Cap Metro has got some spiffy passes.
I pushed this story back a couple of days because I wanted to have a stream of “content” going and I didn’t want to overwhelm my readers (all two) with any more than three in a day.
So as you may or may not recall, my aging VW Golf was having its Summertime Blues early this year which is usally the enigmatic Check Engine LED, always the head scratcher for my mechanic Toby. If that weren’t enough, the speedometer started to fail intermittently until it was permanent. It then cascaded into stopping the odometer and when a car is as old as mine I highly doubt 105,000 miles versus 150,000 really matter should I trade it in. Due to the cost of a new instrument cluster (the technical name of the -meters in the dashboard), I tried to put it off until the Wicca situation was stabilized. No dice, the tachometer started going out two weeks ago and if I can’t read what the engine’s RPMs are against which gear I’m in, then I have no clue how fast I’m going. Call me a paranoid but I only have one speeding ticket in my entire history and I want it to stay like that—my route to work has three school zones in it too.
After I dropped off my car, it finally hit me, I should have a bike then I could pull it out of the trunk and complete my errands around Austin. That will be the plan later this year, the repair was almost $500 (still cheaper than a monthly car payment). Meanwhile, I had my first ride on Capital Metro in 11 years. There’s been some improvements lately too. For a mere buck, I scored a pass to take up and down Lamar Avenue. I didn’t have any luck getting aboard the bus with the free wireless access, even if I did, my trips were too brief to bother. Overall, it was a decent experience and I am going to use a day off to try out the Park & Ride spot near my house, see where the bus goes exactly. Should it go near downtown, et al., I might treat the trip the same way a train ride into Philly from Lansdale was like, a day trip into the city without the grief of parking.
I used to ride the bus frequently in Austin from 1995-96 because I lived in Hyde Park, didn’t own a car and I no longer worked primarily at University Towers. As frustrating as it could be with part of the trip being on a mediocre route (the infamous 39), I still completed a lot of reading, lost some weight, saved money (and I thought the price of gas was high then) and managed my time better. All down the tubes when I bought my car in 1996. I don’t regret having the car entirely since it helps with getting groceries, day trips to San Antonio and when I wasn’t married, meeting women. Austin continues to grow and the routes are expanding with it. I even see buses coming as far north as Wells Branch now. Capital Metro still has a long way to go outside of central Austin before it stops me from envying the systems my friends have access to in Washington DC, Chicago and Seattle.