What If We Could Enjoy Our Commute?
So many people accept transportation as an awful part of life — but why
Transportation is an essential part of life for every single person — whether that means walking to the store on the corner for groceries, getting in an F-150 to go to the coffee shop and run errands (please don’t do this), riding your e-bike to work, taking transit to the concert…
Transporting our bodies from place to place impacts how and where we work, live, play, and eat.
But in so many places we’ve resigned ourselves to accepting dreadful transportation.
We accept transportation that causes stress for our minds, bodies, bank accounts, the air we breathe — and our communities, large and small, far and near.
But Why? Why Are We Okay with Hating Our Commutes?
Why SHOULDN’T we expend the energy and the ingenuity and the money to make commuting wonderful?
Why don’t we strive to make something that’s as central to life as transportation absolutely fabulous?!
Why should we waste our lives sitting in traffic when we could be using our ingenuity to make our days and our travels something to look forward to?
What if We Enjoyed our commutes?
What if we the journey was something to savor and anticipate, rather than a source of quiet (or loud) and persistent dread?
What if transportation was accessible to people of all ages and you don't have to wait until you're old enough to get a driver's license and pay for a car to get some independence?
Varied Transportation Options are Necessary for Independent Living
Imagine how much stress that could take off parents if they didn't have to drive their kids everywhere.
Imagine knowing you could keep your independence as you aged because you live in a place with numerous transportation options that don’t require you to drive in order to live a wonderful life
What if we built a society where every person could participate fully and easily in life even if they could not drive or did not own a car?
Imagine thinking of kids while planning transportation!
What if you weren’t required everyone who can't drive -- for whatever reason -- still has access to a variety of mobility options and ways to easily participate fully and easily in life?
Or if everyone just had access to a variety of mobility options and ways to easily participate fully and easily in life?
Transportation is an Essential Investment for All People for Today and Tomorrow
We need to consider transportation an important investment in today and tomorrow — and the distant future — not just in the right this second.
We need to use our collective resources to give every person the resources and the confidence to know they could get where they need to go, no matter their personal circumstances.
That even if your car is surprisingly totaled, you still have a way to easily get everywhere you need and want to go.
How do you get to work?
How would you LIKE to get to work?
How we get to work determines so much of our lives, like where we choose to live and our access to other modes of transportation, our health, our moods, our stress levels.
Does your commute make you happy, relaxed, filled with rage — or somewhere in between?
Do you enjoy your commute?
If not, could you imagine enjoying this regularly occurring part of life?
If you had an unlimited budget and unlimited power to change just one thing about your commute, what would it be?
(Photo by Pavol Svantner of the Wuppertal Schwebebahn, a suspended monorail, in Wuppertal Germany! I can’t wait until I have the opportunity to try it someday VERY SOON!)
