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If you haven’t been following along, Jeff Johnson began a project last January that he calls “The COTA Challenge“. He wanted to see how much money he could save on gasoline and car costs over the course of an entire year by riding the bus as much as possible. Jeff posted a lot of blog updates along the way that gave a lot of great insight, personal impressions, and amusing anecdotes about riding of our local bus service.
Yesterday, Jeff posted his final results from completing the challenge through 2008. Click here to check them out.
That is pretty awesome. I ride the bus everywhere I go since I don’t have a car and I can tell you that it’s absolutely true, all that he said. You just buy what you need. I almost never have food spoil because I just buy what I need. I even got one of those nifty laundry carts for shopping that make me look like a bag lady, I love it. The morning my walk to the bus and my bus ride to walk is so calming and then coming home on the bus is great because it’s time to relax between getting out of work mind and into home mind. I have no intentions of buying a car any time soon and I am glad other people are catching on to the benefits. I can see it too because when I took the bus 2 years ago in the morning there would be 3 people on the bus with me now there’s more like 14.
It’s gotten better the last few years. Since the service changes, the #7 at my stop has been really off. Twice by at least 20-30 minutes from what was posted. If it happens tomorrow, I’ll call and at least let them know.
I love riding the bus. It’s an interesting experience at times and great people watching. And leaving the driving to someone else is always great.
Jeff certainly inspired me this year and got Anne & I to pick up a monthly bus pass that we share. We’ve always been a one-car household, and the bus has been a great supplement for making quick trips around the downtown area.
Thanks for the post Walker. Using public transit isn’t new to me, but it has become a consideration for a lot of people who wouldn’t have given it the time of day previously. As I’ve stated previously, I grew up living on three bus lines and have always lived in cities with good public transit.
Over the course of the year I fielded a lot of questions from friends and colleagues about using COTA, many of whom were not even familiar with how to read a bus schedule. When we downloaded the maps and looked at various route options most of them were surprised at what was available. I spent time with many people showing them how to construct trips. In almost every case, the response was the same – “I actually like just relaxing on the way to work.â€Â
The goal of the COTA Challenge has been to simply demonstrate that public transportation works in Columbus. It’s not perfect, but its a reasonable alternative.