(Pardon the delay as I said I'd publish blogs every Thursday. It's a learning process to keep up with regular blogging, and thanks for the patience.)
"It is not the destination that is important, but the journey there." -Proverb
Think about it - after work and sleep demand so much of everyone's 24 hours per day, transportation is one of the next in line of things we devote our time to. In my typical week when I was still in school, the breakdown is as follows:
- 30 minutes per trip for two trips getting to and from school (as I was fortunate enough to live decently close to the nearest public university) for Monday through Friday
- Another 30 minutes per day for pedestrian trips throughout campus: walking to and from classes along with the occasional pedestrian trip to another hall to print an Excel workbook, as well as the weekly excursion to purchase boba tea
- An additional 20 minutes navigating to another destination, like an in-person visit to the bank to transfer money
- 15 minutes every Sunday to go visit church (yes I'm Catholic), which then translates into...
- 45 minutes on average for driving to stores afterward as "pass-by trips," as defined by the person in charge of said trips
That comes out to approximately 2.83 hours per week devoted solely to transportation for me, which most likely pales in comparison to other people. Some of my peers had to make mandatory trips to school from places as far away as Vallejo, CA - a single trip takes about 1 hour and 3 minutes (based on a quick look at Google Maps). People with children of their own need to make additional trips for their needs, what with picking said children up from their schooling and so forth (which always triggers the image of the civil engineering department chair biking his two young sons all over the place). All these trips add up to be a significant portion of daily life.
Of course, there's also the extra factors associated with personal transportation: one of which is the energy used to make the trip possible, such as your own personal energy when walking (usually good) compared to burning fossil fuels to power a SOV (usually not as good). Another is what you choose to do while in the act of transportation: some people need to focus solely on driving from origin to destination, while others find additional value in the time spent behind the wheel. I knew of a few people in my foreign language classes (I took two different language courses in my undergraduate career) that would play exercises, songs, or a mix of the two over the stereo system as a form of immersion in the language of choice.
Mode choice for daily transportation needs also has implications to public health as well. Some obvious topics like less calories burned with vehicle travel yield increased chances of chronic diseases like obesity and asthma are at the forefront of the discussion, but there are other elements too. A couple subtler issues I can think of are the effect of stress associated with managing information presented by the roadway and how a lack of sleep mimics blood alcohol concentration. Of course there are much more topics out there, waiting to be uncovered.
Therefore it is upon us ladies and gentlemen in the field of transportation to be responsible for the daily necessity of movement, regardless of income, age, education, race or gender. Transportation is integral to life.