Blog #1

My regular journey to UCSD begins in Tierrasanta, an inland community where the 15 and the 52 meet. There are no close bus stops and the closest one there is does not go toward La Jolla, so I'm pretty much forced to drive. On a normal afternoon I can take 52 West to 5 North and find myself at school in twenty minutes. Unfortunately, my first class typically begins at 9:30, which requires me to leave my house at around 8:00am because of traffic. Then there is parking, which is a little more complicated. I either impatiently wait near a pedestrian entrance to the parking lot so I can stalk whomever is walking to his or her car, or I end up paying $6 for a day pass to park in a visitor spot, in doing so wasting the money I spent on a quarterly parking permit.

For the assignment I decided to park off campus and take the UCSD shuttle to school. I ended up near the intersection of Regents and Nobel and decided to park on the street next to a shuttle stop I saw. I walked the short distance to the shuttle stop and within a minute the bus showed up and took the ten-minute ride to UCSD. Arriving on campus without having to stress about finding a parking spot or having to pay $6 for a visitor spot was heavenly. I saved a little bit of gas, time, money, and the environment by taking the shuttle, and it has thus nearly convinced me to change my route for good.

There are only a couple downsides to this alternative route: 1) it doesn't leave me in control of my transportation; 2) the bus is stuffy (and I was sick); and 3) I'm not a big fan of standing in the middle of the shuttle and holding onto the metal bar so that I don't tumble over as the bus turns.

Kelley Brooks