![]() ![]() What has surprised me, however, was my discovery that because our public transportation system is designed primarily to bring people from all over the valley to downtown Salt Lake where I live, I can take a bus to get almost anywhere I need to go. You just don’t get that kind of conviviality when you are alone in your own car. Within 30 seconds of sitting down next to one friendly fellow, he was explaining his mental illness and its associated treatments. ![]() Yes, it is true that you meet the most interesting people on the bus. ![]() I confess, now that I’ve joined and rides up to one hour are free to me, I’ve ridden them often for just a few blocks because it is faster than walking. The bikes have cute and functional baskets into which I can drop my laptop and I’m on my way. I just wave my card over the lock, pull the bike from the rack and ride. ![]() There are, I’m not kidding, three rental stands within 250 yards of our building, each in a different direction, so almost anywhere I’m headed there is a bike stand on my way. Early in the month, I joined Salt Lake’s Green Bike sharing program. (The IRS would allow me to deduct about $57 for that round trip.) The round trip fare from Salt Lake to Ogden is about $10 per person, cheaper than operating a car, even with two people. We were planning to use it to visit friends in Ogden (about 50 miles north of Salt Lake City) but they canceled on us, so we didn’t go. In the spirit of full disclosure, we did not actually use FrontRunner during our month-long experiment, though we have used it in the past. The Wasatch Front in Utah features a commuter rail system known as FrontRunner. The Utah Transit Authority has said the discount will expire, but they’ve said that before and then extended the expiration date. While the standard rate for a trip is $2.50, anyone can purchase a fare card that provides a discount of 20%, reducing the effective fare to $2.00. This month, we used it more regularly as an alternative to our car for longer trips and found it convenient and easy. We even live within the “Free Fare Zone” so we pay nothing to ride the train in any direction for up to a mile and we often do (we always have). With lines sprawling all around the valley, including a direct line to the airport from our home, it is a powerful, eco-friendly way to get around. Within 100 yards of the front door of our building is a Trax stop, our local light rail line. While we didn’t and still don’t walk miles and miles every day, we’ve been walking to many meetings and for lots of errands for the 12 years we’ve lived downtown. Note that, because we live right downtown, we can walk to many of the places-including a grocery store-that others would drive to. That said, as the month progressed, we got better about optimizing other forms of transportation and didn’t experience quite so much additional walking. In January or July, that will not be the case. In October, when the weather is ideal for walking, that was easy. When comparing a public transit option under two miles, we discovered that sometimes it’s just faster to walk. We definitely found ourselves walking more, especially at first. We never really thought of Amazon as reducing our dependence on cars, but looking back at our month without a car, it clearly has had a big impact on the number of outings we need to make. For years, we’ve been buying almost everything we can from Amazon. The list of tools we use to make this possible follows, along with some commentary and anecdotes about our experiences with each. ![]()
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