Upcoming events for transit types

The Culture of the Automobile and its Effect on Our Lives

What: An SDOT-sponsored talk by Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez, authors of the recently released Carjacked. Here’s a synopsis of the book:

Carjacked is an in-depth look at our obsession with cars. While the automobile’s contribution to global warming and the effects of volatile gas prices is widely known, the problems we face every day because of our cars are much more widespread and yet much less known — from the surprising $14,000 that the average family pays each year for the vehicles it owns, to the increase in rates of obesity and asthma to which cars contribute, to the 40,000 deaths and 2.5 million crash injuries each and every year.

Carjacked details the complex impact of the automobile on modern society and shows us how to develop a healthier, cheaper, and greener relationship with cars.

When: Friday, August 6th, 3 PM – 4:30 PM
Where: Bertha Knight Landes Room, City Hall: 600 5th Avenue
How much: Free!

I’m embarrassed to admit (especially given the reviews) that I’ve had this book on my nightstand for several months, and I’ve only managed to read the first few pages. (I received a publicity copy shortly after Busling was born, and it got lost in the new-baby shuffle.) It is my intention to read at least a few chapters before attending the talk. I’ll share my thoughts here after I finish it.

***

Off the Chainring Tour, Seattle Edition
What: A traveling bikestravaganza! Join Elly Blue and Joe Biel for an “evening of bike talk, bike zines, and short movies about transportation activism! We’ll share ideas and inspiration about bike stuff in Portland, in your town, and in other places. Our focus is on bikes but also the big picture: buses, trains, walking, freeways, cars, housing, affordability, what works and what doesn’t.”

When: Saturday, August 14th, 7 PM – 9 PM
Where: Ada’s Technical Books: 713 Broadway East
How much: $3 – $10, based on ability to pay

More good stuff from the alt transpo capital of the universe. If Nerd and I can sucker my dad and/or one of my brothers into babysitting, we’re there.

***

UPDATE, 8/4: Metro Employee Historic Vehicle Association (MEHVA) Snoqualmie tour
What: “A leisurely 4-hour scenic trip [on an old-school bus!] to the historic and charming small town of Snoqualmie where you can ride the train from the restored depot built in 1890, visit the scenic spectacular Snoqualmie Falls or have a picnic lunch.”
When: Sunday, August 15th, 11 AM
Where: Tour departs from 2nd Ave S. & S. Main
How much: $5 (Free for kids 5 and under)

We’ve got a lot going on in the next couple of weeks (more on that later), but I’d really like to make it to this. A train ride and the falls? Chicklet would be beside herself.

***

August Regional Transit Task Force meetings

What: The RTTF is a group of citizens and elected officials appointed by the County Executive and charged with “identify[ing] short-term and long-term objectives for transit service investment. [The task force] will formulate a service implementation policy based on those objectives” by September 2010.”

In other words, Metro is facing huge cuts, and the County is looking for input about the most fair, least disruptive way to make those cuts. They’re also looking for help developing strong implementation policies for future (fingers crossed) service additions.

When: Thursday, August 5th & Thursday, August 19th, 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Where: Mercer Island Community Center: 8236 SE 24th Street, Mercer Island (You can take the 550.)
How much: Free (unless you count your tax dollars)

I didn’t mention this task force when it was formed earlier this year, mostly because I’m a member (as one of three rider representatives), and I try to keep my community involvement separate from this blog. In this case I’m making an exception, because the recommendations of the group (if they’re adopted by the council) are going to affect bus riders in every corner of the county.

The task force meets twice a month (schedule here), and there is time for public comment at the end of every meeting. If you can’t attend, you can find meeting materials and notes on the RTTF website.

***
Rainier Valley Summer Streets
What: Rainier Valley’s version of the city’s Summer Streets series.

Come out and watch the Rainier Valley Heritage Parade then stay and play in the streets afterwards. The parade begins at 11 a.m. and lasts about an hour. After that, the streets open up for people to enjoy. Dine at local restaurants, make art, find out about urban gardening and learn how to fix your bike. Seattle Children’s is sponsoring a kid’s obstacle course and there will be skateboard demos with free helmet give-aways. There will also be cultural activities like learning how to write calligraphy and making star lanterns.

When: Saturday, August 21st, 11 AM – 3 PM
Where: Rainier Ave South, between South Brandon and South Alaska
How much: Free!

So going to this. Again.

The opposite of progress

From Tom Vanderbilt’s recent piece in Slate:

In Greenberg, Ben Stiller plays Greenberg, a drifting musician-turned-carpenter who’s getting over a nervous breakdown. He’s a needy and casually abusive schmuck, a socially awkward and obsessive crank. And if you need any more clues to the extent of his pathological loserdom, here’s one: He doesn’t drive.

[…]

Greenberg is just the most recent film in which a character’s non-automobility–whether for lack of a car or for lack of the ability to drive–is used for comic effect, whether as a metaphor for a deeper personality flaw or as a token of marginality and/or plain creepiness. As the humorist Art Buchwald once observed, “People are broad-minded. They’ll accept the fact that a person can be an alcoholic, a dope fiend, a wife beater and even a newspaperman, but if a man doesn’t drive, there’s something wrong with him.”

We bus, train [ahem], and bike chicks beg to differ.

On writing and riding

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that I have many obsessions: libraries, Rosa Parks, Three Girls Bakery, Mount Rainier, and–oh yeah–buses. You might not know, since I have not thus far had occasion to write about it here, that I am also obsessed with August Wilson.

I am a huge August Wilson fan. The first time I saw one of his plays staged (Joe Turner’s Come and Gone at the Alley Theater in Houston, back when I was a student at Rice) was transformational for me. The man has an unmatched ear for dialogue, and [ahem] I happen to enjoy listening to people talk. It’s one of the primary reasons I love the bus.

Apparently, Wilson enjoyed buses for the same reason. Transit geek/novelist Dolen Perkins-Valdez just hipped me to the fact that the famed playwright, a resident of our fair city (incidentally, another of my obsessions) from 1990 until his death in 2005, rode Metro. A lot.

All these years of semi-stalking the man, and I didn’t know. It wasn’t mentioned in any of the zillions of bios I read about him over the years–or at either of the memorials I attended after his death. And yet, all it took was a quick online search to confirm* Dolen’s assertion. August Wilson did, indeed, ride the bus–probably, given the location of his home and his regular haunts–a lot of the same routes I frequent.**

So, it seems that, in addition to providing us time to enjoy the creative work of others, riding transit can also aid the creative process. Toni Morrison (yet another of my obsessions) has said she used her subway rides to work on her first novel, and, as I’ve just discovered, Wilson found inspiration (and probably a lot of material) on the bus. Perhaps I should break out my own (10-year-old-and-as-yet-unpublished) novel. After all, a good quarter of it was written en route.

A shelter ad for Pittsburgh‘s August Wilson Center (source: Landesberg Design)

*This article is in the Boston Globe archives, and I had to pay to read it. I doubt the link will actually show the full text.
**Too bad we never (that I know of) shared a ride. Even my friend Aileen, who boasts of actually meeting him at Red and Black Books back in the day, would be jealous.

Speaking of San Francisco transit blogs (and newbie bus confusion)…

Brenna from That Baby is Cold visited Seattle during a West Coast road trip earlier this month. An excerpt from her trip report:

To be honest, I found the transit a little confusing. I had a rude bus driver that didn’t tell me that you pay getting on sometimes, and getting off other times based on where you get on. My husband had figured that out, but neglected to tell me and I instantly became the annoying lady with the loud kids that’s holding up the bus line.

And nobody wants to be that lady…

Miss(es) Manners for transit types

The SF Muni ladies, who’ve been doing their part to reduce bus fouls in the Bay since ’08, have compiled some of their most popular (or perhaps I should say, most necessary) bus and train behavior recommendations into a book: Muni Manners: An Etiquette Guide for the Mass Transit Savvy. The blurb:

Picking up where Miss Manners leaves off, Muni Manners brings a modern spin to transit etiquette and covers a range of infractions affecting riders – everything from personal space to personal hygiene.

Talk about a required ride read!

The Muni Manners book is self-published and not available at the library (they really should stock some at those cool library vending machine thingies at the BART stations in Contra Costa County), but it might be worth the investment to purchase a few copies. You can keep one for your personal transit geek reference library and carry the others in your bus chick bag–to hand out to the frequent foulers you encounter on your rides.

A New Mexico bus nerd visits Seattle

“Busboy” from Albuquerque hipped me to this blog–and to its author’s recent series about traveling through the Pacific Northwest without a car. I haven’t read the posts about Portland [ahem] or Vancouver yet, but his impressions of the Seattle transit/transportation landscape are pretty spot on. Check it:

Seattle’s new star for public transit is the recently opened Central Link, a light rail line which operates in a subway through downtown before emerging south of the stadiums and running out to the airport. And to be honest, as a visitor the only real use I got out of it was to go the airport (and the neighborhoods along the way didn’t seem that dense, so I can’t say how many commuters it serves). But it’s just one line; when other lines are built (and my understanding is that they’re already under way), it will be a very valuable addition to Seattle’s transit system.

But for now, the real movers and shakers of Seattle’s transit system are its buses. Its insane number of buses – an incredibly complex network of routes that provide very thorough coverage of the city. And the buses are actually quite nice – fairly comfortable, pretty clean, with many running on electricity. But here’s the thing I found difficult about Seattle’s bus network – it’s not very intuitive to people who don’t know it. [Hello!] As I said, the network is very complex, and no route really stands above the others to tell you “Take this one!”

But here’s the real question, Mr. Carfree in ‘Burque: Which city in the PNW did you love best? No pressure, of course.

One year ago today…

Seattle (finally) celebrated its first light rail line. The Bus Fam (including Busling, in utero) participated in all the festivities. Here’s to many more years and many (many!) more trains.

Westbound 27 stop, 23rd & Yesler

A young woman, to her girlfriend: “He’s always texting me, saying, ‘Come upstairs and watch TV.’ I can watch TV at my own house. My house looks just the same as his.”