Take the Green Line

At some point I need to understand the metro. I have a weird mental block with it (as a Californian... we drive).

A relative's friend invited her to drop by, next time she was in our nation's capital, and visit her home, conveniently located near a Metro stop.  I wasn't shocked -- more startled -- at the above response. 

This relative is sophisticated and well-traveled, and she just turned 40.  She's no country bumpkin. But lots of folks who live outside major cities would make the same response.  Riding on a subway is apparently like using the internet for the first time -- simple enough, but somehow intimidating.

I love it!  I'm not bragging.  It's no accomplishment. Millions of very average residents of -- for example --New York, Chicago, San Francisco, ride the subway daily, half asleep, to and from work.  I use public transit routinely -- both in Seattle, which has light rail but doesn't really have a "subway," and as a tourist elsewhere.

I use it because it's convenient, of course, and because it's cheap.  No one with any sense rents a car at Newark or Kennedy and drives to his hotel in Manhattan.  If you don't use transit, you pay for a cab.

But with me, it goes beyond convenience.  I honestly just love transit systems, and I love riding the rails.  When visiting a new city, especially in Europe, virtually the first thing I do is get a map and master the public transportation system -- especially rail transit.

I guess I was brought up that way.  My home town of about 20,000 had, maybe, five bus routes.  When I was about 7, my mother showed me how to climb aboard a bus near our house and ride about two miles to my aunt and uncle's home.  I was ecstatic.  I was traveling on my own.  If my folks had done this today, my folks would have been charged with child neglect, and my siblings and I would have been taken away and put in foster homes.  By the time I was 9 or 10, I was boarding city buses downtown, alone and on my own, and visiting  my grandmother.  At 14, I traveled, alone and on my own, coach class, by train, from Seattle to Chicago -- two nights and three days of travel each way -- to visit a friend and former classmate.

By the time I traveled to Italy, studying for six months, at the age of 21, I traveled everywhere, on my own, by train and bus.  The London Underground and the Paris Metro became virtual playgrounds for me during my visits to those cities.

Many young people have these experiences, and then, as an adult, "put aside childish things."  But I take after my mother, I suspect.  Into her old age, she loved nothing more than planning train trips and mastering city transportation systems.  To me, like her, getting around a city is as much fun as what I find at my destination.

Within the United States, New York is of course the subway rider's dream.  Searching this very blog, I find at least six of my posts devoted, in whole or in large part, to the fun I've had riding the New York subway.  And I also find my 2009 review of the novel Lowboy, about a schizophrenic teenager who spends all his days underground in the labyrinthine New York system.

Every visit to New York finds me licking my chops over the New York subway map.

Do you need further proof regarding my fixation? 

I certainly don't expect anyone else to share my mild derangement, any more than I'd expect them to share my passion for hiking in remote areas.  Chacun à son gout, is what I always say.  It's hard to explain my passion.  Every transit system is a bit different.  How one buys one's ticket from a vending machine differs from system to system, and can be a bit of a challenge -- although, now that most machines accept credit cards, the process seems simpler.  Learning where to change lines -- a joy for those of us who love such things -- can also confuse the novice.

But let's face it -- learning how to ride the subway isn't rocket science.  At the very least, it's a tool, like using an ATM or riding an elevator.  As use of automobiles within central cities becomes increasingly difficult -- Seattle is making it deliberately more difficult -- mastery of transit systems will become essential.

If I learned -- belatedly -- how to use a smart phone, you clever people can use and enjoy riding the rails underground.  Try it.