From: wallich@iti.org (Kenneth Wallich)
Newsgroups: ca.general
Subject: Re: Long Commutes (was Jumping the Good Ship California)
Date: 31 Aug 92 22:46:19 GMT
Distribution: ca

mludwig@bonnie.ics.uci.edu (Michael Scott Ludwig) writes:

>hahn@gigantor.nas.nasa.gov (Jonathan Hahn) writes:
>=In article <wallich.714172671@lupine> wallich@NCD.COM (Kenneth Wallich) writes:
>=>
>=>I think about [leaving] every day I drive into the smog from the Santa Cruz
>=>mountains.
>=
>=>  I doubt I'll be here
>=>in 5 years though.  The smog and traffic have gotten too depressing to
>=>live with in the long run.
>=
>=Did it ever occur to you that during your roughly 90+ minute daily
>=commute, you contribute more than your fair share of pollution and use
>=more than your fair share of (non-renewable) natural resources?
>=(Granted, you may not drive to work every day and may car pool.  If so,
>=congratulations;  but plenty of people commute individually from Santa
>=Cruz, San Francisco, etc. to the valley daily and I direct my comments
>=to them).
>=
>=In your post, you complain about the smog and trafic, but you cause
>=much more smog and traffic than the average valley person.  It is we
>=(valley people) who should be complaining.

Sure did.  I even mentioned that knowing I was contributing to the
smog was another reason I wanted to leave.  If I could simply
telecommute, I wouldn't even be complaining.  I can get everything I
need south of the valley, and never deal with the crowds.  I should
mention that the *weekend* traffic is worse than the slightly-
off-commute hour traffic I deal with.  I don't often come into the
valley on weekends, except to visit friends, but when I do the traffic
makes me want to never come back down.  

As far as creating *more* smog and traffic than the "average person" I
drive a motorcycle on this commute, every day except during the
occasional rain storms in winter, but then I usually commute with my
spouse.  If more people did that, we'd have less traffic, and since
I'm getting 40mpg on the bike, we'd be saving gas.  My particular bike
has much lower emmisions than most automobiles, so we'd also have less
polution.  I would complain that most of the "valley people" weren't
born and raised here as I was, but that's not the problem.  Paving
over the valley is the problem.  $250,000 for an extended cubicle with
a shower and your very own parking place is the problem.  Businesses
that rise up by the thousands and require people to drive in to work
every day instead of letting them work at home 3-5 days a week is the
problem.  Public transit systems that are little more than a joke and
bike/pedestrian hostile planning commisions are the problem.

I rode my bicycle to commute when I lived in the valley, but I
couldn't afford anything larger than a townhouse down there, so I
*had* to move further away just to afford to own a house.  I had to
*buy* a house, because I really wanted to have dogs and cats around
me, like I was able to do as a RENTER when I was a kid.  I also had
this problem with sharing walls with my neighbors, and having my
windows look in on their windows.  OK, I like my privacy.  I'm a
freak.  I don't fit in anymore.  Now perhaps I'm not allowed to choose
my own lifestyle *and* live in silicon valley.  If the local planners
hadn't insisted on paving every square inch of land in the valley,
then perhaps people like me would be able to stomach living there.  As
it is, there is just one big city stretching from Los Gatos/San Jose,
up past Berkeley and San Francisco.  Wretch.

>For those people who work in the valley and live on the other side of the
>hill, not only are there carpools and vanpools, but since a few days after
>the '89 quake, the Hwy. 17 Express bus has run between the Scotts Valley
>Park & Ride Lot and San Jose, approximately every 15 minutes
>peak-hours/peak-direction.  It's another reason why I have to wonder about
>the people that drive alone and complain about the peak-hour traffic on that
>four-lane highway.

>Not that the people who live and work in the valley should feel guilt-free
>driving alone - there are several mass-transit options available there.

I live *in* the mountains, not near one of the 'Express busses', and I
work in Sunnyvale.  If I drove the 15 miles *to* the Hwy 17 Express
(AWAY from the valley), and then took one of the "several
mass-transit" options to get from where it drops me off to work, it
would take 2-3 hours a day ONE WAY to get to work.  And this assumes
that I can then only work a few hours, then start my commute home.
I'd also never have the option of visiting a friend after work, since
none of these "options" run often or late enough to allow you to
devitate from the schedule.  Give me something flexible, and at least
as good as what I would have if I lived in Boston, and then I'll
consider feeling guilty.

I grew up in San Francisco, and I used public transit all the time.
What we have in the valley is not public transit.  It is at best a
shuttle bus for the small percentage of people in the valley who work
8 hours a day, and have no personal life outside of their jobs, or who
have chosen to give it up for the good of the state.

I rode both MUNI, and BART for years.  Both of these systems went from
where I was to where I wanted to go.  I refuse to feel guilt when our
public transit systems are designed, built, and managed by a bunch of
self-serving morons.  If we had BART circling the bay with a
reasonable system (instead of this butt-ugly raised wire light rail
fiasco) connecting the two sides of the bay accross 237, and 84, and
92.  Oh sorry, I'm describing most of Europe, and a lot of the East
Coast.  We can do it much better here.  Eventually.  When everyone
else moves away.  

So, I've waited 12 years now for companies to change their ways of
doing business to make commuting less of a problem, and to
decentralize.  I've even tried encouraging it from the inside,
generally to little avail.  So, I've decided that the only way to
change things is to change my career.  I'm learning skills I think are
more valuable to the environment, and will hopefully allow me to leave
the congested metropolis and make a living where I won't have to
commute, and I won't have to justify the various compromises I make so
that I can give myself the illusion of having control of my own
lifestyle.  The weather in the valley here is quite nice, I've become
quiet accustomed to it over my 31 years.  This isn't a good enough
reason for me to give up what *I* feel is important for *me*.  There
are still some areas as yet unpaved, but they are overrun by people
fleeing the pavement all year round.  

Once everything is crowded all the time, it no longer is a pleasure to
be here.  That is MY OPINION.  I can remember buying tickets for
concerts only a month or two before the concert went on.  Just 7 years
ago, I got tickets to a Billy Joel concert *the day before the
concert*.  Anyone try to get Jimmy Buffet tickets within *8 weeks* of
his concert?  I remember being able to buy tickets to plays without
having to be a season subscriber.  Last time there was a particular
play I wanted to see, I called (this was 4 days after it was
announced), and all 6 performances were sold out.  I realize that this
is just about the same everywhere there are concerts and plays now, so
I am either going to have to adjust (I've tried, I can't make myself
fit that mold), or change my lifestyle to one where lower
concentrations of people are more important than being able to see the
lastest road show of "Phantom".  I remember being able to go to a good
resturant between 12:00 and 1:00 on weekdays, or for dinner on Friday
and Saturday without being told "it will be about 45 minutes".
Certainly, some people will think this is just fine, and that planning
everything ahead of time is great, and makes them more organized, and
they really, really like it here despite all the perceived problems.
Fine.  Stay here.  Die here.  I really don't care.  Just don't play
"holier than thou".  Some of have enough brain cells left to weigh the
pros and cons all by ourselves and to make our very own decisions of
how we think we should best live our lives.  If you don't agree, your
free to say so.  Don't berate us for what some of us consider an
unacceptable situation, just because you consider it acceptable.

I'm not going to wine about the endless self-proclaimed experts who
want to tell me what a bad person I am for buying a house far away
from work, or for not working from 7am to 5pm every day so I could
take advantage of the great services provided by our government, or
the extra chocolate ration we got last week.  Did you know we are at
war with Eastasia?  Always have been.  Or was that Iraq?  Or Iran?
Gee, I just can't keep it straight anymore.  Someone asked quite
innocently if other people were thinking of leaving this heaven on
earth, and many people who felt it had become a less than ideal place
replied.  Of course, this being the helpful and loving net that it is,
we can't have any strong opinions without people telling us why the
choices we've made are wrong, and exactly how we can fix our lives up
to be *just like them* and be happy and carefree the rest of our days.
I could bitch about all this, but as I said, I won't.




--
Ken Wallich
wallich@ncd.com  
ken@wallich.com
Newsgroups: ca.general