Transit Miami

Ryan is back with some firsthand experience on the vehicular addiction we’re trying to break here in Miami. Although I haven’t witnessed a friend go to such great lengths to drive a car, I can attest that his roommate’s mentality appears to be the norm around here.

My roommate has got a new job in Coral Gables. He lives in Coconut Grove. No problem, right? Wrong. My roommate is addicted to cars/driving, which is unfortunate for him because his old SUV crapped the bed recently. In typical Miami form, he’s now found a way to take an asset (close proximity to job) and turn it into a significant liability because of his car addiction.

For some background information, most of his active pursuits are located in his own neighborhood, the Grove. Whether eating, working out, or partying, he does most of it right here a few blocks away. Most of his friends live in the Grove or Downtown, an easy bus or train ride away. However, instead of buying a student Metropass for a meager $37.50, walking 2/10th of a mile to the nearest #42 bus stop, which then will take him directly to downtown Coral Gables for work in less than 20 minutes, he’s living a complicated, stressed out life completely dictated by someone else’s car. Below is an unbelievable description of his daily schedule:

• Wake up at 8:00 am
• Drive downtown against rush hour traffic using friend’s borrowed car to pick up his friend
• Drive his friend from downtown all the way across the county to FIU for his work
• Drive back home to the Grove against morning rush hour for the second time to “relax” and kill time before work at noon
• Leave for work @ 11:30 driving friend’s car en route to downtown Coral Gables
• Departs downtown Coral Gables @ 5:00 pm en route to FIU to pick up friend, battling fierce westbound rush hour traffic in Miami-Dade’s heavily congested central corridor (Flagler, 8th St, Coral Way westbound)
• Around approximately 6:00 pm (after 45-60 minute drive), he leaves FIU to return downtown with friend to chill/drop off
• Gets back home around 7:00 or 8:00 pm with friend’s car
• 8:00 am, at it again

So as you can see, not only is the schedule itself crazy, stressful, and completely unreasonable, but my roommate now feels obliged to return such “favors”, often resulting in him joining his friend for activities that he may have preferred to abstain from in favor of extra “free time” for rest or study. Instead of waking up at 10:30 am for work at noon, he’s up at 8:00 am, facing a stressful series of commutes which he must successfully negotiate or else his kind friend who shares his car will be late for work. If he works four days a week, that’s 10 hours of sleep per week he’s losing to his car addiction. Moreover, while he struggles to pay his collegiate finances and loans, he continues saving most of his money for a new car while at $37.50 a month (for a Metropass) I’m paying off student loans early and getting a whole lot of extra sleep. It’s really sad, and if you think about it dependency on cars can parallel other addictions like smoking.

After I first told him how ridiculous his itinerary was and briefly gave him the low-down about the transit alternative, he agreed, looked me right in the eye and shrugged, “But the problem is I like driving”.