gavinshearer.com

« Stephen Burt On The WNBA | Main | "Batman Begins" »

June 19, 2005

What's The Deal With The Walking?

The two most common questions I get from friends about my end-of-summer start at Microsoft (aside from "What day do you start, again?" and "What part of the company are you working for?") are:

"Are you going to move to the Eastside?", and
"Are you going to buy a car?"

For the first one: I was born in Seattle, but grew up in Woodinville. Having done the suburban thing, I can tell you, unreservedly, that an apartment in Kirkland feels very "been there, done that, got the t-shirt and Commemorative Statuette of Liberty" to me. I love living in Seattle. Love love love. Love the vibrancy, love the feel, love the people, love the coffee places and the brewpubs and the grungy movie theaters.

And this leads us to the second answer.

My Jetta got hit - totaled - in December of 2003. Thankfully, nobody was hurt (it was 4 in the morning, and I, for one, was sleeping), but I elected to pocket the cash from the insurance settlement and not replace the car.

In Seattle, this is possible. We have great bus service (my apartment, for example, is - at most - 1/3 of a mile from any of the following Metro routes: 8, 10, 11, 12, 43 and 48), great options for car-sharing, and, of course, one can walk.

Walking. It's fantastic. Seattle is reasonably compact, and most humans walk at about 4 miles per hour. I'm about 2 miles from downtown, so that means I step out my door at 6 for a 6:40 movie, and I'm in my seat with a big-ass Diet Coke at 6:35, guaranteed.

(Sidebar: tried Coke Zero yet? I bought some today; I kinda like it.)

The "guaranteed" part is actually pretty important. The photo I've associated with this post was taken last Wednesday, on my way to the Storm game at Key Arena. The traffic mess you're observing is the intersection of Denny Way and Westlake. And the big bus in the left of the frame is the 8.

Key Arena is a 40-minute walk from my place, and, as I said before, the 8 runs right near me; indeed, it goes straight to Seattle Center. On this particular night, it was stuck in traffic in a bad way, and I kept leapfrogging the poor 8 all the way from 15th and Thomas on Cap Hill, down Denny and eventually - wait for it - I got to Key Arena on foot before the bus did (or any passenger car, for that matter).

This is not terribly unusual. Mary and I had more than one occasion where we left the house in her car for a movie downtown, and wound up taking longer to get in the car, drive downtown, deal with traffic and lights, get parked, and wait for the damn elevator than it would have been to just ... walk.

The health benefits of walking are well-documented, but I also feel like I get to know my community better by observing businesses, construction, and change in a very human six-feet-and-four-miles-per-hour way.

There's also a profound lack of road rage that comes with walking. I find sitting in heavy traffic to be an aggravating exercise, one that makes me feel powerless and snippy. I think this is because traffic is so inherently unpredictable; you never know if you're going to run in to something you didn't plan on. Since we're all invariably on our way from one place to another, and we have plans that often require us to be at Point X by Time Y, anything that puts those plans at risk will cause stress. Walking, by contrast, is a far more controllable, predictable mode of travel. Find out where you're going, get the distance (Google Maps is a good resource), and divide by 4 to figure out the time. If it's too far, take the bus (and bring a magazine).

So I'm up with walking. And walking, sadly, is not something that the Eastside offers me. Downtown Kirkland and Redmond are cute, but the sprawl and spread-out-edness makes walking more of a destination (e.g., driving someplace to go walking) than a lifestyle thing.

If you're a city dweller, I encourage you to try walking your errands sometime this week. Seriously. Take a few hours on Saturday and just ... walk. Go to the corner grocery or dry cleaner, or stroll a local commercial district and just see what's there. I can guarantee you'll be (pleasantly) surprised.

Posted by Gavin Shearer at June 19, 2005 4:46 PM. Posted to Misc.

« Stephen Burt On The WNBA | Main | "Batman Begins" »