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Tuesday, January 6. 2009

Dreaming of the 934

Just woke up from the strangest dream. I had taken a bus somewhere, the original destination already forgotten, realized I had gone too far on the wrong line, got off — and the bus driver was letting the bus drive itself at that moment and got peeved because he was forced to go to the front of the bus — and then decided to walk back to where I needed to be.

And got lost.

When it became so absurd reality could no longer be dismissed, I decided to ask for directions, except that all the people living in the neighborhood were Hispanic, very few of who spoke understandable English. Dammit! I wish I had learned Spanish!
 You have to wonder about a person who has to be forced to accept reality in his dreams.

After being led through a succession of dark buildings and darker rooms, I was taken to a patio sparsely lit by the waning sunlight. It was an overcast day and the waves were choppy on San Diego Bay. The bay was somehow recognizable, but still I couldn’t put my finger exactly on my location.

Trains came through and the other men, there were few women, would play chicken with the trains and then look at me as if I should join in the fun. I stood in the back and watched.

The leader, and toughest guy in the room, was a cop, and he was very much a macho type, knew he was the alpha dog in the room and treated the situation accordingly. He didn’t pay any attention to me; his eyes were focused on the most attractive of the three (?) women and those two began their little dance of seduction. As seductions go, it didn’t last long and her clothing was off in a hurry. And then they disappeared to be alone.

It was then I began insisting they tell me where I could catch a bus and they kept pointing me to an isolated alley. Too paranoid for that, I tried calling a friend with my cell phone, but couldn’t get any reception.

Beyond the railroad tracks there was a busy street, so I decided to walk to it and see if there was a bus line. Once there, I could see it was Palm Avenue in Imperial Beach. There had to be a bus line, the 933/944, which would take me to the Palm Avenue Trolley Stop!
 I just looked it up!

And yet, I got on a weird contraption of a thing that only allowed passengers to stand as it rolled down this micro-size railroad, heading east. While this was happening I couldn’t believe I had taken that mode of transportation and not waited for a bus.

And then I woke up. It was 2:15 in the afternoon and I realized my window for going out had closed substantially. Going out, relying just on a bicycle and the public transit has limitations you might not even consider, one of which is, do you want to get back before it gets dark? Me, I hate pedaling home in the dark so getting home before the streetlights come on is important and at 2:30 p.m., I’ve got, at best, 2.5 hours to do my thing and get home.

Not to mention, it takes a good thirty minutes before I am cognizant enough to actually do anything. Generally, after just waking, I’m groggy, losing my balance and bumping into things. If it didn’t occasionally hurt, this would be funny. I’ll sit at my computer and stare at Spencer Scott’s nude form — or maybe Colleen Marie’s — waiting for full and complete consciousness.

To leave the house by 7 a.m. to make it to work by 9 a.m., I need to be “awake” no later than 5:30 a.m. It takes that long for me to gain complete consciousness, and then get showered, make my breakfast and lunch and then get out the door.

This week, thankfully, I don’t have to be at work until noon. Work is slow. So, I’ll be plenty awake before heading out the door. I’ll even have breakfast at home first.

The topic though isn’t waking up or looking at nekkid Playmates — although that’s always a great topic for me — or even dreams, although this was a pretty weird dream. No, the basis of the dream, an activity I have been involved in for well over a year now, is taking the bus — public/mass transit.

Right now, the cost of gasoline is well under $2.00 a gallon everywhere, including here in San Diego so most Americans aren’t even thinking about giving up their private motor vehicles for public transit. A few weeks ago while waiting for the #20 going to work, I had a conversation with a guy who was taking the bus downtown for jury duty.
 Told him he should have taken one of the real express buses since the #20 ends 15 blocks from the courthouse. He walked back to the Park-n-Ride, got in his super-size SUV, a Toyota Land Cruiser, and drove Downtown.

So, this man wasn’t taking the bus to save money on gas, he was doing so to avoid the high cost of parking your car for the day down by the courthouse. He was okay driving that gas-guzzling SUV everywhere since the price of gas was so low. It’s no stretch to believe most Americans feel the same way about driving their own vehicles as opposed to taking public transit.

But the thought for me is, wouldn’t this be the best time then to start pushing for more public transit and make it even cheaper? Like most other cities in America, san Diego is sucking wind financially and the infrastructure is falling apart, but one way to spur the economy is to do public works, like extending the San Diego trolley, adding more bus lines and have current lines — like the infamous #20 — run more frequently.

And then encourage citizens to use public transit.

Barack Obama and his various opponents in the presidential race talked, at least a little, about the energy crisis and even less about global warming. The talk was about reducing fuel consumption in vehicles and changing the type of fuel. What was disappointing was that none of them said anything about public transit, not locally and certainly not a national transit system.

They put all their eggs in the free market basket, ignoring the successful models of national and local public transit systems we can find in a variety of European and Asian nations. The closest we have to a national public transit system is Amtrak. Here in Southern California Amtrak runs the Surfliner between San Diego and Los Angeles. Other areas with close metropolitan centers have similar local Amtrak lines.

But that’s it. Americans are wedded to owning and using their own motor vehicles and to really make a difference, both in weaning ourselves from carbon fuels and making a dent in cleaning up our planet, public transit, both locally and nationally, has to be a major part of the puzzle.

Currently, I live about a mile from the nearest bus stop, a mile and a quarter if I’m coming home from the south. No one in a metropolitan area like San Diego should live more than a few blocks from either a bus or light rail stop. Also, I spend a large amount of time waiting for one particular connection. Without that wait, a trip home from work that takes at least 90 minutes would be shorter by 30 minutes.

If we make it accessible and feasible, the public would use it, once they realize just how much money they could save by leaving the car at home and taking the bus or trolley. Yeah, we might pay for it in taxes, but the overall savings would be undeniable.

Might even change our dreams. Did mine. That was the first dream I can remember that revolved around taking the bus. Maybe I lead a boring life.

Posted by Tim Forkes in Life at 00:01 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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