How You Get There
While attending the University of Minnesota for the past two years, riding the bus was a necessity: walking would leave you exhausted, and you would go broke driving. Getting around the Twin Cities without owning a car also required an extensive knowledge of the transit system, as well as gratitude for the U’s highly-discounted bus pass.
As a result, I love busses to a rather silly degree. I thrill in comparing bus designs, critiquing drivers, and watching passengers. I can waste fifteen minutes examining schedules for routes I will likely never take, so that someday, on the small chance the information becomes useful, I will feel smart.
It wasn’t until my last semester at the U that I bought a bike. Now I wish I had those two years back. After about six months of riding – after rarely riding as a kid – I can confidently proclaim: two wheels good, four wheels bad. Cruising past gridlocked cars proclaiming my freedom from fossil fuels rocks. My bike does not fight traffic; it is traffic.
On a recent trip from my downtown Rochester apartment to UCR, one driver in particular did not agree with this assessment. Going east on College View Road by the Heintz Center, a short stretch of the road has no shoulder. Although my bike has the same legal rights as a car to use the lane, the SUV behind me apparently thought it was too long to wait. He madly honked and wildly accelerated at me; I swerved into the gutter and almost crashed, but barely recovered to stay rubber side down.
Although Rochester has been recognized as being a bike-friendly community, this is not entirely true if you want to use your bike to actually go anywhere. Our recreational paths are great for a Saturday with the kids, but that’s about all. One of the best ways to change this is undoubtedly to increase the number of people using two wheels for transportation. Students are the most frequent bicyclists in the United States – so what better time to make the switch than the beginning of school, whether you’re a student yourself or just want to teach others a lesson about sustainable transport.
Perhaps the place where bicycle commuters are most needed is the University Center. RCTC’s main campus is served by four main parking lots, each of which dwarfs the size of the academic buildings, but only a handful of bike racks. Even though the campus is easily accessible by bike from the city; there is a bike path (via 8-1/2 Street) for those uncomfortable on the road.
Of course, biking isn’t a possibility for everyone, and a bus route also serves the college – Route 3 from downtown. Because I can bike almost everywhere, I hadn’t used the bus in Rochester for a couple months after moving here. I was ashamed of this fact, but solved the problem by taking the bus on one of July’s near-100-degree days. It was the best 10 minutes of my summer – so cold! I imagine the opposite effect in winter will be just as thrilling, especially when comparing the seemingly endless walk from the back of the UCR parking lot versus being dropped off at the door.
Rochester’s major high schools, in addition to serving a large and growing number of bicyclists, are all served by transit, too:
Mayo HS– Route 5
John Marshall HS – Routes 9 and 10
Century HS – Route 16
Anyone 18 or under pays a half price fare, and RCTC students can buy even further reduced passes. Rochester transit system is far from modern (as evidenced by the rochestercitylines.com website), but again, increasing demand will likely be an effective push toward change.
After the stress of school or work, there is no good reason to want to perpetuate that stress by getting behind the wheel of a car. For those of us who stress about reducing our footprint, we should consider that merely buying a more “fuel-efficient” car without changing our lifestyle is the equivalent of clipping toenails. The root of the problem is not which car we drive, it’s car culture itself.
Leaving the artificial comfort of an automobile can be scary at first, but ultimately liberating. I refuse to make any concession to the enraged SUV driver, but during heavy traffic I now take quiet UCR Parkway (behind the soccer fields) instead. It’s prettier, and the roundabouts give a small taste of a slower, slightly less car-centric transportation network. We don’t need to wait for government bureaucracy; we can act directly by ditching our automobiles. RCTC’s corny-but-everlasting slogan – “it’s not where you go, but how you get there” – is actually true.
Brian Hokanson | bjhokanson at gmail.com