by Andrea Reasoner

Created on: July 27, 2010

I haven’t owned a car in almost a decade and I haven’t missed it one bit.  In fact, it baffles me why so many urbanites insist on pouring all of their money into personal vehicles when they could just use public transportation!  What are the advantages?  

1.  Save Money.  If you have a car in the city, you have to pay for city stickers, community passes, parking, license plate registration, insurance, gas, tickets and maintenance.  Not to mention paying for damage done to your vehicle while it was parked on the street.  With public transit all you have to pay is the fare and that can be discounted if you get a monthly pass.  Right now in Chicago, $86 will cover unlimited rides for one month.  That is considerably cheaper than owning a car!

2.  Convenience.  Chicago has an extensive public transit system.  Everywhere you go there is a bus or a train nearby.  Sure, you may have to wait a bit for a bus sometimes, but they now have a bus tracker that you can access on your computer or smart phone and it will tell you when the next bus is due to arrive.  This saves you from standing on the corner waiting for a bus!  You can just watch the bus tracker and head outside when it says the bus is a few blocks away.  This is very nice!

3.  No Parking.  Trying to find a place to park in Chicago is nearly impossible on most days. Many people spend a good part of their day driving around in circles trying to find a place to park until they just give up and park illegally.  This results in many parking tickets.  In fact, tickets are such a fact of life here that everyone expects to get them.  This is a non-issue when you take public transit.  If you don’t have a car, you don’t have to worry about parking!

4.  Time.  Many people are shocked at how quickly they get to work the first time they take public transit.  It is always assumed that the train is going to be slow, overcrowded and running late, so when it actually gets them to their destination in less than half the time it takes for them to drive they are simply amazed.  Not only did they get to work without having to fight rush hour traffic, they were able to catch up on some reading or just zone out to some music on their commute so that they arrived to work in a more relaxed state of mind.  They also didn’t have to spend all that time trying to find a place to park!

Using public transportation saves you a lot of money and time - commodities we could all use more of in this day and age.  Your stress level is likely to be lower, your pocket book will have a bit more heft to it, and you might actually have the time to enjoy life a bit more.  Those are some great advantages!

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