Travel with Strangers STILL LIVES!

Remember that public transit litmag I started a while ago? We're finally starting on the second issue! If you've ever had a hankering to read/write a short story, limerick, epic poem, monologue, existentialist one-act, or soul-baring memoir that takes place in/around public transit, this is your chance. And let's be real, it's pretty much your only chance, since nobody else publishes the incredibly obscure genre of transit lit.

Oh, we also like visual art - drawings, paintings, photos.

If you've never written anything before, COME ON PEOPLE! The time is now. Pull out those pens or quills or whatever floats your boat and give me some bus verbage.

travelwithstrangers.wordpress.com

The Transit Dork Speaks

Check out my op-ed in Concentrate! Encouraging everyone to vote yes for more buses on May 6. But be warned, it will make you hungry, 'cause I talk about pizza.

Do you smell it? The sweet scent of improved transit. MMMMMM.

The Great Bursley-Baits Bungle

This is a photograph from my latest excursion on the Bursley-Baits bus. I'm not sure it captures the gross discomfort of the situation. I stood with my spine squished against a rail and griped to myself about how I'm too old for this kind of thing. Around me, people sweated and yawned and complained about their chemistry tests.

Travel with Strangers - a new public transit litmag

Hey everybody, I'm trying to get off the ground a little multidisciplinary venture known as

 TRAVEL WITH STRANGERS, 

the only web litmag dedicated to providing glimpses of public transit (if you can prove me wrong, please do).

We just released our first issue, so please check out the site. We've got some talented folks writing, and we're hoping to grow.

Someone really transity once told me that the problem with metro Detroiters and transit is that we can't picture what real, quality transit looks like. We use transit when we go on vacations to Chicago. We don't have the frame of reference for daily, efficient commuter travel. And so what we can't imagine, we can't reach.

Travel with Strangers exists in part to address this issue. To bring transit to the forefront of our narratives. To show that in some places and for some people, it's a thing. And to present the awkwardness/beauty that comes from traveling with strangers instead of with yourself in a bubble.

Please do give it a read! And if you're a transit and/or writer type person, check out the submissions page.

Happy travels!

Roadless in Plymouth

If you're wondering what I'm satirizing, check out the real story.

Michiganders woke up yesterday to find that one township has taken advantage of the bill recently passed in the state legislature, allowing any municipality in metro Detroit to opt out of the state road system.

Road removal has begun

Rats, shopping carts, and nice people.

 

I was getting a new aquarium for our pet rats, the reason being that our rats had grown a lot since we saved them from being snake food on New Year's Eve, and they felt a little squished within those glass walls. It was a ten minute walk to the shopping area, on a nice paved path along a speedy four-lane road with the bonus feature of pedestrian-activated traffic signals.

Car Culture Debunk

Do we not ride trains because we are obsessed with cars?

On the road to Ann Arbor at sunset

I can't tell you how many times, during public meetings for the transit initiative I worked on last year, some curmudgeonly man or woman in a semi-rural satellite community raised his or her voice and declared that it couldn't work, because unfortunately we live in a car culture, and our love for automobiles trumps all else. No self-respecting Michigander would be caught on a bus, so we shouldn't even try.

America's Next Top Commuter?

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Due to the academic prowess of my homeskillet, who got accepted to med school at Wayne State, and my own choice to start a Master's program in Urban Planning at the University of Michigan in the fall,  I'm faced with choices that extend beyond the range of my heretofore uber-walkable, extremely local existence.

One might ask, Carolyn, how did you ever manage in the metro Motor City for six years without a car? Well, a few answers. My life for nearly four of those years revolved entirely around the city of Ann Arbor, where everything - school, work, friends - was in walking, biking, or bussing distance. The only thing that lured me away was my family back in Redford, and they kindly provided shuttle service whenever we wanted to see each other.

Boondoggleopolis

The word boondoggle was recently brought to my attention after residing sleepily in that part of my brain reserved for little-used vocabularly - by a commentator on a local new site who stated that the countywide transit plan in Washtenaw was the "biggest boondoggle in the history of the nation."

Wow! Do we get a medal for that? It sounded like quite a distinction. Having trouble summoning the mental dregs that would give me a precise definition, I turned to our good friend Wikipedia:

"A boondoggle is a project that is considered a useless waste of both time and money, yet is often continued due to extraneous policy motivations."

I considered posting that maybe, you know, the Vietnam War was a slightly larger national boondoggle than the transportation planifications of the fourth-largest county in Michigan - but my more prudent side prevailed.

Ann Arbor to Redford - CARLESS

Everyone knows that I'm a transit nut, and you might know that I started getting into transit issues when I realized that I couldn't easily get from my home in Ann Arbor to my parents' home in Redford (28 miles away) without using a car. This has led to countless instances of my parents driving down M-14 to pick me up, something that's annoying for them and not conducive to me feeling independent.

(Note: the 2 1/2 hour bike ride isn't bad in the summer, but I'm not messing around with that in below freezing temps.)

For a long time I've wanted to do the trip on our incredibly inconvenient, expensive, and roundabout public transit routes, just to see what would happen. A video I needed to complete for a grad school application gave me the push to really do it.

It was an epic journey of 4 1/2 hours door to door, including significant waiting time (we hung around 50 minutes at the State Fairground Transit Center waiting on the 8 Mile bus). It cost $14.25 one way and covered around 60 miles. There are a few other combinations of public transit we could have used, and some might have been slightly shorter, but you get the point.

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I can't thank Dan Cox enough for accompanying me, despite his academic business. He is a top-notch friend.

My dad, Paul Lusch, let me use his awesome song, appropriately entitled "Driven," and I'm very thankful for that! He and my ever-supportive mom, Ann Lusch, drove us back to Ann Arbor - because nine hours of commuting is a little much for one day.

My home skillet Alex Janke helped me navigate the bewildering functions of Windows Movie Maker, even when it tore him away from all those infectious diseases he studies.

Laptops on the Bus