The Conical Glass: Summer of Lent

Friday, June 05, 2009

Summer of Lent

Some friends and acquaintances of ours around town are taking the Car-Free Challenge, which entails trying to stay out of autos (even carpools!) during the entire month of June. (Granted, some challengers are simply attempting to drive fewer miles, not 0 miles.)

I am pretty committed to minimizing my auto use -- I mean, we moved so that Joe could be within walking distance to his job, and one of the reasons we chose this location is because it's one of the most walkable communities in the Bay Area. We can walk to the library, the movie theater, the post office, and a ton of restaurants. However, I must admit that I love my car, mainly because I enjoy getting to places quickly. I realize this is anathema to all those public transit lovers out there, but I hate buses. Subways and light rail are great, but buses -- yuck.

A few days ago, I had to take the bus to the intersection of Ashby & San Pablo in Berkeley. I have made this trip several times via bus, and it always takes an hour. There are two ways for me to get there: I can either take the "rapid" bus down San Pablo and transfer to the local in downtown Oakland, or I can get on a bus that will take me there directly without having to change. The latter bus takes a leisurely, circuitous route through West Oakland. I love the super-speedy "rapid" buses, but having to transfer always seems to trip me up. The bus I was transferring to is supposed to come every 10 minutes, but on Wednesday I wound up waiting 20 minutes for it to arrive.

My bus trips were also slowed down by four riders in wheelchairs who got on at various points along the way. I think it's wonderful that disabled riders have access to transit, but there's no denying that it throws the buses off schedule when the driver has to deploy the ramp and strap the rider in. One driver had trouble getting the ramp up and it took several attempts to fix it so we could resume our travels. And then there was the driver who didn't realize that there was a guy in a wheelchair waiting at the stop. The bus drove off without him, but he zoomed after us in his motorized chair and caught the bus at the next stop. That led to a loud confrontation between the driver, who swore he hadn't heard the guy say he needed the ramp deployed, and the rider, who kept yelling "I'm going to report you!" Seriously, who wouldn't want to be in a nice, private car listening to their radio station of choice rather than idling at a corner while two men are loudly arguing?

I wish I could ride a bike, but I'm too cowardly. The last time I was on a bicycle was a year ago on Mackinac Island, which has no cars -- an ideal situation for those on two-wheelers. In the real world, with few dedicated bike lanes and a lopsided ratio of motorists to bikers, I would feel too vulnerable.

As it happens, though, before I heard about the Car-Free Challenge, I had already decided on my own challenge, which was to give up sugar for the whole month. This is one of those things that sounds easier than it actually is, because once you start reading ingredient labels, you realize that almost everything has sugar in it. I had to buy new salad dressing and ketchup. I could only find one type of veggie burgers (a staple of my diet) that didn't have sugar, and I switched from buns to pita because most commercially baked bread has sugar. High fructose corn syrup is out, too, but I had to make some concessions; my favorite cereal, Kashi, has "evaporated cane juice," which sounds suspiciously like sugar, but at least it's not a refined sugar. Sometimes compromises need to be made in order to live our lives.

posted by 125records @ 10:23 AM

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