It felt a bit of a relief to get my dream rail system out of the way yesterday. Something that was interesting to write about, but the need to finish it seemed to be blocking me from getting on with writing in this blog about other issues. This post doesn’t really have a set agenda in the way that others have so far, so I’m not quite sure how it’ll turn out.
Firstly, it’s hard to get away from talking about the upcoming election at the moment. After all, it’s less than three weeks away now I suppose. My analysis of the transportation policies of different parties will probably come at some point, but for now I am just going to say “Vote Greens”. Labour has disappointed me in not really having much of a public transportation plan, and continuing the funnel money into motorways like there’s no tomorrow. National’s attitude towards public transportation probably freaks me out more than their attitude towards anything else – as it seems likely that if we end up with Maurice Williamson as our Minister of Transport we will be lucky to get a couple more bus lanes.
I’m not sure whether my mind has become totally sick of the election, or whether National’s lead in the polls just depresses me when I think about politics at the moment. It’s probably something, as the whole election campaign palaver it already starting to be annoying. Perhaps it is just a general frustration with how ignorant a huge number of people seem to be about issues… it’s hard to say for sure. Of course there’s still curiosity to see if anything major happens in the next while, but other than that I just want the next couple of weeks to disappear as quickly as possible so that I don’t need to endure more shots of John Key playing play-dough with nice middle class kids at some preschool.
I’ve managed to avoid using my car since the weekend, which is quite nice. A fairly good pattern of catching buses to and from work has settled down, and usually I’m able to bus on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. I could probably do Wednesdays too but it’s Leila’s day off work and it’s quite nice to have lunch at home with her. On Fridays I need to pick Amalia up after work which makes bus catching rather difficult, although interestingly I think the last couple of Fridays I have ended up on the bus, as it’s been necessary for me to go into town for work. Perhaps it is a coincidence, but I definitely do feel better about life since I’ve switched to bus commuting. The better feeling probably started a little earlier than the last month or so – and was undoubtedly influenced greatly by more interesting work-related stuff of late – but I do certainly believe that decreasing my reliance upon the car, experiencing the local area more through catching a bus and enjoying Leila’s company for a bit longer than usual as we both wander up to the bus stop and wait for it (or sometimes catch it together if I’m going into town) has made me feel better about my life.
In the first couple of months after we returned from Europe I did feel really really trapped in a rather mundane feeling life. Being at home, driving to work, being at work, driving home, being at home…. after the experiences of Europe I couldn’t believe how depressing and boring Auckland felt. Sure, it was probably one of the wettest winters ever, which definitely didn’t help. However, I just felt so unattached to the city. I was forever just seeing it through my work-office window or through the window of the car, or merely from the window of my freezing cold house. Getting back into the CBD and wandering around streets with people again felt so liberating, even catching a bus seemed interesting again. Feeling like I was once again “engaging” with the city just felt so good – like I was once again part of a greater thing, I wasn’t isolated in one box after the next, really has seemed like such a positive experience for me.
It’s an interesting case study really, and I wonder how many other people feel the same. In the public v private transportation argument, general comfort and enjoyment of the ride seems to often favour the private car over catching a bus or train. I wonder whether this is a bit of a misguided belief? Perhaps people’s potential like for public transport is not being fully recognised? I definitely think this might be the case for a decent train system, which in my opinion is far nicer for travelling than driving your car. Sure I’m a bit of a public transport freak, but I enjoyed travelling on the Metro systems of Europe an awful lot, and they were indeed one of the highlights of the trip for me.
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