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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.
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.
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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.