After a meaningful eleven year relationship, the longest most stable relationship I have ever had, I sold my bug (see my main photo). I am now one of you.
Took the Capitol Corridor twice in the last two months. It is really a convinient, nice, cheap, line. I am walking distance from the Oakland stations. The first return trip Sac-> Oak in Dec, the train was two hours late. Suck!
Took the Capitol Corridor twice in the last two months. It is really a convinient, nice, cheap, line. I am walking distance from the Oakland stations. The first return trip Sac-> Oak in Dec, the train was two hours late. Suck!
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SF Bay Area
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Re: Newly carless
02/29By the time the Amtrak Capitol Corridor gets to the
Great America/Santa Clara station in the morning,
if it is less than 30 minutes late it is considered
"on time." :-)
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The electronic signboard at the station usually
displays the status of the train, and lists the
"latest excuse" for being late (heavy freight train
traffic, a drawbridge open, derailment, smashing a
pedestrian, etc.).
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It does not have a great reputation for *regularly*
being on time.
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Newly carless
03/01Congrats on taking the plunge, or, the anit-plunge, as the case may be. In any event, I've not had a car for so long that I actaully forget ever having a car. I have to be specifically reminded of it. And so when I say stuff like, "The time I was driving to such and such a place," and then go to myself, "That sounds weird, or unreal. I can't believe I ever had the money to run a car." In my current socio-economic free-fall it's hard to imagine ever being able to do anything except maybe rent a car for a couple of days, and even then, that's sort of over my head.
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Re: Newly carless
03/05Welcome / bienvenido!
I'm a SoCal lad by birth (where driving's a birthright), but have lived in the Bay Area for nearly 20 years - and have only owned a car for about 5 of those years. (My '70 VW Bus, Bessie, had to be euthanized back in the late '80s....)
There's a sort of Zen quality to public transit if you don't gauge it by the minute. Your quality of life has to improve if you don't just replace being a stress-puppy that strangles a steering wheel for the duration of the commute to work with being a clock-watching punctuality freak. If someone else is driving, you can do all sorts of productive things en route - maybe not a whole lot of the personal grooming ritual that is now becoming too common out on the road, but certainly the reading or number-crunching or knitting or conversing (and on the train, drinking hooch or using the facilities) that we might have otherwise NOT had time for.
I've criss-crossed the country by train on a couple of different trips, and have used public transit at practically every stop [cities big & not-so-big] - it has made an enormous difference in how I see local life (and how stressed I don't get - about parking, fender benders, maniac drivers, rental charges, etc.). Because I'm more philosophical about travel, I've become more philosophical about life - start earlier & enjoy the ride....
Bus surfing a Bay Area route near you,
Richard
El Transit Troll
