The Beauty of a Working Public Transportation System
The ultimate freedom of moving through an efficient city
Transportation, for the entire history of mankind, has always been a challenge. This challenge is hinged on a question: How do we get from point A to point B without too much hassle, and in a quick enough fashion, to make it worthwhile?
This question has been at the center of the transportation dilemma since mankind first began devising ways he could avoid walking. Whether it was floating down a river on a raft, or taming horses to take them greater distances over land, mankind has been solving transportation issues.
Yet, as we’ve solved some transportation issues, we have created other ones. The expansion of cities and the separation of people from their core needs (food, labor, social opportunities, etc…) has contributed much to this. As much of a miracle it is that you can board your own private metal box on wheels, and cover 20 miles in 20 minutes (or less!), the amount of variables in the system has led to a multitude of new problems, including the modern conundrum of traffic.
Somewhere in the middle of the vortex that is modern life, there is public transportation. It is another miracle that our modern age has gifted us. Even the thought of serpentine trains snaking through underground caverns beneath our cities makes me feel like I’m living in a science fiction novel.
A subway system that works is an incredibly beautiful thing. No need to park your car or curse as your bus gets stuck in traffic. All you have to do is flippantly coast into one of these underground chambers and, minutes later, emerge into the sunlight of a brand-new world.
At peak of day in Barcelona or Vienna, for instance, you might only have to wait 6 minutes or so for the next train. The fact that they can run trains this frequently, inside a fairly large network, makes it actually work for people’s practical transportation purposes. In fact, it’s often faster than driving. Contrast this with an average American city, where it can regularly take 3 or 4 times as long to take public transportation. If you have a job to get to, public transport is basically out of the picture.
Plus, it’s safer. It’s no secret that getting into your car puts you at risk for a wide variety of terrible collisions. If a collision doesn’t injure you (or worse), then it will likely ruin your day. If it’s your fault, then you’ll pay for it for years to come.
Sometimes it’s a question of who’s riding the transport. In the month of August, I rode countless buses and trains in the Denver area. I found that almost every city bus wasn’t frequented by the general populace, but instead by those at the end of their rope—financially, emotionally, socially. Those who could avoid riding it did, and to everyone’s detriment.
Public transportation requires, well… the public. If it becomes a bare-bones effort for covering the city for those on the fringes of society, it will remain just that. If you’ve ever sat at a bus stop in god-knows-where waiting for your connection, checking the times frantically so you don’t miss the next bus, you know a little slice of how it feels to be slowly broken down by your circumstances, especially when it comes to the simple act of getting where you need to go.
So when I miss a train in Vienna, glancing at the screen to see another approaching in 5 minutes; I can appreciate that I’m no longer that other guy in Denver a few months ago, strategically positioning himself in a sliver of shade as the bus slowly inches its way towards him—a bus likely delayed by onboard fights, homeless people slowly inching their carts through the aisle ways, and traffic jams.
Some might reply that driving solves those problems. But driving is stressful in its own way. Following directions, staying attuned to the road, being cut off or distracted—not to mention the horrors of traffic—all compounded by the need to own and care for your own vehicle.
True freedom, I think, might be a public transit system (metro, trains, buses, and the like) operating like a well-oiled machine. To be transported through space and time without worries, arriving where you need to go and moving forward the cogs of your life without hindrance. Gliding on a train, the movement is reassuring, dreamlike, almost. You can read, zone out, converse, close your eyes, people watch: whatever you fancy.
And that is the beauty of public transportation. It is personal freedom granted by transportation systems built at a grand scale, the pleasure of movement encapsulated in the modern marvels of engineering.
There is nothing quite like the fast train network in China. It's a mountainous country. From Guangzhou to Chongquing you seem to spend half the time underground. It's a very long way from Guangzhou to Chongqing. The stations have been built to a standard that is exemplary. Here is a country with a can-do attitude. One must see to believe.
Inspirational piece of writing too.