It struck me while I was waiting to cross the street at a light, at the
intersection of two major roads. A thought, luckily, not a car, although that almost happened. The woman in the car waiting to turn right across the far end of my crosswalk sat patiently. But the driver of the car behind her was impatient, and he started honking. While I was crossing, he backed up and pulled into the lane beside her, aiming to turn right in front of her and possibly into me. I made it to the curb and stepped up; she turned, slightly ahead of him. His face was all anger.
This made me wonder: Do so few people walk where I live, which is Albuquerque, N.M., that it wouldn’t occur to a driver that the wait to turn right is based on a pedestrian’s right?
I had just gotten off a bus, one hour after leaving my house 11 miles away, and I was walking about a half-mile to work. The Park and Ride at the end of the line where I got off had one car in it.
It may be hard to take an extra hour of your day to take the bus if you have kids, but for the rest of us, is there really an excuse? (And I confess that many times I drive because I choose to sleep in.) Are we afraid of strangers? Do we have no hour to spare? Is the threat of climate change still too abstract?
 I realize buses are slow, but there are some new transportation options coming on-line in the sprawled-out West that should make the transition to pollution-reducing commuting much easier. And make excuses harder.
Although a light-rail proposal for Albuquerque was shot down, at least temporarily, we do have the Rail Runner, a heavy-rail commuter train that takes about 2500 people a day between job-heavy downtown Albuquerque and towns to the north and south along a 50-mile track. You can connect to nearly all the Albuquerque bus lines at the downtown station. A route between Albuquerque and Santa Fe is scheduled to open in December 2008, since, for various reasons, thousands of people live in one city but work in the other. Even though a state bus system currently services the route, the Rail Runner should speed up the commute and perhaps, one day, offer more schedule options, including the weekend.
In Phoenix and its suburbs, a light-rail system is also under construction, disrupting traffic across town. The line will run from downtown Phoenix east to Tempe and Mesa, and west toward Glendale along one of the area's most heavily traveled corridors. Sure, many commuters will have to drive to one of the eight park and ride locations before boarding the train, but even a partial reduction in driving could do wonders for the brown cloud hanging over the valley. It might also reduce road rage from the often-horrendous Phoenix traffic. (I know about the ill tempers of Phoenicians: I lived there for five years, one year without a car.) The light rail should also be in operation, by December 2008, with service covering 20 hours per day, seven days a week, every 10-20 minutes.
These new public transportation options join existing and successful rail transportation in such places as Portland and Denver and the popular BART -- Bay Area Rapid Transit -- in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I challenge every commuter to support these new and existing public transportation options. Try it once. See how it goes. Write to the mayor or the city council if you have suggestions for schedule changes or extended hours or connections or anything else that would make it easier to ride the bus or rails.
Try catching up on your reading. Try meeting new people, who might turn out to be your neighbors. Try getting those 30 minutes of exercise in on the way to and from the stop. Join me in reducing pollution. Save gas money. Utilize your tax dollars that go to support mass transit.
As for me, I'm sitting on the bench at the bus stop, winter fading into spring, sun sinking through wispy clouds toward the horizon, breeze ruffling my hair, my back slowly loosening up after eight hours behind a computer, catching up on my writing. And I wonder, why would I, why would anybody, want to be in a car today?
Alison Williams is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News. She lives, writes and takes buses in Albuquerque, New Mexico. |