Zatera Ul

I picked up a copy of the Minnesota Women’s Press (the local feminist paper) while we were out and about today. This column was, well, interesting: a Bloomington woman found herself without a car to drive to the transit Park and Ride (a mile and a half away), and transit adventures ensued.

She ended up with my pity more than my sympathy. She lives in the fairly affluent suburb “more by circumstance than by choice.” She was carless only because they didn’t have a spare tire for the car. Even my decrepit old car has a spare, though I’ve only used it once in ten years (and 100,000 miles). She didn’t plan ahead very well, and had to speedwalk half a mile to catch the nearest bus (something that I, ironically, did just last week on the way back from picking up our farm share box; my car’s in the shop, and by catching that particular bus I avoided having to change buses later). Her commute to work (Bloomington to University of Minnesota area) that day had an average speed of 5.8 mph. The trip home wasn’t any better; she waited an hour for a no-show connecting bus (that would only have saved her a mile of walking), and ended up walking home along pedestrian-unfriendly streets (crossing 494, I’m guessing, which does sound like it could be ugly).

I agree that public transit works better when it’s available, convenient, and predictable, and that most suburban areas are not nearly as walkable than they should be. But to go to all that time and trouble to try to get out of 20 minutes of walking?? Not having a spare tire for the car?? That doesn’t sound like a very good liberation.

To be fair, the Women’s Press isn’t all bad, despite a definite leftward slant. They included The M.A.W.B. Squad (now, sadly, inactive) in an article about women bloggers last year, and this issue had an article about a Christian woman stepping out in faith to start a business.