Transit systems

[gfish]

I've been thinking recently about why I love public transit so much. Ignore the overwhelmingly powerful economic and environmental arguments. Those are given. I don't grudgingly use public transit, compelled by intellectual arguments to do something against my natural inclination. I fucking love transit, often going well out of my way to make use of it. In new cities it's one of the first things I do, regardless of rather or not it will take me somewhere I want to go. I have a whole stack of passes for systems I'll probably never use again.

I think the nerdy/fandom nature of my love is the clue here. I love public transit as a system. Driving somewhere is easy, point and go. It's just too easy to be interesting. Getting somewhere on transit is more like orbital dynamics, waiting for the correct launch window to open, heading off on transfer orbits in counter-intuitive directions. It needs a deep level of local knowledge, loaded with weird exceptions for peak hours vs late night vs Saturday vs Sunday vs holiday. Successfully using transit always feels like an excellent little hack, proof of mastery over arcane knowledge. Transit is using Linux on the desktop. It is original series Doctor Who episodes, it is raw Japanese denim, it is knitting your own socks, it is starting a rival Kierkegaard podcast.

Of course, these are all serious barriers to entry for the vast majority of humanity. What I find most interesting is, I must admit, probably an excellent guide to exactly the areas that most need improvement. Smartphone mapping has greatly reduced a lot of these barriers. We need more like that, desperately, but I haven't come up with anything yet. Maybe the most productive thing I could do is offer myself as an inverse consultant for transit projects, like a character from a Gibson novel. They can suggest changes to me, and reject them if I think they sound fun.

Comments

[maellenkleth]

I've taken a narrower tack of enjoying riding on short- and long-distance railways. I really miss my twice-weekly outings on the MBTA (Massachusetts Bay) commuter rail. Those were real passenger trains with monkey-capped conductors and large clunky coaches.

The Vancouver airport subway/elevated is a close second, with the added frisson that we participated in the geotechnical design team for the underwater tunnels (which are deliberately made to be flexible, and to leak a little bit). Some friends refuse to take the trains through those scary tubes.

We have subway passcards from Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Beijing, Vancouver, New York, Boston, and Newark (The PATH system). That gives some border guards the fits, as if broad travel is somehow a wicked endeavour.

Anent Gibson:

when I discorporate, I want to be the armour-plated Finn.

[jela]

There are a lot of things I like about transit. For my way to work it means I do not have to pay attention or concentrate, I can do other stuff.
In new places it means I can look out the window and hop off if something looks interested.
Looking at a transit map often gives a good clue where interesting things might be located.
Figuring out what line to take where is fun, a bit like an adventure.
Or just getting on a line to see where it goes.
I also love that I can walk somewhere without worrying how to get back, not having my own means of transport with me.
Some places (like London) need to figure out how to become more accessible, because it is stairs everywhere.

[juli]

I feel this way about walking, which is weird because walking is in its way even more like a car than a car: just go; but it gives me the sense of becoming connected to the whole system of a place in a very different way, to how things are connected, to geography and whatever. I've certainly had the experience you describe of transit, too, and ferries fill a little bit of that niche for me these days. (I had a dream last night, not for the first time, where I discover a ferry I didn't know existed, that runs only in the middle of the night, on a very unusual route, and gives access to hidden places. There's whole networks of other things, like pubs and busses, that connect up to that.)

[sistawendy]

I'm right there with you on all of this. Of course, if we could run trains & buses everywhere every five minutes 24/7, nobody would need to think about much except where that particular train or bus might be going, and as you say, phones.

[maribou]

"a rival Kierkegaard podcast"

This was the very best and funniest part of a delightful sentence. Thank you for making me smile so hard!

(And I say funniest but really it's an odd sort of funny in that I also unabashedly and unironically love all those things you listed, whether or not I do them myself.)

[beaq]

:)

The whole post, but yes.

[(Anonymous)]

Having spent some more time in Europe, I'm reminded again how far we on this side of the pond have to go. Granted, they've had more time. But in any case, I really appreciate the ability to get around relatively easily either by bus or underground, and it kills me that we can't seem to keep the funding to move us forward in a big way. I'm looking forward to the new train routes here, and seeing if we can bridge the East-West gap.

[glitch25]

This was me. :-)

[beaq]

I wish I'd been more methodical about keeping transit passes, when I was affording to travel. They're the best souvenirs.

I don't know if I love transit difficulties quite so much - some of them involving actual pain and fear - but mastering the intricacies is definitely one of its pleasureful aspects.