I enjoy self-indulgent games played within every-day activities. For example, collecting rain water off of my shed to use on the garden during the summer months means I have to draw less from the tap. I collect the initial water from the shower (while it’s warming) and use it around the house later in the day. I drop the heat in the house below 60F at night and only heat the bedroom. I find it amusing to see how much less I have to shell out to the utility companies.
For the month of January, I’ll be doing this: Putting $15 from each paycheck into gas for the car. I’ll buy a $45 COTA pass, as well. Total transportation costs for the month will be $75, and I’ll get where I need to within that budget. The goal will to be to have gas left in the car at the end of the month.
Getting to and from work will require the use of the car at least a couple days per week. However, on some days, I’ll be able to take the bus. I’ve charted my work schedule and included bus pick-up and drop-off times. If it’s on the calendar, it’ll be planned for. If it’s not, I tend to say “to hell with it”.
On my days off, most everything I need is within walking distance, but for those trips to the Short North, Campus Gateway, Tuttle Mall (should I have the need to go “malling”) I’ll take the bus. I can even grab the bus to Blockbuster if I don’t feel like walking. I’ll also be charting the extracted costs from the COTA bus pass to determine the investment benefits.
I’ve ordered some books from the library so I’ll get some valuable reading time in, and all I have to do is transfer downtown when it’s time to return them, drop ‘em off, and walk the rest of the way home.
The fact of the matter is that I hate driving. I grew up taking buses, and frankly, prefer it. To this day, I forget where I park the car, because as a bus rider, I only ever had to stand on the corner and wait for it to pick me up and drop me off. The challenge with parking is that I get out of the car and assume a bus-rider mentality. I just walk away from it, forgetting that I’ll have to find it later.
The first bus-to-work day is January 4th. I’ll keep you posted as the month progresses and together, we’ll see just how well I fare.
The bus provides good blogging stories too.
Nice. I’ve wanted to do something similar to this, but on a large group-effort level:
http://www.columbusunderground.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10818
I think it’s easy for a lot of people to lose track of ideas like this, so perhaps some group encouragement online is what’s needed to keep focused.
Awesome experiment. Just keep track of stuff! For nerds like me (and doubters) having numbers is good. (I traveled 100 miles on the bus, I saved X dollars in buying gas, I read 5 books, etc, etc.) I hope to join you on a similar quest in a bit…
[...] January 8, 2008 by walkerevans I’ve been meaning to write about this for a little while now, but in case you haven’t been following, Jeff over at Urban In-Fill has started off his month-long COTA Challenge. [...]
[...] writer Jeff is posting thoughts on his blog (urbaninfill) about his personal challenge: riding COTA more in the month of January. He’s got a budget, sticking to $30 total for gas for his car. He bought the $45 COTA [...]
[...] started last January with the simple idea of using public transportation to get to and from work, but only when it was [...]