What’s Your Preferred Method of Transit?

In this week’s Q&A, New Raleigh wants to know how you prefer to get around town: car, bike, bus, or legs? While many of our writers have found alternative transporation surprisingly reliable and even liberating, others of us still cling tightly to the safety and private road rage provided by our own four wheels.

Ben

Believe it or not, I’m a big fan of driving around Raleigh.  Yes, yes, I also love to walk and bike and rollerblade and jog, etc., but when it comes to really getting around, I’m a big fan of the ol’ automobile.

This answer does, however, deserve a disclaimer.  My affinity for driving about town does not indicate a similar affinity for any of the following: car exhaust pollutants, bad drivers, traffic jams, SUVs, monster trucks, American car companies, classic autos, or global warming.  I’m not a car buff.  I just enjoy driving.

I take great pride in telling my out-of-town friends that I can start at my father’s house at Wakefield in North Raleigh and spend about an hour driving southward without ever leaving the city.  I find something cool about this fact.  It adds, I guess, to the infant, yet ever-growing character of the city   It’s because of this vast (perhaps it’s sprawl, but we can make do) nature of the city that I choose my trusty Toyota as my favorite method of transport.

And as a closet introvert (oxymoron? redundant?), it’s only in my car by myself where I can get around without interacting—directly—with many others.  You could argue, yes, that of course I’m dealing with others, as there are thousands of other cars on the road at any given time.  I, however, find that the barrier created by the leather and metal of my car provides for me a satisfying disconnect for a beat. 

Additionally, it’s only in my car where I can simultaneously travel and indulge in the intellectual bath of NPR on WUNC.  Or in the too-hip-for-mainstream playlist of WKNC.  Or in the subtle fedora-and-sunglass sounds of WSHA… that, however is another Q&A.

Brian

Since I returned to Raleigh a few months ago, my transportation in town has been good old-fashioned bi-pedal locomotion.  I took the #6 to work in the wasteland for a couple of months, and I occasionally still hop a bus when I need to get someplace quick, but walking is my preferred mode.  Almost everyone looks at me pityingly when I say that
I walk to get around. They make a big deal about how it’s easy to get a cheap bike, and “Isn’t there a bus that goes right by your house?” But I say if you aren’t going far (and, honestly, there isn’t far to go) there are things you’ll experience walking that you just don’t get otherwise—even on a bike.

One of the best things I’ve spotted while walking was a great two-fronted car in a lot up behind Finch’s.  I don’t know if it’s still there, but I DO know I never would’ve seen it had I been flying by on a bicycle.  I have also enjoyed playing spot-the-difference at the Boylan Bridge Brewpub on my walk home. (Every day there’s some new addition making it look closer to opening, but you sometimes have to look close to find it.)

There are so many cool things to see in Raleigh off the thoroughfares, and I know that as soon as I buy a bike my pace is going to pick up and I’ll start taking less and less time to look for them.  I’m going to hold out as long as I can.

Aislinn

I lost my car to a large Canadian deer in the spring of 2007, and I’ve been living in Raleigh without motorized transit since last fall.  I like riding my bike everywhere because a) it makes it easier to see Raleigh as a happy little bikeable community, which isn’t always true but I like to pretend it is, and b) it’s challenging in a city with so little bike infrastructure, so I get a self-satisfied feeling whenever I go somewhere.  I realize these reasons conflict with each other.  Maybe that’s why biking is so addictive—I’m compelled to do it no matter how I’m feeling about Raleigh.

Jedidiah

I moved back from London in February of 2005 and have lived in downtown Raleigh since. Riding buses and walking everywhere was the norm in the big city, but reality set in when landing, and the first thing I did when I moved back was buy a car. Luckily, I have always always lived within 2 miles of the Capitol building and haven’t had to use my car very much, except on various trips outside the grid.

I use the walk/bike/bus triumvirate as much as possible. Bus this way. Bike that way. Walk the rest of the way. I can pop my bike on the front of the bus, take it halfway to my destination, jump off and bike the rest of the way. The same goes for walking/taking the bus.  I enjoy overlapping a few or all three of these modes of transportation on any day of the week. Sometimes a short trip through the city feels likes a triathlon, but without the long distance, spandex outfit and exhaustion. This will only get better as the Downtown Circulator comes into use next week.

Biking, walking and taking the bus each provides a different perspective on downtown Raleigh, but all three allow for a more tangible experience of the city and its hardware. The exercise is therapeutic and transit is so much more textural and sensual when on foot, bike or bus. But you’ve all heard this before. Nevertheless, full force urbanity!

Brittain

I drive a car, but my soul rides a motorized scooter. I don’t believe that this situation developed from a dislike of the automobile, or even bad experiences while driving my car, which I have affectionately named “Captain Midnight” and kept as my steed ever since I was 16. (No need to put the children to bed, the name “Captain Midnight” came from the bunny rabbit that they keep as the communal pet in the county nursing home in Canadaigua County, New York.)
I believe that my soul has riden a fictional scooter for all of eternity. Perhaps it is the open air or the falsetto drone of the 50 cc engine that binds my being to the little bike. There is a dignity and cool composure in the posture of a scooterist that is matched by no other mode of travel. The motorcyle might come close and dirt bikes are tempting, but I believe magic occurs when one is able to keep his feet planted flat on the little floor of a scooter while still moving right along with the flow of traffic, give or take 10 or 15 mph.
Unfortunately, I do not ride a scooter around Raleigh. In fact, I don’t own one, and have never even ridden one. But I do BELIEVE in them. I believe they exist and I believe that my belief will not disappoint me. I must hold tightly to these beliefs in a world like Raleigh’s, as me and the “Captain,” a four-wheel drive SUV, make our rounds around town, or else the dream might become nothing more than a dream. I am willing to do what it takes to protect this dream, and so if you seem me out on the roads, in an all black Jeep but donning a white, open-faced helmet that one might wear when rightfully perched upon the scooter of their destiny, just know that it is the DREAM that’s safe.

Tim

I just moved a little closer to downtown, right beside a bus stop, and smoothly made the transition from my personal vehicle to the CAT bus. I’ve heard for years that the buses are unreliable and never on time, but seriously, what bus have those folks been riding? Sure it has only been a week now, but thus far it has been like clockwork. I’m out of my door and to my office in ten minutes flat, approximately as long as it took me to walk from where I used to park my car after my short but cumbersome commute. I can even shoot home to cook lunch and be back within my lunch hour. My bickering about the state government being unable to provide their employee of two years with one of the most basic needs, a parking space, has faded into praise of the GoPass they provide for me free of charge. Come warmer weather, though, I’ll be embracing “good old-fashioned bi-pedal locomotion” as Brian put it. I’m looking forward to sauntering to and from work and then running to the gym and back. Most of all, I’m looking forward to not driving for days, extending the life of my car and reducing my carbon footprint.

David

Raleigh is a town that will make you love your car.  While many of the other writers are able to do it, I don’t see how I could live in Raleigh without a car.  Not that I haven’t tried; there have been many cold mornings where I cycled to my North Raleigh job from my place ITB—7 to 10 miles.  But that doesn’t work if I have to show up looking decent or carrying heavy photography equipment.  You have never been tested until you ride up Creedmoor Road in the rain—the drivers acting like you have no right to be there—and see how close the cars can come without actually hitting you.  The narrow section of Six Forks is particularly harrowing, as are many Raleigh streets that are barely wide enough for two lanes. Impatient drivers are likely to pass without waiting for a safe opportunity.  So, yes, I love my car; it’s the thing that allows me to live and work and enjoy the best that Raleigh has to offer.