My Commute
It was a nice morning so I rode my moped to the Middletown North light rail station. After I locked my moped in a bike locker, I stood on the platform looking at the people waiting for the northbound train. I have to be honest and say that while I was please to see so many people taking the northbound train to Glasgow and Newark business parks – I was glad to be going south.
But even the soutbound was a bit more crowded than ususal so I stood for the 15 minutes until a seat opened up at the Townsend Park & Ride Stop. When the train pulled into Clayton it really filled up with people heading down to Dover and I just squeezed out as the door closing chime sounded.
I walked the rest of the five blocks to work. During that walk I just thanked God that Al Gore beat that nit wit oil man George Bush in 2000 and decided to invest our peace dividend in renewable energy and public transportation. Even the wingnuts I work with agree that the quality of life around here has improved over the last 8 years.
🙂
bless you sir
I’m searching for the h/t atrios tag on our new admin side, because he put up something that sparked this.
Oh, now you want to use tags? Figures.
It is the one tag I use. Don’t sweat it though – I’ll just take credit for everything.
heh, I was just coming back to scold you.
Four weeks ago in the News Journal series we proposed and supported a public/private partnership for light rail.
A great idea which is long overdue.
If I had to choose I would rather invest in heavy freight rail and get all the long-haul semis off the road.
A lot of people will never take light rail, even if its free and stops in front of their house – because they use their cars as their personal smoking chambers.
Light rail is cool, but impractical for suburbs unless new right-of-ways are built, which is unlikely. Even if I did work near a train station – which I don’t – once I finally got home from the train station I would just have to get in the car to go grocery shopping for dinner, and by the time I got back to my newly latchkey kids it would be 8:00.
It would be good though to have a light rail backbone corridor north-south in Delaware. If we could anchor it with new housing developments, we’d even get Dave Burris to support it.
What a lovely dream.
sadly, I think we may end up being better off b/c of what W has done to this country…
It’s just a shame it had to come about this way
Good comments anon except this:
A lot of people will never take light rail, even if its free and stops in front of their house –
That is exactly what people in and around Washignton DC said about the Metro befor it was built.
but the Metro goes straight to their jobs for the most part. We don’t have that here.
If you see a plan that would lay new rail through NCC connecting homes and workplaces, then maybe.
Most light rail plans I see involve upgrading and subsidizing existing lines.
Also I-95 in Delaware is becoming a regional joke – because we (especially the new South NCC housing) are using it as a commuter corridor, not an Interstate.
Solution: Put back the toll booths on the I-95 exits. I think it was Pete Dupont who took them off.
People will absolutely take a light rail, especially in conjunction with a network of regularly running shuttles and buses to get you door to door.
I lived in New York for years….never blinked twice at a commute involving multiple connections, with 5-15 minute walks on either end. You get used to it, and it is better for you.
You will get exercise, you will have better contact with your community (which makes communities safer), and you will be forced to plan more carefully. I still refuse to own a car, and – as a mom – my 30-45 minute commute is a wonderfully peaceful moment in my day.
Using public transportation forces you to prioritize the way you spend your life! Definitely an improvement.
Argh, If I had a choice I would let Awwnawld ride around in his hummer and take the metro.
Here is just a little story about public transportation in Delaware (a good story at that).
I have been riding the bus from my home in Newark to my office in Wilmington for the past three years, and it has been a wonderful experience. I can’t ride every day as work takes me to Dover some days, but every chance I get I am on that bus. Sure it takes a few minutes longer to get to Wilmington, but it drops me off right at my office so I save time having to park and walk a few blocks. All in all, it is well worth the half hour I have every morning to read a book or report, or even catch a quick nap on the way home.
Something has drastically changes about my bus over those three years. When I first started riding the bus would be half full, and everyone there looked like me (business attire, blackberry, etc., and they were all white suburbanites). Now, my bus is packed, in fact I take an earlier bus just so I can get a seat every morning, and many of those new riders don’t look like me. These new riders are predominantly immigrants from India and Asia, living in apartments and town homes in Newark/Glasgow. They come from countries where public transportation is a way of life rather then an oddity or social service, and they use the bus as their primary means of transportation, and don’t blink an eye about it.
What I am getting at there is that it shouldn’t be seen as a forgone concussion that public transportation will not work in Delaware, because it is working, we just have to be willing to see the benefits instead of getting caught in the drawbacks.
(funny aside- there are lots of big SUVs, including an H2, in the Park and Ride lot where I pick up the bus. These owners almost always complain about gas prices and say that is the only reason they are on the bus. I smile and marvel at their stupidity, and think that if only the were smart enough to buy a reasonable car, I would have more leg room)
Another funny aside — I read one of those JD Powers Car satisfaction surveys some years back and the Hummer was lowest on the list of Customer Satisfaction.
Why?
Hummer drivers told JD Powers that their cars used too much gas.
If DE sells/leases any of it’s roads, the money should be dedicated to light rail. Charlotte NC just put one in and it is a huge success.
“Hummer drivers told JD Powers that their cars used too much gas.”
Ha, freakin’ ha! Oh, and I never knew smoking would give me cancer, and adjustable rate mortgages sounded like a good idea at the time.
I grew up in suburban Maryland, and it was so awesome that I could ride my bike 2 miles to the Shady Grove Metro station and be in the Smithsonian in under an hour. This state sucks.
Mike R. –
I ride the same bus (but I think I keep different hours)…and I too love the diversity!!
I was really snotty when I first moved back to Wilmington from NYC, really upset at the perceived loss of culture around me. I missed being able to walk down the street and hear 4 different languages spoken. Who knew I’d be getting it back, on my commute!
🙂
Liz
16 express: 7:45am from the 896/4 park and ride to 10th and Orange, return on the 5:20 from Rodney Square?