Transportation Advocacy Day

Yesterday was Transportation Advocacy Day. I usually feel too busy to volunteer for various causes. Like many people I get so caught up in my daily life that I don't tend to stop and think about this sort of thing. When I heard about this, however, for once I thought about it.

I could take the day off, and spend a day advocating for something I feel is important. Safer streets, health as a priority when we think about our transportation system in this state. Maintenance of our existing transportation structure. It isn't all about riding bikes. It's transit and sidewalks, and road design.

If I was going to spend the day advocating for this sort of thing, I also wanted to see how our current system locally works.

Option A. Ride my bike to and from the event. I wasn't sure I was up for that, so I picked Option B.

Option B. Ride my bike to Yelm, catch the bus down to Olympia and reverse on the way back.

Option C. Drive. I didn't really want to deal with parking and everything else downtown, and I'm trying to use the car less.

I rode the bike to Yelm and got on the bus fine. There was one other bike on the rack, no issues there. After looking at schedules I realized that this might be an option to get to work. Ride to Yelm, bus near work (<4 miles), ride to work, and then reverse going back. It'd be about 16 miles of riding each day. I'd also have time to read on the bus. Something to consider.

The day went well. I went around with two other folks from my district to talk to our representatives and senator, which ended up meaning that we talked to legislative aides and dropped off material. That was fine. The breakout sessions at the event were informative and interesting.

I finished up at around 3:00 PM and went to catch the bus. I'd lost my pass earlier, so I stopped first at the bank to get change. Then I waited for the bus back to Yelm. When it came the bike rack was full already.

That was the flaw in the plan. The next bus was an hour later. It was chilly. I could have killed an hour downtown, except I didn't really want to do that. I decided to ride out to Yelm Highway, and see how much longer it'd be until the bus came along. I headed off, through Olympia, and riding up the Woodland Trail. It was nice to ride the trail again. I haven't done that in a long time. I took it up to the Chehalis-Western Trail, and from there out to Yelm Highway.

When I got there I still had over a half-hour to wait for the bus. If I caught the bus (if the bike rack wasn't full this time), I'd still have a five mile ride home from Yelm, plus it'd take at least a half-hour to get to Yelm. So that'd be another hour, at least, plus the half-hour ride home from Yelm. And Rainier road was right there, just down the street. If I rode I could be home probably before I would get home if I waited for the bus.

That's what I did. Set off riding home. There's quite a few hills. I wasn't sure I could make it, given that I'm still healing from the surgery and haven't ridden this much in months. Of course once I was on my way there wasn't a good bail-out option. No buses to catch on this road. No one to call to get a ride. Pretty much committed at that point.

I kept going. Slowly. Slow does it. I made it home. I'm not sure it was faster than waiting for the bus, but it was fun all the same!