While my mother was in town (she left on Friday), I was trying to make at least one jaunt out of the house per day in the car, just to build back up the sitting strength for that position. In trying to find errands to run, we decided it would be a good idea to get oil changes for Joelle and my car’s - it had been a while for both.
I knew we didn’t drive a lot, but after looking at our paper work to figure out when we last changed our oil, this is getting ridiculous:
- My car: It had been 9.5 months since my last oil change, and I only went 1800 miles. My manufacturer (Saturn) recommends every 3 months/3000 miles. So on the mileage number, I still had a while to go.
- Joelle’s car: It had been about 14 months, 3500 miles. Her manufacturer (Scion) recommends every 5 months/5000 miles. So she also had a ways to go, and it had been a year-plus (a little before we were married!)
How do we drive so little?
- Both of us bus to work every day
- Grocery shopping is mostly done around our neighborhood (Queen Anne, Seattle) - Trader Joe’s, Safeway, and Metropolitan Market (and 7-Eleven, while we are at it, though we never go there) are all within 4 blocks - so we walk to all of them
- Most dinners, by ourselves or with friends/family, are on Queen Anne Ave or at our house
- Even our doctors are either 5 blocks from home or right by work. Some of the specialists I saw were a little farther away, so for those, we did drive.
- Given my back situation, I haven’t driven a car in 3 months! That helps keep things down :) Looking forward to getting back into the swing of things…
Needless to say, the rising gas and oil prices hasn’t had a major impact on our direct budget, thankfully. Chalk one up for the urban density crowd!
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I tend not to drive too much (been big into bussing and walking), or head in towards South Lake Union’s direction much these days, so I almost never see the new South Lake Union Streetcar (it used to be called the South Lake Union Trolley or SLUT in the Seattle jargon until the politicians figured out the abbreviation).
This evening, on the way back from a friend’s Bachelor Party dinner, I happen to drive by the SLUT, not once, but twice (traffic was pretty bad, so I was stuck not moving in time for it do a back and forth).
Each time, there was exactly one rider on it - trust me, I looked closely to see if I could find anyone else on there. There was also no one waiting at the SLUT-stop.
Which further proves my thoughts on the whole thing to begin with. I love the idea of more mass-transit, and would love to get to a place where cars aren’t needed anymore. But for this mass-transit to make sense, it actually has to go places where people need it - and not between the mishmash of blocks they threw the current lines down on. Expand it to the U-District or Capitol Hill (or Eastlake), and I can see the lines being used. But as is - I don’t even understand why those single riders were even on it.
I know I am not alone among my friends and co-workers (most of whom are frequent bus riders) — no one seems to like the current rendition of the streetcar or understand it’s point. Though to be fair, most of them are secretly wanting to go for a spin, if only so they can scream out "I rode the SLUT and the city encouraged it!"
Actually, I want to be able to say that too! I should go for a ride soon :)
Maybe the name is how they’ve crossed the 100000 rider milestone (according to http://www.seattlestreetcar.org/)… people are so full of laughing about the system they actually want to ride it. Funny how these things turn out.