A colleague of mine here at the Regional Commission often refers to the "I" word as the main objection he hears to alternative transportation options, the "I" word being "Inconvenience." I find it remarkable that people think that being stuck driving yourself when you could be doing something else equates to inconvenience; personally, I find it very convenient to hop on the bus and read a book, and much more inconvenient to worry about other drivers on the road.
The "I" word comes up in
this blog post as well (it's Canadian, so don't freak out when you read her complaining about gas prices at $1.35):
Let me guess, you think I live too far out, right? Out in the back
woods, or as my step-dad says "We have to come out to hunt" we live so
far out in the sticks. But this isn't the case. I found someone who works in the same vicinity as me and lives a mere five minutes away.
This
person travels to downtown Moncton Monday to Friday and works almost
the exact same hours. Well guess what. They changed their mind and
don't want to carpool. Too inconvenient. Bullocks.
The root of the problem is what drivers perceive as freedom. At the moment, freedom (and convenience) is being able to jump in your car whenever you want and go wherever you want. This idea of freedom ignores the fact that, once you're in your car, you're stuck. You're beholden to the whims of traffic, your time is dedicated to the act of driving, you're stuck looking at the same scenery over and over again. Its pretty amazing, when you think about it, that we consider "freedom" to be sitting in what is essentially a really, really tiny room, moving a wheel around, only to end up exactly where we left. And unlike other tiny rooms, this one has the potential to kill you if someone else isn't paying attention to what their tiny room is doing. Oh, and we gladly pay thousands of dollars a year for the priveledge. The freedom of going and coming whenever you want completely ignores how trapped you are in between.
Bullocks, indeed.