Ya know, I heard the other day that gas prices are going to reach over $5/gal in July. And I thought to myself, this is truly getting ridiculous. I refuse. Nope, not gonna do it. I'd rather protest instead.
(...Wait for it...wait for it...)
Okay, so I'm not really protesting like with picket signs down at the federal building with bags of rotten tomatoes (who'd I throw them at anyway?) or nagging people to sign petitions or anything like that. But I am going to do myself a favor and make a change.
The whole thing really came about by accident. I had decided to ride my bike to work one day last week (despite the fact that I have to ride 4 miles out of my way to use a shower - 2 miles to the gym and 2 back...*sigh*) in an effort to a) not only get my flabby butt up and moving more than twice a week and b) to at least put a dent in the spending I've recently been doing on gas.
However, after I'd turned in my 9 mile "pre-work" workout, I arrived to discover that my co-worker (who is also a group fitness instructor at the same gym) was out sick. That meant I'd have to cover her cycle class. No wait - ride 2 miles back to the gym, cover her cycle class, then ride 7 miles home. That's 20 miles in a day! Certainly not impossible, but when you've only been cycling once a week....yikes.
This is when I replayed in my head a conversation I'd had with my beautiful best friend Andi used-to-be-Lopez in which she suggested I check out the bus schedule. Since the addition of the Go Lines all over town, there have been all kinds of new routes. Brilliant!
I immediately dove into the Whatcom Transit Authority's website and an hour later I realized, I can take the bus! (God bless public transit.) In fact, with all the new updates, I found that I could easily take the bus every day. Instead of biking to work (which was, despite a good workout, a huge pain) I just bike to the downtown station. Heck yeah man! No 20 miles for me!
So I promptly bought a bus pass ($20 per month - so cheap!) and I haven't driven my car to work since. With a fill-up costing me ~$50 every 3 weeks, at this point, you'd have to pay me to start my car Monday - Friday. So yeah, I'm not gonna do it.
(Seriously though, I'm really excited about my bus pass - it's pretty frickin' awesome.)
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Not Gonna Do It.
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3 comments:
Right on!
As a side note, I selfishly hope the gas prices keep going up. I'd like to see $7 or $8/gallon soon. Not because I enjoy paying extra money to pollute the environment, but because I believe that if it becomes painful enough we'll finally see some real change in the form of new, alternative technologies. And that would reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and that would reduce the tensions in the middle east.
I think we've had a free ride in the US for too long.
Yay for you cuz! Welcome to the world of public transit. When people ask Dylan what his favorite part about living in New York is, he always responds, "the public transportation". And it's true, we have increased our carbon footprints just by living in the city and not having cars. Luckily the subway is pretty darn convenient over here so it's not really a hassle (except of course when you have no choice but to be sandwiched between large, stinky, sweaty people) but I am glad to hear they have added bus routes to your area.
I LOVE riding the bus!! You will love it more every day... Yeah for you!
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