands last night after work, we found ourselves at one point behind the No. 82 bus on Watt Avenue.

"Want to park the car and get on the bus?" I asked. I was kidding, but the wife understood what I meant.

"Now that I have a bus pass, whenever I see a bus I want to ride it," she said.

She explained that this is something akin to what she feels when she is shopping and sees something on sale.

Yes, something like when she is shopping, but without the pain in the wallet.

The opposite of happiness

"There is a certain happiness sighted when your bus comes along," Richard Brautigan wrote in his short story, The Old Bus. "It is of course a small specialized form of happiness and will never be a great thing."

But what is it when your bus is missing? What is the opposite of that "certain happiness," that "specialized" happiness. Worse, how do you describe seeing the back of the bus, knowing you won't make your appointment because you missed a connection?

Today, I needed to be at my dentist's office at 8:30 a.m. for a cleaning. My dentist thinks my teeth are in such dire need of attention that I'm required to get them cleaned four times a year. Of course my insurance company disagrees, but that's another story.

I made the cleaning appointment for 8:30 a.m. six months ago because I had found a combination of my No. 82 bus and the No. 30 bus, along with a half-mile walk, got me to the dentist's office at exactly 8:30. Transitarian denistry at its finest.

By 7:24, I was waiting at my bus stop. The stop is less than 2.5 miles from the start of the route. In the year that I've been riding the No. 82 bus route, I've found that the buses are more often early than late. But twice in that year I have waited for a No. 82 bus that never arrived. Sure, that is just two buses out of hundreds, but that doesn't seem quiet as reassuring as it should when you have to be someplace at a specific time.

The No. 82 is scheduled to be at its first timing point, the next stop from where I was waiting, at 7:27. Today, the bus wouldn't reach that point until 7:34.

Having fretted about the possibility of the bus not arriving at all, I was cheerfully willing to forgive and forget when the bus was just seven minutes late. But that was a mistake.

In order to get to the dentist on time, I have to catch a No. 30 bus at Sacramento State scheduled to depart at 8:07 a.m. The No. 82 is scheduled to arrive at 8 a.m. I knew from past experience that the schedule was tight -- just seven minutes leeway -- but on my previous trips to the dentist I had made the connection without problems.

When the bus was already seven minutes late less than three miles into its route, I should have started thinking about possible alternatives to the No. 30 connection.

Instead, I read my book.

When the bus was eight minutes behind schedule at its next timing point, I should have put the book away and looked to see if I could catch light rail at 65th Street and get off at 29th Street in time to make my appointment.

Instead, I read my book.

When the bus finally arrived at Sacramento State at 8:11 a.m., I got off, not realizing that the No. 30 had already departed. Had I stayed on the No. 82 until the 65th Street light rail station, I could have boarded the 8:18 inbound train and arrived at 29th Street station at 8:25, with plenty of time to walk to 30th and P streets.

Instead, I watched the back of the No. 30 in the distance, waiting at Carlsbad and J streets for the left turn light to turn green.

How do you describe seeing the back of the bus, knowing you won't make your appointment because you missed a connection?

Transitarians without pants

For seven years, a group of anti-pants New Yorkers have held an annual No Pants Subway Ride, which has attracted more than 200 participants. On Jan. 12, a similar event occurred on the Washington, D.C., Metro.

According to this story:

About 75-100 participants, and at least as many press/onlookers/voyeurs, met at Dupont Circle before being split up into two groups, heading down to Metro and taking off in both directions. Once on the trains, the pants came off, with directions from organizers Elizabeth Ody and Richard Julian to act as nonchalant as possible.

The gender mix appeared to be about equal among the leg-barers, and there was a surprising range of ages. As for underwear fashion, for the guys, boxer briefs seemed to outnumber regular boxers, while the ladies displayed a good mix of styles. No thongs were spotted, and no arrests were reported.

When is this coming to Sacramento?

Weathering transit

Being a transitarian on a day like today is a lot like being a vegetarian sitting down to Thanksgiving Dinner with the family and looking at the juicy roast turkey and the savory stuffing and thick gravy. Is the principle really worth the price?

I left Sacramento for the Rochester, New York, area before the January bus passes went on sale. Since I didn't have any other pressing business today, I decided to pay $2.25 and ride the bus to work to buy my monthly pass.

Yesterday, I was in 7 degree weather with a windchill that made it feel like 0 degrees outside. The thought of having to stand in the rain today just didn't seem like a big deal. At least not until I experienced the effect of the wind gusts that topped 50 mph.

But, hey! I've more than once said a little foul weather isn't a reason to abandon transit.

Of course, it never occurred to me that transit might abandon me.

I decided to take the No. 82 bus that leaves American River College at 10:19 a.m. Since it is just a little more than 1.5 miles from the college to my bus stop, I walked out my door at 10:18, righted the overturned trash cans and was standing at the bus stop by 10:20.

And I was still standing at the stop at 10:35, when a woman driving a red Saturn sedan stopped and rolled down her window.

"The bus isn't coming," she said. "There's flooding down the street. The CHP is diverting the traffic. Do you want a ride?"

I could have walked back to my house, dried off and driven to work, but I tend to be stubborn. Or stupid. Whatever.

"Yes," I told her. "I'd love a ride."

She took me to Edison and Watt Avenue, where I knew I could catch a bus to the Watt/Manlove light rail station.

Standing in the driving rain, waiting for the next bus, I was thankful that the wind gusts were at my back. I don't know how long I waited. It may have been as much a 15 minutes. It could have been much worse. The buses are only scheduled to run every 30 minutes.

When the bus arrived, I boarded and paid my fare with nine quarters and sloshed to the back. Out of the wind and rain, a puddle of water spreading beneath me, I called 321-BUSS to find out what had become of the No. 82 bus.

That's when I learned that my little bus failure was the least of Sacramento Regional Transit's problems. The entire downtown light rail grid from Alkalai Flat to 29th Street was down, as was the link from Folsom to Sunrise. I was immediately thankful that I had chosen to take the bus to Watt/Manlove rather than the closer Watt/I-80 station. But with light rail service stopped at 29th Street, I would have to hoof it eight blocks to work.

I mulled that walk as I negotiated the ridiculously convoluted customer service phone system. When I finally got a live operator on the line, I asked for the status of the No. 82 bus line.

"The No. 82 line is running," he said.

This, of course, is still another reason why I find 321-BUSS such a joy to use.

I explained to the man that, no, the No. 82 bus was not running, at least it was not running past Edison and Mira Vista. I told the guy that I had heard nearby flooding was causing buses to detour. What I needed to know, I explained, was where the detour was taking place so that I could determine whether I could take that bus home from work.

The guy put me on hold, and I stayed there. The entire call burned more than 13 minutes of my monthly cell phone allotment. When the guy finally returned, I learned that the Edison and Engle sections of the route near my home were being bypassed, but it would be less than a half-mile walk home from the start of the detour at Mission and Engle. Not perfect, but reasonable.

Eventually the bus arrived at the Watt/Manlove station. It was a cold, blustery wait for the train and an all-too-short dry spell on board before I had to get off and start walking again.

There is a certain point while walking in the rain when you just don't get any wetter. I reached that point about the time I arrived at work.

The trip, which on a sunny day takes an hour and seven minutes, had taken an hour and 40 minutes.

I wrote most of this blog post at my office, where I attempted to air dry a little before I started home. The homeward trip was straightforward. The No. 38 bus stops outside my office on its way to 65th Street light rail station. It's a useful alternative when the nearby light rail station is out of service. It was a short 10 minute wait before the No. 82 bus arrived. By the time I got off at Mission and Engle, it was raining lightly and the wind had stopped.

The next time I decide to tempt fate and brave violent weather to prove transit is a viable option, I'll wear my snow boots. The ball cap and hooded jacket with a thick sweater worked well. The sneakers were not a good choice.

The Transitarian Gore

I remember the first time I saw a news report years ago about a celebrity who arrived at some gala function in a Toyota Prius, making a point about the need to do what we can to reduce our personal environmental impact. Soon lots of celebrities were driving Priuses, and Toyota couldn't keep up with demand.

Saturday I was encouraged to see the small story in The Bee's World Digest: Gore uses Oslo mass transit.

OSLO, Norway -- Former Vice President Al Gore skipped the traditional airport motorcade and took public transportation when he arrived Friday in Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize he shared for his campaign against global warming.

Gore will accept the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize he shared with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change at a ceremony in the Norwegian capital on Monday.

Longer versions of the Associated Press story included this:

Before his arrival with his wife, Tipper, Gore told his hosts that he would not need the traditional motorcade from the airport, preferring to take the high-speed and environmentally friendly airport train, and then walking to his downtown Oslo hotel.

"I use public transport when I can. It isn't always possible," Gore told The Associated Press while walking to his hotel. He said the train was much faster than a limousine, but that it was also a symbol of efforts to reduce pollution in hopes of slowing climate change.

"It is a gesture. It is also one of the changes we are all going to have to be doing anyway," Gore said about the need to change travel habits.

I'm not completely sold on Al Gore's new role as environmental guru. He is certainly profiting handsomely from it. (See this Dec. 9 TimesOnline article: A convenient £50m for green Gore.) But if Gore can convince more people that riding transit is a socially responsible, environmentally sensitive thing to do, then more power to him.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been riding Gore's coattails, trying to get a little of that popularity that attaches to all things green today. Now that Gore is riding transit, one can only hope we'll see a similar transformation of "The Evil Transitator."

First one, then another and pretty soon . . .

The Los Angeles Daily News has a feature article that begins:

Two years ago, Simon Pastucha - an urban designer and planner for the city of Los Angeles - left his Mercedes SUV at the dealership and hasn't looked back.

But how does a professional with children and far-flung meetings survive in car-centric Los Angeles without owning an automobile?

Read the full article here and then come back. I lived in the San Fernando Valley before Interstate 405 replaced Sepulveda Boulevard as the commute route to Los Angeles. Back then, the Daily News was a throw-away paper known as the Green Sheet. (The front section and some other sections where printed on green newsprint.) I left and moved to Northern California well before the Los Angeles commuter rail started operating.

The guy featured in the Daily News article used to lease a Mercedes SUV for $500 a month. This is not a guy forced onto public transit because of "mobility" issues, unless you count the lack of mobility associated with gridlocked Los Angeles freeways. From a transitarian point of view, this is the perfect story. First one guy, then another and pretty soon you're talking about lots of people.

Which brings us to my favorite blogger du jour. He's the guy I ranted about in my "Dictatorship of the 33" post. He's the one who tipped me off to the Daily News article. I don't use his name or his Web address because I don't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he annoys me. However, I think he offers an opposing view that illustrates the thinking (loosely defined) of transit foes.

He starts with a very telling headline: Living a Minimal Life Without a Car

And what is so minimal about life without a car? Well, according to this blogger, "This man and his children are hostages to public transportation."

I simply don't see it. I must confess that I don't think I could go completely carless. The guy in the article rents cars on the weekend when he needs one. But going from a two-car to a one-car family is more than possible, even with Sacramento's less-than-ideal bus service.

Probably most telling was the blogger's suggestion that a little rain keeps people from using transit:

Would you like to live his life? Oh, what happens when it rains hard, which does happen? Does he stay home from work? Does he rent a car? Dos he ask a friend to drive him into downtown LA? Or does he do all that walking in a heavy rain? Would you want him as a friend?

Sorry, but the last time I checked people are not water soluble. And, in any event, it is not as if transit riders sit on top of the trains and buses. They ride inside, which is just as dry as the inside of a single-occupant car. A hat and coat or an umbrella offer more than enough protection when not actually riding transit. And a hat and coat or umbrella are still required by the blogger when he drives to the mall and has to walk a half-mile to reach the stores.

Simple pleasures of riding the bus

A commute so ordinary and restful, burrowed deep in my book -- the joy of a transitarian.

The value of time is what you do with it.

I could have arrived at work a half-hour earlier -- maybe, most days, perhaps. But to what end? Rush for rush sake? Just to see how fast I can get from Point A to Point B? "Damn, I'm fast!"

But instead I read my book while someone else deals with traffic, worries about making the light, frets over the fool who weaves in and out of traffic seeking to pare seconds in time from his race to work.

Not every day goes this well. Certainly some days suck. But it's mornings like this that would convince anyone to give up "speed" for the calming joys of taking the bus to work.

Wachenhut appreciation night

I find the hovering presence of the Wachenhut Security guards who ride Sacramento Regional Transit trains at night comforting. Well, maybe comforting isn't the right word, but hovering is. The yellow and black uniforms remind me of large bumble bees.

Tonight, I was riding on the Watt/I-80 train. I had boarded at 7:45 p.m. at Cathedral Square after attending a gathering for a former colleague.

I was reading my book when I heard a sweeping sound. It was a puzzling sound, one you don't expect on a train. I looked up and saw a Wachenhut Security guard, bent over, using a wadded-up newspaper to sweep the floor. The detritus of the day's passengers flew before him in a cloud. He was working his away from the middle of the train to the rear. As he reached the side door, he brushed the debris into the door well. He then swept his way to the rear of the train, picking up papers and discarded coffee cups as he went. At the next stop he exited the train.

A worker bee, I thought.

Seven or eight young women and a couple of guys of the same age were taking up most of the seats in the rear of the car. They were all smiling and chatting. It all seemed so odd to hear youthful laughter on the train. It was after 8 p.m. by then, and this was not a crowd of tired commuters heading home. This was a party on its way somewhere on a Friday night.

When the train arrived at the end of the line everyone piled out and climbed the stairs. A moment later -- literally a moment, not a second more -- the No. 1 bus I wanted pulled to the curb, and I headed home.

This was a night to restore ones transitarian spirit. It was a nice end to a long week.

The fall Transitarian Diet

Today was a gorgeous day, with giant fluffy clouds scuttling along and the temperature straining to reach 70 degrees -- perfect weather for the Transitarian Diet, that merger of good-for-you walking and good-for-the-environment transit riding that makes you look good and feel good.

And muddy and a little bloody as well.

This is the second week of my vacation. This morning the kid was at school and the wife at work, and I needed to visit Blockbuster, get a haircut and read a chapter for a class I'm taking at City College. Since I could accomplish all three tasks at Town and Country Village at Fulton and Marconi I decided to tie it all together in a transitarian outing.

Getting from my house to Town and Country by bus is fairly simple, but it can require three different buses. With the fantastic weather and no real time constraints, I decided to walk a little less than a mile to Auburn Boulevard, where I could catch the No. 1 bus. After a short ride to Watt and Auburn Boulevard, I would catch the No. 26. The No. 26 runs from the Watt/I-80 light rail station to Auburn Boulevard and then down to Fulton Avenue.

And so I packed my backpack with videos to return and books to read and set out walking.

Which brings us to the perils of walking in suburban Sacramento County.

The sidewalks in my neighborhood are intermittent. For one long stretch of my walk to Auburn Boulevard, I was forced to walk in the street. I was thankful for the bike lane separating me from the traffic.

At one point the unimproved drainage ditch made way to a rounded curb and gutter -- and mud.

I remember seeing the mud in the gutter. I recall seeing my foot step in the mud. I even remember thinking that I could get out of the gutter and back in the street and avoid the mud.

And then the foot in the mud lost traction and I spun and collapsed in the street, scraping a knee and bloodying the palm of one hand.

Laying on my back in the street I wondered what it could be about sidewalks that suburban developers found so inconvenient back in the 1960s. What was the attraction of lawns that run all the way to the street?

Have a nice trip? See you next fall!

Fortunately, there wasn't any traffic at the time. I brushed myself off and continued my trip. I made my bus connections, never having to wait more than five minutes. I completed all three of my tasks and even added a lunch at Noah's Bagels while I read the chapter in my textbook. And I made it home equally accident free.

The day after the transitarian Summer of Love

From a transitarian perspective, the 40th anniversary Summer of Love free concert in Golden Gate Park was a real trip, man.

Sorry, I'm still coming down off the second-hand smoke high from the five and a half hours we spent in Speedway Meadows on Sunday.

The wife, the kid and I started the trip driving to the Amtrak station. Sacramento Regional Transit just couldn't get us to the station before 7:40 a.m. from the No. 82 bus that runs in front of our house. So we had a choice of driving to Watt/I-80 and paying $10 in roundtrip fares for two adults and a kid, or we could leave a half-hour later and drive downtown in Sunday morning traffic -- you could count on one hand the number of cars on the road at any one time -- and pay just $6.50 for all-day parking.

We arrived at the Amtrak station with enough time to find a Park and Pay machine that worked. The first one didn't. We had ordered the Amtrak tickets on-line -- two adults and a kid (15) roundtrip for $105 -- and picked them up at the station.

As we waited to board the train to Richmond it was apparent we weren't the only passengers heading for the concert, if tie-dyed shirts and peace symbol earrings were any indication.

The train left on schedule and by the time we reached Davis the kid was asleep and the wife was across the aisle, stretched across two seats, reading. The view from the train is mostly industrial but between Martinez and Richmond it was quite picturesque.

We arrived at Richmond at 9:08 a.m. To get to the BART station you just walk downstairs and across a lobby to the BART ticket machines. Unfortunately, I'm such an amateur with the BART machines that we missed the 9:15 train to Oakland and had to wait for the next one.

We boarded a Fremont-bound train at 9:35 a.m. with a few dozen other riders. But with each stop the train filled. By the time we reached MacArthur station in Oakland the train was standing room only. The switch from the Fremont train to the Daly City train was painless, with the connecting train arriving within two minutes. But the train was crowded and I ended up pressed against the door. I nervously watched the door jump around as we barrelled under San Francisco Bay.

At our stop at the Montgomery station in San Francisco we exited the train and walked up the stairs to Market Street. The No. 5 Muni bus stop was just beyond the BART station on Market Street.

At this point we joined a growing number of people excitedly heading to the concert. As we waited, several were discussing where to get off on Fulton Street on the north side of the park.

When the No. 5 bus finally arrived, a long line of riders queued to get on. By the time everyone was on, the bus was more crowded than I have ever witnessed in Sacramento. At the next stop, an equal number of people boarded and now the bus was so crowded that the concept of personal space had been squeezed off the bus entirely.

The driver started skipping stops, leaving behind many people who wanted to board, but then he had to let a lady off. When he opened the rear side door, a crowd of people rushed the bus. About a half-dozen managed to board, but we were stuck there until another half-dozen abandoned their attempt to get on and cleared the door.

Squeezed in the rear of the bus with an unbelievable number of riders, I tried to imagine this happening in Sacramento.

In your dreams, I thought. Sacramentans whine loudly if they have to stand, let alone stand touching other riders.

Actually, it wasn't that bad. The wife and I ended up striking up a conversation with a woman who is the academic director for fashion design at the Art Institute of California at San Francisco and her husband, who were also on their way to the concert. My son is an art major, and we spent much of the ride discussing admissions policies.

Eventually the bus arrived at Fulton Street and 24th Avenue and everyone going to the concert got off. We had planned to get off at 30th, but this appeared to work just as well. It was a short walk on a dirt path to the boundary of the meadow at John F. Kennedy Dr.

We found a place to sit at just before 11:30 a.m. We were probably 200 yards from the stage, maybe a little more.

As expected, the crowd had a significantly higher percentage of paunchy, gray-haired attendees. The kid was given an opportunity to wander and take photos. You can see his photos here. It occurred to me that I was his age when the original concert was held. That was the symmetry of the trip to the concert.

The wife created this clip during the Jefferson Starship performance (with a young stand-in for Grace Slick):

The trip back worked just as well in reverse. Forwarned of the crowded conditions on the No. 5 bus, we walked to 30th Avenue to board, rather than 24th Street. We got on; people waiting at 24th didn't. The bus was mobbed at the next stop when someone got off. Again we had to wait until people rushing the bus gave up. BART to Amtrak and Amtrak home was a smooth, uneventful experience.

On the Amtrak ride home I napped. Try that on Interstate 80 after a long day in The City. The rocking motion of the train and the moaning of the horn were very relaxing.

We were in Sacramento at 8:45 p.m., 13 hours after we left.

"Well, you pulled it off," said the wife. "It worked really well."

We were all, including the kid, glad we made the trip.

Transitarian Summer of Love

This is a conjunction of cosmic forces where the stars align to create the perfect transitarian moment.

Sunday is the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love free concert at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. In honor of the event, a daylong free concert featuring some of the stars of that original festival will be held at Speedway Meadow in the park.

The Bay Bridge is closed Sunday.

Following me?

The wife and I and maybe a kid or two are taking light rail downtown to the Amtrak station. (We'll have to drive to the Watt/I-80 station and walk from St. Rose of Lima Station to Amtrak to catch the 7:40 a.m. Capitols train.) We'll get off Amtrak at Richmond some time after 9 and walk to the BART station. We'll take the Fremont train to the MacArthur station, where we'll switch to the Daly City train. We'll get off at Montgomery Street around 10 a.m. and climb out of the station to Market, where we'll catch the No. 5 Muni bus. The bus will take us to the northern edge of the park. We'll get out at 30th and hike to the concert.


View Larger Map

With luck, we'll arrive before 11 a.m. (The concert starts at 9:15, but I'm just not dedicated enough to the idea to get there for the entire show.)

Just reverse it for the return. The concert is over at 6 p.m. and Amtrak runs until 9 p.m., which even leaves time for dinner in the City.

Addition to the lexicon

Perhaps it is time to formalize the meaning of transitarian. A blog in Los Angeles devoted to the "Los Angeles Public Transit Lifestyle" mentioned transitarian:

A transitarian is so enamored with transit, so invested in the good that comes from leaving the car at home, that he takes light rail ... and then walks nine blocks in the rain to get to an important appointment ... . [Edited to remove local references.]

A transitarian, therefore, often resembles a drowned rat, his jacket soaked through, his slacks wet from midthigh down to his squishy-wet shoes. But inside, beneath that wet exterior, is a proud transitarian ... .

I like that abridgment of this post. But that version -- and the original post -- lack an important facet of the meaning of being a transitarian: Choice. A transitarian chooses to leave that car at home. A transitarian exchanges the convenience of a car for the knowledge that doing so will make a difference. One person here. One person there. Another person and then more.

Making the choice to take transit just one day a week for a year would prevent 55 pounds of pollution from being emitted into our air, according to the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District.

It all starts with each individual's choice to act.

"We need to be the change we wish to see in the world"

-Mahatma Gandhi

Take the pledge!

Save the Earth
Ride Sacramento Regional Transit

.o0o.

No free rides and no buttons

"There are no free rides," the driver announced.

A young man was talking on his cell phone to someone about how to get from American River College to Arden Faire Mall. He had been on the phone for several minutes when he finally walked up to the driver and asked him.

The driver explained that you take the No. 82 bus from ARC and then get off at Watt and El Camino, walk across the street to the gas station and wait for the No. 23 bus.

The young man was relaying this information when the driver announced over the bus PA system that there were no free rides today. The "Dump the Pump" day was just a promotion, a way to get people to try transit.

"No free rides," he repeated.

Life and RT are like that, I thought to myself.

Later, I was deep into my book when I heard the driver say, "Are you a student or something?"

The driver was leaning over looking at the side of his fare collection box and then up at a lady who had just taken a seat and then back to the coin window on the box.

Maybe having her hair so tightly pulled back and so severely tied in a bun made the lady angry. Or maybe it was the driver's "or something" in reference to her.

"I put in eight quarters," the lady retorted.

"It only shows four," the driver replied.

"Didn't you hear eight quarters?" the woman demanded as she made her way back to the front of the bus.

"All I heard was money," the driver said.

She rummaged in her purse and then tossed more coins in the box.

"That's what four quarters sounds like," she said as she turned to return to her seat. "You should learn that."

Fuming in her seat, the woman announced that she was going to report the driver to RT.

"Best news I've had today," the driver said.

I was left to wonder whether this was one of the benefits of the "Dump the Pump" promotion -- new riders who believe drivers count the fare by the sound of the coins falling into a bin -- or just a random annoyance.

Personally, I was more than a tad disappointed with RT's handling of the promotion.

The "Next Stop News," Regional Transit's newsletter for riders, has the details about the promotion on the front cover. And there it is in green ink, RT announces:

"Ride RT on June 21, Dump the Pump Day and pick up your "I Dumped the Pump" button on RT buses."

I was willing to give RT the benefit of the doubt when I didn't get a button as I boarded the No. 82 bus. But when I then transferred to the No. 30 bus and STILL didn't get a button. Well, that was just unacceptable.

Where's my button?

Dump the Pump tomorrow

Tomorrow is Dump the Pump Day, a national invitation to commuters to park their cars and discover the value of using transit. Sacramento Regional Transit is offering "I Dumped the Pump" buttons to bus riders tomorrow. Certainly worth the $2 price of admission. (In the central city, you can hop on for $1.)

Save the planet. Join the transitarians!

Through the looking glass

It was as if I were looking in a mirror. It was disconcerting. My left was his right. We shared a core experience, but our perception of the world was reversed.

I met this mirror image of myself riding home on the 82 line. Where I am quiet and bookish -- literally -- he is gregarious and loud, possessed of a voice with the the power to penetrate well beyond normal limits.

He boards the bus at Sac State and takes the first seat facing front, the one reserved for the elderly and the handicapped. He puts his feet up on the bench in front of him and slouches comfortably. This is his routine.

He is quiet as we leave the university and head over the J Street bridge. But eventually, as the bus empties, he starts a conversation with the woman driving the bus. From my perspective in the rear of the bus, this is a one-sided conversation. I think the driver is talking but her voice doesn't travel like his.

I saw myself in the mirror on our first meeting. He was whining about having to ride the bus.

"I'm still spending three hours of my life in transit each day," he said.

But where I have carefully crafted my transitarian enthusiasm for the opportunities for self-improvement that this extra time affords, he sees only waste.

Where I enjoy the benefits of a structure I can build upon to help pace my day, he feels "robbed of any chance of spontaneity."

We both live very close to a bus stop on the 82 line. We both find the commute to and from work convenient and reliable. And yet he sees the transit glass half empty and I see a transitarian glass half full.

A creeking sound announces the opening of a door. Doubts creep silently into my thoughts. My faith is tested.

I think I'll take a later bus today and avoid the question.

The All-Weather Transitarian Diet

People don't melt. Hard as it may be for people who live in this semi-arid region to believe, the rain won't hurt you. And if you do get wet, you'll dry soon enough.

As a breakfast component of my Transitarian Diet, I've been walking an extra two blocks to meet the bus rather than just wait outside my house. (The route does a U-shaped turn and I catch it on the return leg.) The alarm goes off at 8:04 and I start walking. I'm waiting for the bus at 8:08, and the bus arrives at 8:11.

Today, with my jacket hood pulled up over my ball cap to shield me from the downpour, I was especially relieved not to be driving on the roadways made slick by the loosened engine oil. It's a danger whose threat is multiplied by the fools who feel they should speed up rather than slow down in the rain.

My bus was right on time. As I boarded, I was momentarily disappointed that I didn't have a dog's ability to shake off water. But then I figured the other passengers most likely preferred my quiet dripping to an active spray. For transitarians, after all, the greater good of the community weighs heavily on our every choice.

Transitarian May Day Celebration

Happy Transitarian May Day. On this first day of the new month I pause to consider my progress.

It seems like much longer than three months since I stopped driving my car to work and started leaving the driving to Sacramento Regional Transit. (Is "leave the driving to us" still the motto of Greyhound?) The key to riding transit, I have found, is to establish a comfortable rhythm. When riding transit is new, worries about meeting connections and such nag at you. Experience is required in order to become comfortable.

Last week's experiment with a new start time and new connections was a good example. Then today the "uncontrollable factor" kicked in -- a four car pileup on the J Street bridge over the American River. Unlike my experience in February, the bus was able to work its way through the accident scene, but we were significantly delayed. When we arrived at Sacramento State two 30 buses (well, one bus without a rear sign and another with a 30 showing) were waiting at the curb. As I got off the 82 bus, first one and then the other 30 bus pulled away before I had a chance to board. Fortunately for me, the 82 bus driver was delayed talking to a rider and I was able to re-board the bus and ride to the end of the line and take light rail to work.

The life of a transitarian: Best when boring, better yet when the unexpected can be easily accommodated.

And speaking of transitarian, I am proud to acknowledge Google's discovery that this blog is the preeminent authority of transitarian thought.

In order to better explain the relationship between cows, vegetarians, fruitarians and transitarians, I offer this video of Douglass Adams reading from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

The Transitarian diet

The Sacramento Bee front page attempts to tease readers inside the paper with a list of 'FIVE STORIES TO TALK ABOUT TODAY." One of those stories fit right in with my thoughts about the Transitarian Diet.

"FIT OR FAT? Dieting doesn't work in the long run, study says." The page A8 story goes on to repeat the obvious: The only way to lose weight and keep it off (short of surgery) is to eat less and exercise more.

The No. 30 bus arrived this morning at 21st and L streets at 9:10 a.m. The walk to 21st and Q streets and up to my office on the third floor took 10 minutes.

When I first started riding the bus I didn't appreciate that walking was a benefit of using transit. I figured that if the bus didn't drop you off in front of your destination, then it was somehow less than optimum. Today, I realize I was wrong.

Don't get me wrong. I consider it a bonus that the bus picks me up a half-block from my front door and the light-rail train drops me off at the corner of the building where I work. But that's not required. In fact, I'd say I'm spoiled.

As a New Year's resolution I promised I would walk each day for at least a half-hour. In February I started leaving the car at home and taking transit to work. I don't usually keep New Year's resolutions, but I've found that walking during workdays and stress-free commutes have been helpful for both my physical and mental health. For instance, I have gone from a six-cup-a-day coffee and tea habit to just two cups a day -- one on the way to work and one during my afternoon walk.

It has only been recently that I've appreciated combining the commute to work with a nice morning stroll.

The Transitarian Diet is great. What other activity offers an opportunity to reduce stress and increase physical fitness? If we could just convince people that riding the bus is a cool, healthy habit, we'd have standing-room only on transit.