I have a love-hate relationship with public transportation. For a variety of reasons, I have taken trains and buses all over the place, but especially in New York state. Besides being environmentally friendly, it’s pretty simple: I’m a broke college kid, cars are expensive.

New York City is the only city in the United States where most people do not commute to work in personal vehicles. This is a city built for public transportation. The subway runs frequently enough that no schedules are posted, which is pretty fantastic.

There are enough people on the subway at midnight in New York City that it feels like the middle of the day. I love getting on the subway and going wherever I please. I love that New Yorkers don’t give a damn. In a crowded subway car, whatever you’ve got going on doesn’t faze them. The subway is brimming with all walks of life.

Once you are outside of the reach of commuter trains, public transportation takes on an entirely different character. Syracuse is a regional hub, but the train station has one track. Two trains can’t load at the same time. Amtrak is frequently delayed because there aren’t enough tracks for trains to pass each other if a train breaks down.

Bus schedules are infrequent with terrible layovers. If you want to get to the Hudson Valley from Syracuse, there will indubitably be an hour and half layover in Albany. The Albany bus station is dingy, and the people there look like they don’t have anywhere better to go.

Trains aren’t any better. Getting from Syracuse to Saratoga Springs means a two-hour layover in Schenectady before the last half-hour of my trip. By the way, there’s nothing open in Schenectady before 10 a.m. on a Saturday. I feel like the prevailing attitude about public transportation in upstate New York is, ‘Oh, you actually wanted to go places?’

Public transportation here is only used widely by people who do not own a car. This means the impoverished, the Amish, college students and people visiting from New York City.

Consciously or not, driving personal vehicles allows people to isolate themselves from their neighbors.

People don’t ride the bus or train because it is inconvenient. Bus and train schedules are inconvenient because there isn’t the demand for more frequent trips. Without more frequent trips, it isn’t worth investing in more railroad infrastructure or better bus stations. The cycle continues.

Once you get into a city in upstate New York, you need a car to travel within the city most of the time. Traveling without a car would be more appealing if city buses were more convenient or cities were denser. Or if Carrier Dome events didn’t shut down the entire city of Syracuse.

We’ve hit the peak of our oil supply in the world. Gas is only going to get more expensive. Global warming is real. Public transportation is more energy efficient and cheaper. Lowering your carbon footprint is noble, but in this case it’s cost effective, too.

For example, the New York state mileage reimbursement rate for state employees driving personal cars is 0.555 cents as of January 2012. This accounts for the cost of gas and wear and tear on the car. The shortest route between Syracuse and New York City is 247 miles. That’s $137.09, one way. A one-way bus ticket costs about $40. You need four people in the car for driving to be competitive with bus tickets.

Suck it up — take the bus.

Leanna Mulvihill is a senior forest engineering major and environmental writing and rhetoric minor. Her column appears every Tuesday. She can be reached at lpmulvih@syr.edu or followed on Twitter at @LeannaMulvihill.   

Published on February 27, 2012 at 12:00 pm