Category Archives: living the life

Nights out, bus-chick style

Car free but like to party? Some tips from last week’s Real Change column:

A few weeks ago, you learned how to look fabulous while riding the bus. Now, let’s explore how to take your fabulous self out for the evening.

If you’ve followed the first rule of car-free living — move to a transit-friendly neighborhood, preferably close to downtown — you’ll find plenty of options for eating, drinking, dancing, watching, listening, and meeting a short walk or bus ride from your home. With no car to worry about, you can hop on the bus to Benaroya Hall or Belltown without giving a second thought to parking availability or costs. If you want to have a few drinks while you’re out (remember, I said a few), go ahead. After all, you’re not driving home.

Going out without a car does require some adjustments. Even in the most transit-friendly areas, your travel is limited by bus schedules. (I call this phenomenon the Buschickrella Syndrome.) If the last bus leaves before you are ready to end your night, you can use a few of the thousands of dollars you’ve saved on transportation to take a cab.

Spontaneous trips to inconvenient locations will require planning and will therefore happen far less frequently, but if you are willing to take advantage of the many dining and entertainment opportunities you can reach on the bus or on foot, you will hardly notice this.

Attending private parties without a car can also be a challenge. Unlike a movie or a concert, a party doesn’t have a specified end time. If it’s fun, you’ll probably want to stay until they kick you out of the joint. Unfortunately, unless all your friends have been wise enough to choose transit-friendly neighborhoods, many of the parties you are invited to are likely to be in areas with spotty (or nonexistent) late-night bus service.

You can rent a Flexcar for these occasions, but since Flexcar charges by the hour, and the car will spend most of the evening parked in someone’s driveway, I recommend it only as a last resort. Carpooling is sometimes an option. (Evite has streamlined this process by building a carpooling option into their software.) If you carpool, make sure to offer the driver gas money so the ride is mutually beneficial.

Usually, the best option will be to work with the bus service that’s available. If you opt to ride the bus, make sure you:

• Know how often the route you’re riding runs and when the last one leaves.
• Let the host know in advance that you have to leave at a specific time. A sudden and unexpected departure is often met with protest.
• Plan to leave at least 15 minutes earlier than you think you need to. It’s no fun to rush out the door without a proper goodbye.

Besides, you wouldn’t want the other guests to see you without your glass slippers.

Going car-free: the quick and dirty

Since early November, I’ve devoted my Real Change column to a series of how-to articles for people who want to give up their cars. So far, I’ve written five, and I’ve barely scratched the surface. After all, there’s a lot to say; Chris Balish wrote an entire book on the subject.

Yesterday, I found wikiHow, a wiki site with a how-to focus. Lo and behold–they have useful and informative one-pager about going car free: “How to Live without a Car.” Here’s a taste:

Living without a car can be pretty tough, especially in the U.S., where public transportation is frequently lacking and where questionable urban planning has caused the average person to live far away from workplaces, schools, and markets. That said, it’s certainly possible, as long as you’re willing to change your lifestyle. Some of the suggestions below are easy for anybody, while others require more sacrifice. The sacrifice, however, may benefit you immensely once you consider the staggering cost of owning a vehicle …

The rest of the article is a list of basic steps you should take and tools you will need to find success living without a car. It ain’t perfect (I don’t, for example, agree that you need “a friend [who is] willing to drive you around”), but it’s a doggone good start.

More fun articles on wikiHow:

How to Ride a Public Transportation Bus
How to Remain Standing While Riding a Bus
How to Ride the Bus Safely and Enjoy Yourself

The quality of articles can hardly compete with those on Wikipedia, mostly because this site doesn’t have nearly the number of eyeballs on it. Still, it’s cool that folks are putting this information out there. Perhaps you experienced riders might want to share some of your expertise. When I get a moment, I’m going to.

A bus to the pass

After Friday’s storm, I’ve had enough excitement for the season. For those still looking for a thrill: I provided some suggestions for getting to the higher elevations without a car in this week’s Real Change column. (Thanks to Laura from Bellevue for the tips.) Winter sports aren’t really my “thing” (plus, I have word count limits), so please let me know if I missed any good options.

A Bus to the Pass

I have to admit it: I’m not much of a winter sports fan. My first clue that snow-related activities weren’t for me was in 7th grade, when, less than an hour into my first skiing lesson (bundled from head to foot but still teary-eyed from the cold), I asked the instructor if I could head into the lodge for the remainder of the afternoon. A few years ago, I tried snowboarding. It was fun and all, but after every fall, I thanked the man upstairs that I didn’t break, tear, sprain, strain, or hyperextend something. And the thing is: I need my legs to get around.

Many of my fellow Seattleites, on the other hand, take their winter sports seriously. For those who actually like performing death-defying acts in ungodly temperatures: If you’ve decided car-free living isn’t for you because you can’t imagine giving up your weekends on the slopes, it might be time to reconsider. After all, you can take the bus to the Pass!

One of the coolest options is Snowbus (www.snowbus.com), which heads to Snoqualmie Pass every Thursday night during the season. It leaves Seattle (from Pyramid Alehouse) at 5:30 p.m., stops again in Bellevue at around 6, and arrives at the pass by 7. For $49, you get a lift ticket, a sandwich and beer courtesy of Pyramid, and a round-trip ride on a luxury bus (with a bathroom). If you don’t need a lift ticket, you can ride the bus only for $25. Snowbus is reputed to be as much a social event as a form of transportation, but you must be 21 or older to ride. (Hey, they can’t be handing out pints of beer to teenagers.)

Beeline Tours (www.beelinetours.com) offers daily trips to Snoqualmie. It leaves the 65th Street Park & Ride at 7:00 a.m. and makes two stops — Colman Dock and the South Bellevue Park & Ride — on the way to the Pass. The ride costs $35. On weekends, you can buy a ride/lift ticket combo for $75. Beeline offers the advantage of daylong trips, and children are welcome.

For those who’d rather head farther afield for their winter adventures, Crystal Mountain (www.crystalmt.com) operates weekend shuttles to the Pass from Seattle and Tacoma. Cost for adults is $70 with a lift ticket and $35 without.

If you’re not into tour buses, Rideshare Online (www.rideshareonline.com) has a special section for folks looking to carpool to the slopes. For the cost of a few gallons of gas, you can probably find a ride to any pass in the region.

Of course, if you don’t know how to ski or snowboard yet, you can always sign up for lessons with a ski school like Fiorini (www.fiorinisports.com) and travel to the Pass in style: on a yellow school bus.

What I learned on my ride home

1) If you’re leaving work in the middle of a rainstorm, and the wind is blowing the rain right under your umbrella (assuming you can even keep your umbrella open), and you have a 10-minute walk to the bus stop, and you’ve already ruined one cell phone by walking to and from bus stops in the rain, you can protect your current cell phone (et cetera) by putting your bag on under your waterproof jacket.

(Note: To some bus riders, the above discovery might appear elementary. To this one, it was revolutionary.)

2) If you’re riding on an articulated bus in the middle of a rainstorm, and that articulated bus is rerouted to avoid a fallen tree at 23rd and Republican, and the reroute involves sharp turns and narrow streets, and you happen to be sitting in the middle section, inside that accordion thingy that you liked when you were a kid even though it made you car–well, “bus”–sick, and that accordion thingy is full of water and bending in ways nature never intended, you will get wet. So, unfortunately, will that cell phone you worked so hard to preserve.

A bus in the hand…

I can take any one of three buses home from downtown–in order of preference, the 27, the 4, or the 14. The 27 is hands down my favorite of the three because it’s fast and takes me directly to my house. If the 27 isn’t coming anytime soon, I fall back on the 4, which, though significantly slower and less pleasant than the 27, also takes me directly to my house. The 14 is slow and requires a walk, so I take it only when neither of the other two buses is coming soon.

Tonight, I found myself at the Benaroya Hall stop on 3rd Avenue sometime between 7:35 and 7:45. The 27 was scheduled to be there at 7:55, the 4 at 8:00, and the 14 at 8:07. By 8:00, the 27 had not yet arrived. At 8:02 (with still no sign of the 27), the 4 came, and with it, my dilemma: Should I continue to wait for my preferred bus, with no way of anticipating how much longer it would be, or should I take the less desirable–but guaranteed–ride?

Several times a week, I am faced with a choice like this, and my decision is usually made by weighing a complex set of factors (weather, time of day, mood, consequences of lateness). An example: If it’s late at night and one of the choices involves a walk, I’ll probably opt for the choice that doesn’t, even if the wait is longer or the bus is slower.

Tonight, I opted for the 4, because of my desire for immediate warmth and my recent experience with extremely late buses. I arrived home to find Bus Nerd, who, it turns out, had also just come from downtown (he’d been waiting at a different stop on 3rd). He had been faced with the same dilemma but had chosen to wait for the 27, which, it turns out, arrived five minutes after the 4. I was warm for the five minutes he was still waiting, but despite my head start, he beat me home.

Fellow riders: What do you do in cases like this? Do you settle for the “bus in the hand” or hold out for a better ride?

Can bus chicks hibernate for the winter?

I have a pretty cool work schedule: On Mondays, I don’t have to go to my office, and I get to spend the entire day working on personal writing projects. Today’s agenda: A morning coffee in Belltown with a new friend (hey, Cherie!), a few miscellaneous errands in NoDo (my new name for Belltown/SLU/Lower Queen Anne), and then an afternoon of writing at home.

I woke up this morning with a sore throat and a stuffy nose but decided to brave the rain anyway. Would that I had just stayed home!

I was early for the coffee and so decided to use the extra time to stop at Nordy’s and pick up a recently tapped pair of boots. This meant a wet walk (balancing bus chick bag, paper shopping bag with fixed-up boots, and umbrella) back to 3rd Avenue; a soggy, steamy ride up to Belltown; and another wet walk (dodging puddles and traffic tsunamis) over to the appointed meeting place on 1st. After coffee, I stopped at a knitting store a few blocks south of the coffee shop. There, after purchasing a book of patterns for my mother (though not a bus rider, my mom is a hardcore practitioner of the new “it” bus pastime), I exchanged my soggy and rapidly disintegrating Nordstrom shopping bag for one of theirs (also paper) and then hoofed it the four and a half blocks to the nearest (shelterless) 28 stop. At this point, I called Bus Nerd (balancing the bus chick bag, new soggy paper bag, umbrella, and phone) to find out the exact address of the projector repair place I was headed to. Fifteen minutes later, the 28 came. (It was on time; I had just neglected to check the schedule in advance.) The windows on the 28 were so fogged up that I missed my stop and had to walk two wet blocks back to the repair shop. Then, it was another four-and-a-half block walk (wind whipping, cars splashing, bag ripping) to the 8 stop on Denny and Aurora. Four hours (and a couple of lifetimes) after I had left my house this morning, I finally arrived home.

I realize that this insanity was as much about bad weather and bad decisions as it was about buses, but daaaang. I spent too much time, got too little accomplished, and got a little too much exposure to the elements. At no point during the ordeal did I find myself wishing for a car. (Driving in the city in the rain and searching/paying for parking? I’ll pass.) I did, however, find myself wishing for summer (Oh August, how I miss you!), and maybe a train–anything with indoor stations and predictable schedules.

Speaking of Santa…

For you holiday shoppers, last week’s Real Change column:

Ah, the holiday season: the time of year when we gather with family, give thanks for our blessings, and spend as much money as humanly possible. What better time to review my bus-chick-tested shopping tips?

Tip 1: Buy less. The simplest and most effective way to avoid the hassle of shopping without a car is to stop shopping so doggone much. Your decision to try life as a bus chick means you’re probably interested in conserving — your money, the world’s resources, or both — and spending less time at the mall will surely help you accomplish this.

Tip 2: Use a different kind of highway. If you don’t need a particular item immediately, consider ordering it online. If it’s a gift that has to be shipped, you save two trips: the first, to the store to buy the gift, and the second to the post office to mail it. In cases where you want to see an item before you buy it (or you don’t want to pay shipping costs), you can still use the Internet to research products and prices. That way, when you’re ready to buy, you’ll only have to make one stop.

Tip 3: Concentrate! The bus-based life is not well-suited to the “running around” that has become the norm in our consumer-oriented, car-centric culture. (And who says that’s a bad thing?) Shop in places that have a wide variety of stores concentrated in a small area, so you can take care of several purchases each time you make a trip. I tend to shop downtown, mostly because it’s the concentrated shopping area that is most easily accessible to me. And speaking of downtown…

Tip 4: Shop on your way. The next time you’re in the center of our fair city waiting for a transfer, try using that time to take care of business. When I’m downtown and in need of a particular item, I decide how much time I’ll need, check the schedule of the bus I’m waiting to catch, and then head to the nearest store that has what I need. If I’m not in the market for anything in particular but the wait between buses is especially long, I’ll use the down time “pre-shop” for stuff (greeting cards, vacuum-cleaner bags, printer cartridges — whatever I’m closest to) that I know I’ll need in the future.

Tip 5: Be Flexible. Most of the items people regularly shop for can be easily reached and carried home on the bus. (Note: If it’s big enough to take up a seat of its own, consider traveling during off-peak times.) For those times when you want to purchase an item that is outside the bus’s coverage area or that exceeds your carrying capacity (and the limits of your fellow riders’ patience), rent a Flexcar. For all you Craig’s Listers and garage salers: They even have pickups.

On twentysomething men: volcanoes, hurricanes, and the breaking of things

I’m already home from the party, and the last bus hasn’t even left my brother’s street yet. Shoot, the second-to-last bus hasn’t even left. The party was fun, even though I was the only woman there for the first two hours. One of Jeremy’s friends (who also happens to be a bartender at Flying Fish) made a big tub of hurricane punch. I only had one cup, but that was enough to make me grateful for the designated driver (one of the may perks of the bus-chick lifestyle).

The guys
From left: Robbie (aka Caligula), Birfday boy (aka Saulty), Billy (aka Biker Boy), Dale (aka Hurricane Maker), and Marty (aka Pyromaniak)

At my transfer point on the way home, I met a guy named Archie. He was waiting for the 128 and wanted to know if I had seen it pass. I hadn’t. Archie took the opportunity to strike up a conversation, and, as is the custom of many people I meet at bus stops, he started with one of those questions. Despite this, and despite fact that he had a hard time keeping his eyes on mine, Archie’s cool people. He’s 25. He lives in White Center. He works construction. He likes music and really liked the Goapele song I downloaded yesterday and have been listening to on my Schmipod (aka affordable MP3 player that actually has a radio tuner) nonstop since.

When his bus finally came, Archie gave me a hug goodbye and suggested I write something about him. “Write about how I break it down,” he said.

And so, I am honoring that request, even though, to be quite honest, I am not sure exactly how Archie breaks it down. I do know this: He certainly knows how to make the time pass at a bus stop.