I dont want to bore you with yet one more talk about the need for public transportation and how we must stop relying totally on cars -- in fact, in many cases, on two, three & four cars per family. I know that my talks will not change your behavior -- or even change my behavior.
I now own two cars now: one car here in America & one car in Southampton, England. Since I retired and decided to live in two countries, I have spent more time inside a car than I spent in the twenty years before I retired. I drive everywhere, and I drive long distances in America & long distances in Europe, & I drive somewhere almost every day in England.
Just the other day I was forced to take a bus to & from Southampton to Winchester in England: a half hour bus ride each way. What a pleasure; how wonderfully peaceful & relaxing.
I didnt do it by choice. I would have preferred to drive by car, but for a variety of reasons, I could not drive. I had to take a bus & as they say, leave the driving to us.
What a pleasure it was to not have to drive. I could relax, space out. They were driving; they were nervous; they had to concentrate.
You dont realize how tense you are in a car, even if someone else is driving the car you are in. You are often next to them in the front seat & you are, for all intents & purposes, driving the vehicle.
The bus I was on was one of those double decker busses & I was on the front seat, top deck. I was eye level with tree branches, looking down at the lovely surrounding countryside. It was so peaceful, so relaxing. Since I had nothing to do I could think about my life, I could think about this very talk I am now giving to all of you, I could think about whatever I wanted to think about. Or I could see the landscape I was passing through, and that was because I did not have to pay attention to the hair raising task of driving a car.
Good, frequent, public transportation is a blessing, a plus that could make our geographically spread out, hectic lives, more pleasant. In many ways, having to drive a car everywhere is a curse. Driving, once upon a time, was a pleasure. Driving, nowadays, on congested roads full of crazy drivers is a chore, a death defying chore: 50,000 people are killed on American roads every year.
You dont realize it. Often I do not realize it. Public transportation can be a blessing. I wish America was blessed with more & more, & more frequent, means of public transportation.
Copyright © 2004 Henry Morgenstein