October 2010 Weddings
Tisharp
member
Missing our little turkey.
Estimated Due Date 11/13/12 | Natural Miscarriage 4/17/12
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Now I'm curious - Re: Cars
For those who don't own cars or don't use their cars much (Hannah, you don't use yours daily, right?) like, how does that work? I have no real concept of what it's like to have to use public transportation. Oklahoma City is NOT known for it's public transportation, and even if it was, I don't understand what you do when you are going to a neighboring city, that I'm assuming has a different transportation system? It boggles my mind, and I've always been curious how it works.
I just went and looked at the OKC bus system's schedule and I can't even figure out how I would get to work if I had to ride the bus.
Missing our little turkey.
Estimated Due Date 11/13/12 | Natural Miscarriage 4/17/12
Re: Now I'm curious - Re: Cars
I am curious too... I can't imagine NOT having a car! I wouldn't be able to get anywhere!!
Although, I am not going to lie, it would be nice to save a ton of money... But, our public transportation in Kansas City is terrible!!
Lol, I know it's such a weird concept.
Chicago has really good public transition (IMO). There are several train lines organized by color. Different colors run different routes. For example, blue line's final stop is O'Hare Airport and Orange line takes you to Midway.
A good amount of the trains run north-south and then a lot of the bus lines run east-west. (Although there are trains and buses that run all directions).
So we park our car on the street (we're lucky and have our car registers to IL's, so we don't have to buy a city parking pass, ~$120/yr) and depending on some neighborhoods, some are zoned, so you have to go to your alderman's office with a piece of mail and pay for an additional zoned spot.
The only issue we have is that since our neighborhood is zone-free; it makes it harder to find a spot b/c anyone can park there any time of day (zoned areas have "free" parking 6a-6p and after that you need a pass).
But essentially you can take the bus/train or combo anywhere. Google maps upgraded last year so that you can get directions via mass-transit; so you just put in the addresses of where you're going and it gives you the possible routes to take when and the timing.
THere's also a bus and train tracker that uses GPS to give "real-time" locations for things, which is nice!
Does that help?
Blog Sale
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Oh, and for going outside of city limits, there's the Metra train system. There are several different lines that go to several cities.
The Metra though is set up on a "strict" time schedule, whereas there's a arrival/departure schedule you have follow. Most of my coworkers live in the 'burbs and take the Metra. The majority ride it about an hour to get into work and just sleep on the way.
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We have a bus that goes around town, but the schedule stinks and it takes forever. I love my older brother very much but one of the reasons I hate to visit him in NYC is because he doesn't have a car and just takes the subway/trains every where. He said whenever he wants to go to Ikea, it takes him about 2 hours each way via trains and subways but if he had a car it'd take him maybe 20 minutes. I just can't handle it lol. Ughh, plus I get really bad motion sickness, so I can't handle buses/subways all that much. I would much rather deal with my car payment and high gas prices then feel sick everyday.
Xan - similarly, the people I babysat/nannied for lived in NYC for 8 yrs and in Chicago before that, so when the H got transferred to MKE for work, it was the first time in about 13 years that they owned/drove a car!
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<a href="http://s582.photobucket.com/albums/ss262/hzswanson/?action=view
Wait - is that for everywhere or just Chicago?
Missing our little turkey.
Estimated Due Date 11/13/12 | Natural Miscarriage 4/17/12
Blog Sale
<a href="http://s582.photobucket.com/albums/ss262/hzswanson/?action=view
AWESOME! I will go look at that now and report back.
Missing our little turkey.
Estimated Due Date 11/13/12 | Natural Miscarriage 4/17/12
Boo - It doesn't work for OKC. Unless I did it wrong.
maps by Tisha_McFluffy, on Flickr
Missing our little turkey.
Estimated Due Date 11/13/12 | Natural Miscarriage 4/17/12
Blog Sale
<a href="http://s582.photobucket.com/albums/ss262/hzswanson/?action=view
This...I tried it for a while, but it took me 2 hours to get where I could drive in 15 minutes. No thanks! Boo, KC!
When I lived in Boston I didn't own a car and I took the subway, bus, or walked everywhere. The only time I ever missed my car was when I had to go shopping or wanted to get out of the city. I had to go grocery shopping a few times a week so I could carry everything, which is actually good for not wasting food. When I'd go out with my friends who had cars I would often ask if we could stop at grocery store on the way home and I would stock up on heavy stuff in cans and jars then :-) Traffic is so terrible in Boston, and parking is crazy expensive that even if I had a car I would have taken the subway 99% of the time anyways. I also hate driving and enjoyed the time I had on the train to read, I got a lot of books read the year I lived there.
When I lived in Ann Arbor I walked most places since I lived right near downtown and campus. My walk to school/work was a mile (22 minutes), and only drove occasionally (parking was expensive). Most weeks I only drove a couple of miles to the grocery store. There was a bus stop right outside my building, and the bus system wasn't terrible there, but ran very infrequently especially outside of rush hour. It was generally quicker to just walk since downtown was only a 15 minute walk. Ann Arbor also had quite a few bike lanes and I believe has an ordinance that any new construction downtown needs to include bike racks.
The mass transit in Buffalo isn't very good. Sometimes we'll use the park and ride for the subway to go downtown for events because it's cheaper than parking and you don't get stuck in the traffic leaving the event. DH often bikes to work but it's rough biking on busy roads as drivers don't share the road well.
Mass transit is only faster if where you are going you would be stuck in traffic or have a hard time finding parking. So most people would rather just drive. If gas and/or parking fees are high that incentivizes more people to use mass transit. Plus mass transit is not always the most direct route there, and you have to switch trains (subway or above ground) and buses. It's a chicken and egg problem. If there were more routes and trains and buses ran more frequently more people would take it, but if more people started using it, they would add more routes and up the frequency. When mass transit is your only feasible (or affordable) option then you just get used to the extra time it takes and your lifestyle eventually adapts.
Xan - DH gets motion sick too, and he has to sit/stand facing forward
Tisha - You should lookup your local transit website as many have a route planner where you can type in 2 locations and what time you want to leave or arrive somewhere and it will give you a route.
Trip to Prague & bring home furbaby when we get back
~ Karen ~
**Wedding/House/Travel Bio **
The Boston system is similar to Chicago - color-coded lines, buses, and commuter rails. You can get from the North Shore (almost to NH) to the South Shore and into RI using the commuter rail. I used to live 4 towns over from work, but I took one subway there. On the rare occasions when I had a rental car for the weekend and drove to work in the morning, it took me almost as long as it did by subway. And I got to pay $24/day to park my car as an added bonus.
My husband doesn't even have a drivers license, so he's relied almost solely on public transportation (and the occasional friend-with-a-car) since he moved here in '97.
I looked, only because I was curious, and couldn't figure it out.
Anyone wanna give it a try?
http://www.gometro.org/
Let's say I'd need to get from Oklahoma City Community College to Oklahoma State Capital Building.
Missing our little turkey.
Estimated Due Date 11/13/12 | Natural Miscarriage 4/17/12
Where I live in Charlotte, the closest bus stop is over 3 miles away and doesn't go where I need to go for work. They are planning on adding on to the train system but it will probably be 10+ years before it becomes effective for anyone outside of downtown.
Sometime I miss living in NYC. I found it was a lot easier to be health and get exercise due to all the walking I did and it was definitely cheaper over all with the monthly metro pass but with the COL being so high, it all evens out in the long run.
Obviously it would be ideal for every city to have the mass transit that NYC and even other countries have. I truly wish that I could take a train to see my family rather than than drive the 2-5 hours. I hope that the government and private initiatives can get on board with national mass transit in the near future.
In the meantime, I think rather than ragging on people who drive cars other than hybrids and compacts/sub-compacts or don't use public transportation (particularly when they live in areas that require bigger vehicles or lack public transportation), people should focus on smaller, easier changes for the day to day, like recycling or energy conservation by turning off lights and unplugging unnecessary cords, etc... I loved visiting my sister out in Oregon where there are small rewards to encourage the public to recycle and use reuseable bags and such. JMTC.
Tisha, I don't see an easy way to navigate your system. That map is pretty confusing especially since I don't know the area at all. It looks like the 12 or 13 goes to campus and you could transfer at the transit center and take the 18, 23, or 24 to the capitol. I think google links into the route planners on other sites which is why it doesn't work for you since your transit site doesn't have a map planner. OKC needs to embrace technology.
Ally I would love if the US had a train system like they have in Europe, that would rock! I agree that there are many other important ways to help the environment besides what car you drive. I would like to add eating vegetarian meals (even part-time) really helps the environment, as does buying local and/or in-season foods (these also help your budget). If you want to use your own shopping bags I love the ones I bought from Kohl's. They fold up nicely and hold a lot of groceries. I know that a lot of the "green" technologies. like hybrid cars, aren't really that green, but I like to try to use them when I can in hopes that it will help encourage R&D that will come up with truly green solutions. We live in a capitalist society, so if we want green solutions there has to be a demand for them. A few people need to step up and be early adopters of technology before it becomes wide spread. At the same time government needs to create incentives to encourage these behaviors.
Trip to Prague & bring home furbaby when we get back
~ Karen ~
**Wedding/House/Travel Bio **
We live in a town of about 75,000 and live in an area called "east city" which has a little grocery store, post office, bakery, museum, library, etc all within walking distance of our apartment. So we walk wherever we need to go. The "old" downtown of the city proper has old shops, cafes and bakeries, chocolatieres, a movie theatre, second hand stores, antique shops, army surplus stores, the city bus station, a greyhound terminal, etc. and is still only a 15 minute walk away. The edges of the city (about an hour or two hour walk) has the god awful walmarts, a mall, big-box grocery stores, etc. If we need something from there (which happens maybe three times a year) we use public transit (bus). The bus costs around $2.25 per trip.
My school is on the complete opposite end of town. If we had a car, it would take me 15 minutes to drive to school if I took the highway. Since I have to take public transit, it takes about an hour. I wait just outside my door for the bus that arrives between 7:40 and 7:50. It picks me up and drops me off at the station at 8:00 where I transfer to another bus. That bus leaves at 8:10 and arrives at 8:40 at the school. So I'm about 20 min early for my 9:00 classes. I do the opposite on the way home. I tend to read on the bus, or listen to the radio. It's nice and relaxing.
Now it's also bike season, and I use my bike a lot. Though not really to run errands. There's a good bike trail that goes right from one end of the town to the other. So, we don't really need a car. When we need to travel or visit our parents, we get a greyhound to toronto and then hop on a train, or plane. the greyhound leaves for Toronto about twice a day. There used to be a (national) passenger train that operated here for more than 100 years, but it stopped in the 1980s apparently (though the cargo trains still go through).
Or sometimes we rent a car--like for the wedding. We don't really feel we need a car at this point, but now that it's camping season, we're itching for one.
When I lived in Toronto for five years, it was the same. Having a car in that city is way more of an inconvenience than a convenience. Toronto and the GTA is a city of almost 6 million. The parking prices are outrageous, and the downtown there are more one way streets than racoons... and there is always construction, too! That city has a pretty good transit system, and fantastic bike routes. Toronto has a great "trip planner" right on the TTC website where you can type in your current address and your destination, and it will link-up the entire transit system to show you the best route to take (between street cars, buses, and the subway).