Planes, Trains, & Automobiles: How to Get Around the City without a Car

This guest blog was written by my boyfriend, Nathan Hendrick. I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a supportive partner when embarking on something as difficult as a zero waste lifestyle. In addition to supporting my writing aspirations and crazy hippie ways, he has agreed to give me a break from blogging this week by writing about his experiences getting around this city we call home. 

Hello all! My name is Nathan Hendrick. Some of you may know me as Helen’s Boyfriend; some of you might know me better by my AOL account, Jimmyeatworld4eva. Helen asked me to write a guest blog about my experience with alternative modes of transportation. Just to give you my qualifications for writing this: I have been in several cars with and without people, and I own a bike.

If you’re not loving the jokes already, I would recommend you stop now and go back to your bowl of cottage cheese. But if you’re feeling it, welcome to Nathan’s Guest Blog Experience!

[Edit: Apparently I can’t put explosions in a blog]

I moved to Seattle by plane with everything I owned in two suitcases.

For the first nine months, driving my own car wasn’t an option. I had to get creative traveling from place to place, often falling into one of three options:

• Carpooling
• Public Transit
• Biking

I’ve been carpooling since high school.

My friends and I would drive to school together listening to the three CDs we had: Daft Punk’s Discovery, Learn How to Speak Cockney, and some random tea house music that to this day I have no idea what language it was in. That’s a recipe for lifelong friends.

In fact, building friendships may be my main sell on carpooling. I’ve carpooled in each city I’ve lived in, and each time I made a friend for life. I actually met my current roommate through carpooling to work. Since I tend to live in relatively “younger” areas, it’s easier to find people at my work that live in the general vicinity and are willing to carpool (Definition: Younger – adj. cheaper housing with gyro shops open until 3 am).

Other selling points include:

• Splitting money on gas
• Putting fewer miles on your car
• Grabbing a beer with someone after work instead of drinking scotch alone while crying in the shower

The only downside of carpooling is coordination.

Two things to know about me: (1) I work as an organic chemist which frequently causes me to work late, and (2) my biggest source of anxiety is inconveniencing someone’s time. So smash those two things together and you get a Double Stress Zone worthy of a Japanese game show.

To alleviate these issues, I ask my carpool buddy in the morning what time they would like to leave, then I negotiate a later time, and eventually come to an amenable solution. Despite this stress involved in coordinating with fellow carpoolers, I feel like the pros well outweigh the cons. So ask your coworkers where they live and then assure them it’s not creepy; you’re just trying to find a carpooling buddy to become lifelong friends with.

Next up is taking public transit.

Helen already wrote a blog about taking the bus in Seattle, but I have a few things I’d like to add to the conversation.

First off, I abhor public transit in Seattle.

It is nowhere near as developed as it should be for such a large city; there is only one subway line that runs north-south from the airport to halfway up the city (and it’s going to take another 15 years to build up more lines, and that’s if the funding stays); buses don’t connect well and you could be walking blocks between stops; and although buses come quite frequently, they have long, inefficient routes with badly timed transfers that could end up taking well over an hour to cross town with long stretches of time waiting for your bus in the rain. Pfew! I’ve been meaning to get that off my chest for a while.

Now to the positive. In addition to Helen’s list, I have a few pros to add.

For instance, public transit is good for drinking.

Not while you’re on it (but hell, I can’t say I haven’t done it). Rather, it’s easier and safer to drink in public if you take the bus or subway to get home. Seattle breweries usually have beers well north of 6% alcohol (sorry Utah), and after three of those I am not in the best condition to drive nor have an awkward conversation with an Uber driver about how I should invest in realty young and flip it. That’s were the good ole bus comes in handy.

Another great reason to take public transit is people.

Mind, this is coming from the confidence of a 6’5” white man. People are hilarious. They raise so many questions. When I took the bus to work, there was someone dressed like a My Little Pony character everyday asleep in the back seat. Why are you so tired? Are you a horse stripper? When I was living in Pittsburgh, I saw a guy bring a mop and full mop bucket onto the bus. Is there not water where you’re going?

In summary, take public transit if you don’t live in Seattle because it’s probably awesome. If you do live in Seattle, keep voting for public transit bills and maybe call your local representative about how bad it is. Pramila Jayapal is a good example. While you’re at it tell her to ban paper bags like they did for plastic bags.

Last but not least is biking.

I am lucky enough to live caddy-corner to one of Seattle largest bike trails, the Burke-Gilman trail. I take it up to work quite frequently in the summer and early fall. This is one of many trails that cut around the city, which is in combination with well marked and protected bike lanes. Some bike lanes even have their own light system. Other cities that I’ve lived in have not been so developed.

While being a great, environmentally friendly way to get around, good exercise, and the cheapest option by far, biking is also the most dangerous. My biking adventures have produced some sage wisdom to pass down if you’re going to pursue this alternative mode of transportation.

• Please be aware of yourself and your surroundings, regardless of whether you’re on the trail, in the bike lane, or on the side of the road. I personally never have headphones in unless I’m on a bike trail, and even then I still have one ear open to people trying to pass me.
• Make sure that you are seen, and understand that not everyone will see you. I almost hit a bicyclist the other day because he was trying to zip around with me at night with no lights while I was trying to pull out of a parking spot.
• Be the safest person on the road. Don’t take unnecessary risks. I see a lot of bicyclists not behaving like another vehicle on the road. They run red lights, randomly switch from road to sidewalk, and make turns without giving signals.
• Remember that you only have a helmet for protection.

All that being said, biking is an incredibly rewarding mode of transportation if you follow these few rules. So go ahead and invest in some spandex and clip in shoes, and click-clack around your office telling people how much better you are than them.

Thanks for making it to the end of my blog.

I haven’t typed this much all at once since college, but at least I had a few Red Bulls in me. Before I go get carpal tunnel surgery, feel free to suggest things to Helen that I could also write about. As a white man, I have many strong opinions of which I know little about, but am very willing to explain them in great detail.

Also before I go, I figured out how to insert explosions!

Originally from Pittsburgh, Nathan works as an organic chemist at Seattle Genetics creating next generation targeted chemotherapies. He is an avid cook, runner, and general outdoorsy person. Often confused with a giraffe, people constantly try to hand feed him leaves which he begrudgingly accepts.