Affordability, Predictability, and Convenience

Last weekend ended in Ontario with family day on Monday.  As my wife and I do many family day weekends, we headed up to Ottawa to see our middle daughter, and her pets.  It was a lovely weekend, with the highlight probably being a skate on the Rideau Canal, the world’s largest skating arena.  The trip to Ottawa went markedly well, with even the trip through Toronto being pain free.  The trip home was a bit of a different story.

 

There were many hold-ups and back-ups on the 401, Canada’s busiest highway.  Undoubtedly this is due to the fact that most of the highway east of Toronto is the same size as it has been for many years, while the number of drivers increases without end.  All it takes is one person’s flat tire to bring things to a halt, which thankfully was not crashing in any way – but frustrating all the same.

 

My wife and I mused about the state of affairs with car travel on the drive home.  Cars are altogether convenient, affordable and (nearly) predictable.  As long as this is the case, people will not convert to public transit.  When public transit is cheaper than driving (and parking) a car; and when it is utterly predictable and convenient, people will make the switch.  Alas, people will not give up their cars simply because cars are bad for the environment.

 

I have chosen to take the train to work two or three days a week.  I don’t train on days when events after work mean the trip home would be quite a bit later than I want; and since I don’t pay for parking, and it is relatively cheap for me to drive; and the trip home is quicker than taking the train, I have to be quite deliberate in a decision to take what is reasonably convenient, affordable and predictable public transit.

 

Last Thursday I was waiting for a train that was 8 minutes late, and I kicked myself for not driving.  But the train arrived.  I took out my book as I took my seat, and as the train lulled me into that netherworld only accessible in the knowing that I need not worry about the next 20 minutes because they are in some else’s hand, I arrived at the place where I could say: “This is good.”

 

“This is good!” is, of course, a biblical phrase.  God speaks it as creation’s contours slowly fall into place, as the light relates to the dome in the sky, and the sky relates to the ground separated from the waters, and all of these relate to plants and animals and humans and more.  “This is good” is all about good relations, about being together. I experience a kind of being together, a conviviality on the train that I definitely do not experience on the 401, where we are buffered from one another by atomistic vehicles and speed.  But conviviality will not persuade us to switch

 

At the end of the day, affordability, predictability and convenience will rule the ride.

Buying Time

We are in the middle of car shopping right now. My wife and I find this to be a rather stressful event. We simultaneously experience a bit of hope and despair; imagining that we will find just the right car to meet our needs and even our wants, but then realizing that such a car is out of our price range. And then there is that human desire – I think – to set the self apart from the rest. Most of us want to make some mark in the world that says you end there and I begin here. We do this variously: with fashion, lifestyles, taste in art, etc. For better or worse this bit in life plagues and prods us, albeit in different modes. Some people are utterly utilitarian when it comes to cars and use other means to say who they are. While my wife and I do not define ourselves by our automobiles, we also surmise that our car says something of whom we are. That being said, I generally strive to spend as little time as possible in my car. To get to work I either bum a ride with my wife in the morning, and make my way home by walking or taking the bus, or cycling both ways (this new for me). Still, a new car …

I remember remarking when we bought our last car that we had the choice of a smaller or bigger bubble, a van, or a matchbox-like car. Things have changed a bit since then with, for example, crossovers slowly crossing out vans. The options, oddly, are both multiple and severely limited. There are more players in the game than in years past, yet they are all beholden to aerodynamic designs that push their products in the same direction. It seems that, aesthetically, differentiating automobiles is restricted to small details that sometimes seem trivial, or moot. Of course, this “problem” of finding a car that says “me!” is one that most people in the world cannot afford. Yet it makes me think of how this wish, like so many in our world, is manufactured. Plenty of air, byte and video time is invested by marketers desiring to shape my desire. Subtle and not so subtle messages aim to make me take my vehicle very seriously. This effort is not unique to the car world. We see this story played out with cell phones, with hand bags, with anything you can imagine.

I wish I could say that my transformation by the renewing of my mind – rather than conformation to the world – means absolute freedom from market forces. Alas, it seems that we are bound to commercialization, and this is not about to end. Yet this need not mean resignation. In buying cars, and so much more, we can try to buy ethically. We can endeavor to see our desires shaped by love of the planet (looking for a car both economically and ecologically sound), and attention to community (using a car in a way that serves the common good), and ethical trade (honest dealing in selling our vehicle). If what we most love, if what we most value is something divine, we will divine the need to bring choice to that throne where cherubim and seraphim remind us that this car – like all things we “own” – is not ours. It is ours to use for a time. The kind of care we take in buying, owning and selling a car might alert even others to this incontrovertible fact: how we see our “stuff” says more about us than we might first imagine.