For me, figuring out transportation in a small town was a science. Walking to work from my apartment took 20 minutes, biking took 7, and driving took 3. Traffic lights and parking availability might add or subtract a bit, but when I was running late, the temperature was well below freezing, and I had a big hill between home and the office, the choice was easy.
But in the city, getting around is much more of an art. Thanks to traffic jams, one-way streets, and a dearth of available parking, driving in the city is no guarantee of a swift arrival. (Worst-Case Scenario #1: Once, when we were supposed to meet friends for dinner, the parking situation was so bad that Stephen--whose feet are pictured above--finally gave up, dropped me off, and drove all the way home again. At that point, we'd been looking for a spot for more than twenty minutes.)
Then there's public transportation, which I greatly prefer to driving in the city. Even here, though, results are far from guaranteed. Buses get held up in traffic, or they blow past your stop. Trains break down. Service is slow on the weekend, and sometimes the train is too crowded, and you have to wait for another. (Worst-Case Scenario #2: the day we spent three hours trying to get to a beach on the other side of the city. First there was a construction detour that required us to take a shuttle from one train stop to another, then we missed a bus, then we found out the train we'd been planning to take wasn't running that day, then the alternate train broke down and we had to wait for the track to be cleared. Seriously, I could have crossed the state in less time.)
Some people say that biking is the perfect solution, but I'm not a confident biker, so there's no way I'm going to try to weave my way in and out of crazy, honking, road-raging traffic. Instead, I rely on some combination of walking and public transportation most of the time.
For all of that complaining, though, I still like city transportation. It forces me to plan ahead, and encourages the use of environmentally-friendly methods of getting around--walking, biking, mass transportation. Ooh, and you can ride a Vespa in the city.
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