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J.A. Montalbano: Day Five: Our city may not have the best public transit system, but it can be preferable

The Cure for the Common Car

By J.A. Montalbano
Saturday, May 26, 2007

A funny thing happens when you get out of your car to navigate the city: You see the people who live all around you.

You don't just see them. You talk to them. You lean against them on a crowded bus. You smell them.

You wave them down when you're late to the bus stop and just don't want to miss that ride. You need them. You thank them.

Don't get me wrong; there were times this week without a car that I yearned for the cocoon of my Honda, my own space. In my car I'm in charge of the route, and I get to fiddle with the radio buttons.

But in my week without a car, I felt connected to the community, in and out of my comfort zone. And I showed that using alternative transportation is possible a lot of the time and even preferable some of the time.

I can hear folks up in the Northeast Heights, down in the South Valley and out on the West Side scoffing. Yes, the public transit system in Albuquerque is limited, both in reach and in the hours it keeps. And I don't know what needs to come first: more demand or improved service to lure more commuters.

But at this point, people need to move to the transportation hub. If you really want to ditch your car, move to a neighborhood with a range of businesses and access to the bus and train and the bike paths.

I tried all three. What was the best? I liked biking because it was free and certainly healthy. It was my fastest commute of the week. And the trails and bike lanes might have the farthest reach of any mode of transportation.

Some would say the bike/bus combination is best. Several people told me they bike downhill and bus uphill. You can put your bike on a rack in front of the bus. But on Thursday at Central and Girard, I saw a man who had to let a bus go on without him because the racks were full. Buses can hold only two or three bikes. Is the city ready for a significant change?

There's no denying that an alt-transit lifestyle is time-consuming and physically demanding. Even on the days I took the train or bus, I was tired at the end of the day. Plus the longer commute sure can cut into a guy's nap time.

Even on Friday, my free day, I couldn't find time to nap. I rode the bus all morning. It was fairly uneventful. I figured I should cross the Rio Grande at least once. The only time I really took notes was when I noticed the preponderance of food-industry workers on the Route 155 bus on northbound Coors. I saw uniforms from Wendy's, Cracker Barrel and McDonald's. And there was a waiter wearing his black apron and double-checking his server's notebook.

What I learned by going to the east and west extremes of the city is that I have just about everything I need within a one-mile radius. That's a 16-minute walk.

I wanted to complete the week on foot, and who better to walk with than Don Schrader, the ubiquitous lightning rod of the University Area. No car, newspaper boy? Schrader hasn't even accepted a ride in an automobile for the past six years or so.

He keeps a list of destinations and the amount of time it takes to walk to them. It's 27 minutes to La Montanita Co-op, which he visits nearly every day. It's 50 minutes to the voting-machine warehouse; 94 to Jo-Ann Fabrics on San Mateo.

"Walking is a way to slow down life," Schrader said. "It's a time to think, to meditate, to ponder. To take it in."

Like most folks this weekend, Schrader is making the rounds of cemeteries to pay tribute to friends and loved ones. On Friday afternoon, we made the 15-minute trek to Fairview Cemetery at Yale Boulevard and Avenida Cesar Chavez. He says he has explored the grounds often, paying respects, noshing at its peach tree.

A cemetery worker walked the rows of one section placing American flags at the graves of veterans. Schrader visited the grave of a friend and those of a few others he knew.

True to his nature, he took me to see the gravesite of a political lefty. "Charles A. Bird, 1854-1926: Here lies the remains of a class conscious socialist."

We wandered to the various parts: the Greek and Jewish sections; the rows of babies; the disintegrating area with graves that go back to the 19th century; the white headstones of those who served in the two World Wars; families cordoned off together, like the one fenced in with pink wrought-iron.

A community gathered in one modest resting place.

One epitaph seemed to bring my week full circle. It read: "Let me sit by the side of the road and be a friend to man."

Length of commute (compared with a 10-minute car ride): What commute?

Cost: $2 for the bus; walking is free.

Reading done: Sixty pages in "Crime and Punishment." I've still got a ways to go.