Bonnie Valentine loves the getDowntown Program!

I’ve decided to share my passion for public transportation in hopes of encouraging you to curb your car. It was through the getDowntown Program that I’ve reduced our household to only one vehicle by using public transportation. The benefits are too many to list. Therefore, I’ve narrowed it down to my top ten list.

For those of you who know me I love to create my own lyrics to popular tunes, but this proved to be extremely difficult for me to communicate my lyrics via the Blog posting. However, if you get the opportunity to sit next to me on the bus I’d gladly hum a few bars. Without further ado, drum roll please:

A final blog post from Patti Smith, who attempted to use her car less this summer . . .

Well! Another summer almost at an end! At the beginning of the summer, I aimed for an almost car-free season. While I didn’t do as well as I wanted, I still did better than I thought I would.

Things I learned:

• One of the main issues with taking the bus or riding a bike is that you have plan well. For instance, we had a party in July and I rode my bike to the store to get what we needed. An hour before guests were to arrive, I noticed that I needed one more ingredient. My choices were either to not have the ingredient (which would have meant less food), ride my bike and get back to my house after guests arrived or drive my car. I drove my car and grabbed what I needed. Next time, I will be more prepared.

• One needs a lot of time when traveling by bike or bus. This is probably quite obvious, but I never really thought about it prior to my summer experiment. Fortunately for me, the #5 bus stops almost right in front of my house. Unfortunately, I have lousy timing and always seemed to just miss it. Fortunately, another one would come by soon, but it still would delay me a bit.

• Health issues can wreak havoc on one’s best intentions. For the past two years or so, I’ve been plagued by profound fatigue. I finally found a doctor who wanted to help me and I learned that I have something called sleep hypopnea. Now that I have my CPAP machine, I am not so tired. But before that, I would think about riding my bike somewhere and just feel so exhausted that it was not possible for me. This, along with lifelong asthma, sometimes thwarted my plans.

Some triumphs:

• I had many “car free” days this summer. I even had one stretch where I didn’t drive my car for three or four days. I missed driving it, but I was kind of happy to give the car a little break.
• I rode my bike more than I thought I would, including a fairly long ride out to the beer fest in Ypsilanti. I also walked a number of times, including a few walks from downtown to my house (over 3 miles—feels like 12 in the hot sun).
• I found that I kind of like the bus. It has air conditioning and is fun for people watching.

All in all, I didn’t do too badly. Next summer, I hope that my sleep issues will be resolved (or at least still under control) and I may do better. I have had a blast blogging for Get Downtown and I want to thank my friend, Nancy Shore, for giving me the opportunity. My next goal is ride my bike, at least a little, throughout the fall and winter. So if you see a brunette slipping and sliding along Packard Road, that may very well be me!

See you on the roads!!

[another post from Patti who's blogging for us this summer.  Read her other posts here and here.]

I am one of those people who will always drive to work. There are many reasons for this, namely that teacher jobs are extremely scarce (between 200-10,000 applications per position), I actually want to teach in the district I’m in and, and perhaps most importantly, I tend to burn bridges when I leave a job. If I worked where I live, then I could feasibly run into someone who I once worked with and that would be awkward, to say the least. Also, I need at least a half hour to morph from MorningPatti into TeacherPatti.

Commuting is not a dirty word, nor should it be given the vast amounts of people who drive to work. One of the reasons that I asked my pal Nancy if I could blog for her was that I wanted to encourage other folks who drive to work to just do what you can. If you can’t walk to work, you can still easily be a responsible, environmentally-minded citizen, to wit, you can:

• Use alternative transportation for errands and other after-work events. This is what I have been doing much of this summer. Hop on the bus, walk or ride your bike to the drug store or the restaurant or the pub.
• Use alternative transportation on weekends or have “car free” days. On the weekends, my husband and I usually only use one car and sometimes no cars. You also get the joy of spending time with your loved one, as you drag him to the market, the food co-op, the pet store and a million other places he rarely visits on his own.
• Plot out your errands. On my way home from work, I will often do my errands so that my car (and the exhaust it would put out) can “sleep” and get itself ready for the next day. On weekends, I will plan my errands so that I can do them in one fell swoop and I try to stay to one side of town.
• If you are someone who walks to work or doesn’t drive far, please don’t be rude or condescending. I have had dozens people from Ann Arbor express dismay, outrage or just astonishment that I “commute” (and they always say “commute” like they are saying “smelly putrid underwear” and I must give props…no one from Ypsilanti, Saline, Dexter, Chelsea or any of the Detroit suburbs has ever given me grief). Please remember that jobs are gone in an instant these days and you too might, one day, end up in a car driving for an hour or two.
• Don’t beat yourself up! Just do what you can. We didn’t get into this climate change/peak oil mess overnight and we won’t get out of overnight either. Repeat to yourself: “do what you can” and you will probably be able to do more than you think!

Another post from Patti S. who’s telling us about her Almost Carfree Summer . . .

Whenever I ride my bike, I feel like I should have a sign on my back that says: Caution: Slow Rider! Or maybe a little happy face that says, “Thanks for not running into me!”. Whatever, I am a slow bike rider. I have ridden fairly steadily for two years now and while my stamina has increased, my speed has not (that I can tell). I inherited asthma from some grandparents, so my lungs don’t work as well as normal people’s do. Thus, I can’t do anything outside on days that are too humid or too cold. I cannot run (tried it once, had an asthma attack, almost went to ER) and most sports are not possible for me.

While I have had success in the bike riding department, hills just about kill me. Particularly, I loathe the Eisenhower hill over I-94. It is less than a mile from my house and I must ride it if I wish to go to my credit union or State Street or other places in that direction. To my credit though, I was in first gear and had to stop twice the first time I rode it. Now, I can make it up the hill and usually in fourth or fifth gear. So we are making progress, that hill and I.

I always keep hills in mind when I plan my trips. I do what I can to avoid the worst ones and suffer through the rest. Despite my distaste for hills, I think I’ve been doing pretty well in my “almost car free summer”. Let’s recap. I’ve biked to the farmers’ market every Saturday, I carpooled with a friend on two downtown trips, rode my bike to Hillers to do some light grocery shopping, rode my bike to Krogers later on to finish up shopping and I have ridden my bike for almost every event except for a late night Top of the Park, a trip downtown with my husband (he looked less than thrilled when I mentioned biking or buses, so we drove), two canning trips, and last week’s trip to see the Ann Arbor Civic Band. (I had my dog with me for that last one, and all I need is to tie him to the bike and have him see a squirrel…you’d see an Ann Arbor Chronicle Stopped. Watched. item that said “woman stuck in tree, dog eating squirrel, guts everywhere”.

So, so far so good. As the days get hotter and muggier, I will have to keep my health in mind when I plan my trips. Thanks for reading…and see you on the roads!

I’d like to welcome Patti Smith to the getDowntown blog!  Patti is going to be blogging about trying to go carfree this summer.  Patti is also a poster for Arbor Update and other stuff.  -Nancy Shore

Let me start by saying that I love my car. I’ve always loved my cars, starting with the first car that I ever had—a 5 year old black Dodge Omni with no air conditioning.

I still remember being 16 and when my first friend to get her license became my first friend to get her own car. We had to do some science experiment or another involving acids and bases. (I think the acids turned the paper red and the bases turned it blue, but I could be mistaken). My friend picked me up at my house and then we went to her house to do the experiment. When we were done, we wanted ice cream. And not just any ice cream; we wanted a Dairy Queen cone. Alas, the nearest Dairy Queen was a few miles away. But instead of having to beg a parent to drive us…my friend and I just hopped into her car and she drove us. At that moment, something in my life perception changed and I realized that once I got a car, I could go…anywhere.

A few weeks later, I got my own drivers license and possession of the used Omni. I fondly remember tooling around the fair cities of Troy and Sterling Heights that summer. Of course, it was hotter than anything that summer and of course, I had no air conditioning but the Omni had four wheels and a radio and really, what else does a 16 year old need? I drove that sucker until it flew off to whatever afterlife awaits cars that fall apart on Dodge Park Road. (A white Cordoba, black Dodge Shadow, blue Tempo, red Jeep and silver Jeep all followed—all of which are, as far as I know, playing harps with the Omni in Car Heaven).

I loved all of those cars and indeed still get a kick out of driving. You truly can go anywhere in this great country so long as you have the gas and the time and the patience. I still love nothing more than driving with the windows down and the radio blaring. So given this, it may seem strange that I asked my pal, Nancy, if I could guest blog on the Get Downtown website, a site that is dedicated to (among other things) alternate modes of transportation.

Well, there are a few reasons that I wanted to try a Summer That Is Almost Car-Free. First, in my pre-car heyday, I really loved riding my bike. I remember when the city of Troy opened its first Burger King within biking distance of my house. (In those pre-Fast Food Nation—and er, better metabolism—days, I could scarf down onion rings and shakes with the best of them). A few years ago, I decided to see if I could recapture the love of childhood by riding a bike. (Okay, first I tried roller skates. Not blades but actual “I’ve got a brand new pair of roller skates, you’ve got a brand new key” skates. After a few falls, I decided to try that another day). I got a bike and it’s been pretty good. I still have a hard time with the hills, but I’m getting better.

Second, I went to my doctor this past November. She said (quite rudely, in my opinion), “You’re too fat! Lose weight!” Now you must understand that I love to eat and I hate to exercise. Think of the thing you hate most in this world—traffic, the dentist, taxes—and multiply it by about a billion times and you still aren’t even anywhere close to how much I hate exercise. But, doctor’s orders so I figured I had to do something. For some reason, my brain registers bicycling as “transportation” and not “exercise” and so I don’t get crabby when I have to do it. This spares my husband a lot of whining, so everyone wins.

Third, those who know me know that I am “careful with my money”. Putting gas in the car literally sets my teeth on edge and I delight when I just put in gas for $2.84 and it is $2.87 down the street. Seriously, that will make my whole day. But on the whole, it pains me to have to literally pump so many of my hard earned dollars into my gas tank. So if I can save a buck, I’ll usually do it.

So! I have decided to try to reduce my carbon footprint, save money and save my booty from becoming to big by using alternate forms of transportation this summer.

I am someone who will never be able to walk or bike to work (more on that later) and I hope that I can encourage others who drive to work to join me. There is more to smart transportation than just how you get to work. To give this slightly different perspective, I will blog from time to time about what I am doing, how it is going and the like.

So! See you at the Route 5 bus stop!

With the Commuter Challenge nearing an end, I felt somewhat guilty boarding a plane for Memorial Day weekend. After all, the flight would probably send my carbon footprint through the roof, like following a juice diet with a stack of pancakes. Any headway I had made in saving the ozone would be totally blown; however, since there is no other way to get from Michigan to the east coast, I had little choice. So, as I am wont to do when overwhelmed by guilt, I made a conciliatory pact with myself: I’m not going to do any driving in Boston.

Anyone who has ever driven in Boston will recognize this as extremely self-serving. It’s like I promised myself an apology brownie.

The Google Map listing says it all: ‘slight right’ ‘jog right’ ‘hop right’—if you thought a “Michigan left” was difficult, The Bay State is not the place for you. It’s a cage match between sanity and cartography as you take your ninth trip around the Union Street roundabout, no longer wondering why everyone else is taking the train. A look at the map confirms your suspicions: the land is a mass of rivers and railroads, the highways comprised of lines around a focal point rather than a grid. The usual neat pattern of squares and right angles has been replaced with a crude sketch of a neuron. If your destination lies beyond a river, do not look for a bridge—it’s faster to look for a boat.

It doesn’t take many purple lefts before you reclaim the state motto. Massachusetts: You Can’t Get There From Here.

Unless, of course, you’re embracing the colonists’ favorite mode of transport. On foot, you can see most of the city in a handful of hours without the bothersome necessity of parking (which would cost you $20 and the time it takes to eat a midday meal). The city is only a few miles wide, so it’s not hard to cover it a few times over in good weather—and if the weather turns inclement, there’s always the T.

As much as I embrace public transportation in the Deuce, one thing we sorely lack is a subway. Every so often, I find myself missing the T—its soothing female voice, its logo, its smell. Granted, the smell is not a good one, but it permeates the brick-stepped corners of Boston and fills every available space between bagels and bus fumes. It’s like the smell of warm garbage that makes people love New York City in spite of it, because it’s a part of home—and it’s as much a part of the summer city as Kilwin’s waffle cones wafting down Liberty, or the curry cloud hanging over the library parking lot.

Not that it doesn’t have problems. The trains run on time, sure, but they still take nearly an hour from the terminus. If a game gets out, the cars will be so crammed with Sox jerseys you won’t be able to blink without touching three other people. And of course, the cardinal rule of the MBTA: Never take the orange line. Not even for one stop, not even to get to another line. Go upstairs and walk up the ziggurat to Park Street, even if it’s February, even if it’s a holiday, even if you have one leg. It will still take less time.

But I don’t care. I don’t care that I saw a cockroach as big as a cannoli while waiting for a train that still had wooden paneling. I’m not at all put out that the Newbury Street T stop has been under construction since February. And I don’t care that the fingers of the green line spread so far west that if you fall asleep on the E train, you could wake up in Albany.

Because it’s a sunny day, I have a coffee regular on the grass, and I’m not wasting petrol in the Roundabout That Time Forgot.

I saw a couple people out there, but not many. I have a prize for the person who comments here with the longest commute who rode in today’s rain (May 27). Bonus points if you include your tips for being/getting dry once you hit the office.

Personally, I think my REI “Plastic Pants” have reached the end of their tenure, as my khakis seem to be soaked as I write this.

When I read this Commuter Challenge Success Story, I was really blown away.  Ines works at the US EPA on Plymouth and explains in this story how the Commuter Challenge got her on her bike for the spring, summer, and even the fall.

Read Ines’ story to find out how she went from 0-1,000 miles as a result of the Commuter Challenge:

The Commuter Challenge made a big difference in my life and completely changed my outlook at using alternate modes of transportation. After the Challenge last year, I continued biking until November and put 1000 miles in my bike (most of these miles were commuting miles).

Before this, I have not used a bike in more than 10-12 years and I have never biked to work before (I have worked for the EPA 17 years). I also should mention that I had a bike accident toward the end of the Challenge (end of May). I was biking on a sidewalk and a car pulled out into the sidewalk from a business drive and the car and I crashed pretty bad. I didn’t get any serious injuries, so I was very lucky. I ended up in the emergency room and got a lot of bruises, but nothing major (no broken bones!). Again, I was very, very, lucky. The accident, however, didn’t stop me from continuing using my bike and, as I said before, I continued biking until November. After the accident, I ended up biking more on the street. I feel safer on the road, although I wish we had more bike lanes. My bike from home to work takes me through Packard, which has a bike lane that I really like. Then I usually go through town, through the Broadway bridge and then use the path along Plymouth Road to my destination at EPA.

Also, my husband and I use the bike all the time to go downtown. Sometimes we also walk (depending on how much time we have). I also tried the bus/bike option a couple of times, but realized that I can get to my destination faster if I just bike. We use Packard a lot, which has the bike lane, but additional bike lanes in town will make a big difference. (hint, hint….more bike lanes, please!!!). I should also mention that I ended up using my bike for pretty much everything I did last year from May to November. I did all my errands, grocery shopping, etc.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to starting biking again this year. I did stop during the winter. I have an old, heavy mountain bike and it was getting really hard to bike when it was windy last year. Also, when it started snowing, I didn’t feel safe on the streets. I have been shopping around to see if I should get a newer, lighter bike, especially if I commute to work. Not sure yet if I will change my bike. I recently got smoother (hybrid) tires, which might help a bit with my commute. Another improvement that I’m considering is a better (softer!) seat. Maybe with these minor improvements, I might not need to get a new bike. I really got attached to my old bike! I bet it has something to do with being together on the road for 1000 miles!

With a little bit of planning, I realized that I pretty much could do most of my errands on the bike. I can honestly say that my bike was my primary mode of transportation. I very rarely used the car. I always tried to make it work by biking, whenever I could. It was an amazing feeling to be able to do most of your trips with the bike — a feeling of freedom and independence — it felt so cool to be out there on the bike! I really, really, really enjoyed it — as you can probably tell by now.

Do you have a Commuter Challenge Success Story?  Email it to us at info@getdowntown.org

This post comes from Commuter Challenge Ambassador Jonathan from Inner Circle Media.

After the Bike-to-Work Day festivities this morning, I got talking to a friend of mine about biking in general. He sent me this YouTube clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcSD5MsQuVo

How excellent would it be to have one several of these in downtown A2? Much more space efficient than our current lockers, I’d think.

This Commuter Challenge Ambassador Blog Post comes from Riin over at the UM:

I admit it.  I’m a bit of a zealot.  I haven’t driven a car since 2002, so the Commuter Challenge isn’t really a challenge for me.  Instead it’s a chance for me to keep on doing what I normally do, and get points for it, and to tell people why they should be doing this great thing!

I love my commute!  How many people can say that?  I have a two part commute.  First I take the bus downtown, about a 25 minute ride, and then I walk the rest of the way, about a 15 minute walk.  I could take the bus all the way to work, but I like walking.  In the evening I just walk downtown and catch the bus home.

It’s perfect.  The walk gives me time to clear my head and get some exercise, and see things up close.  I can look at gardens and watch animals and look at all the great public art around town.  (One day I’ll take photos of all my favorite Ann Arbor public art to put on my blog, but so far I’ve been procrastinating…)

I love the bus for a lot of reasons, but the best thing about it for me is that it gives me time to knit.  There’s never enough time to do everything I want.  (I really could use a 48 hour day!)  I wish I had a lot more time to knit.  But twice a day AATA is kind enough to give me 25 minutes to knit.  The gift of time!  It is sweet!  And I relish it!

Ok, not everyone’s a knitter.  But a lot of people read on the bus, or study or do other things.  The point is, it’s free time! When you’re driving a car, all you can do is drive.  That’s all you should be doing anyway.  Yes, we’ve all seen people talking on the phone/eating/putting on mascara while driving, but that’s not safe.  Driving is not free time, and drivers who treat it as such are more likely to crash into something.

But you know what?  If you’re in another car and some idiot driver crashes into you, you’re likely to be hurt.  If you’re in a bus and an idiot driver crashes into the bus?  Ha.  Idiot driver’s going to get hurt, but you’re not.  So safety is another advantage of the bus.

And frankly I just didn’t enjoy driving.  I found it to be very stressful, always having to deal with other drivers cutting me off, not letting me merge, tailgating, and of course dealing with bad weather, poor visibility, bad road conditions, having to take time to put gas in the car and get oil changes, and the expense of the gas and the maintenance and the insurance and the registration and the constant repairs, always at least $300 (sure, the car was paid for, but I was still spending how much?).  It is so much easier (and cheaper!) to just take the bus.  Now I just leave the driving to the professionals and I have no stress.  If there’s a mechanical problem, another bus comes and we just get on that one.  Someone else takes care of all of the details, all of the problems.  Because really, all I want out of my transportation is something to get me from Point A to Point B.  I don’t want to deal with all of the stuff required to make it happen.

What first motivated me to stop driving years ago was when one day it just occurred to me while I was driving that I was contributing to air pollution.  It wasn’t just a vague, nebulous “cars” that were causing air pollution.  If I was driving a car, I was polluting.  Me.  Personally.  I was contributing to rising asthma and cancer rates.  Once I realized that, I just couldn’t keep driving.  The cognitive dissonance was getting too loud.  So I stopped driving.

I really enjoy life so much more without the car though.  I didn’t “give up” my car.  I found a better way to live.