Just One More Ride…
The day before we talked with Lori was the last day of the season to enjoy riding to work. She knew the rainy season was about to start, but she didn’t expect it to start while she was at work…
But that didn’t dampen her mood…just everything else :)
Yesterday, I was like, OK, time change is coming, I can squeeze out one more bike ride to work, so I biked to work yesterday morning. It was gorgeous. It was cold, but it was gorgeous. And then is rained all afternoon. It poured rain, and so I was like OK, I’m going to bike home in the pouring rain, and it’s fine once you get wet because then you’re wet and you don’t really care.
I was laughing when I was riding home…
- Lori
Lori is the Director of the Center for Career and Calling at Seattle Pacific University, which is about 10 miles away from her home. She has been there for 8 years, and for the first several she drove like normal.
But it started to get frustrating. 45-ish minutes to get there. Closer to an hour to get home. Sitting in a car.
Before this, she commuted by bike to her job at the American Lung Association. That office was closer to home so it was easier. Seattle Pacific was far enough away that biking it would mean showing up tired and sweaty.
Commute by the Numbers
Now I don’t have accurate numbers for 2022. So keep that in mind, but in the before times back in 2018, here are the stats for commuting in Seattle:
Drive-alone - 44.5%.
Public Transit - 25.1%
Walking - 10.7%
Work from home - 7.9%
Carpool - 6.8%
Bike - 3.7%
These are good numbers for the US; drive-alone commute was at its lowest at 44.5%, and public transit usage was over 25% for the first time ever. Nice trend.
Nationwide… drive-alone commute accounts for 76%, and biking 0.6%. So good on you Seattle.
However, there was a bump in the road for humankind in 2020, and work from home jumped to 48%… so these numbers are off a tad bit. But that is beside the point…
A New Habit
The point is that we rely on cars. Lori was no different until 3 years ago, and now she shouts it from the rooftop bridge top.
On a bridge overpass going over I-520 and I often will look at all the traffic when I’m going over that overpass, and I’ll yell out, ‘You suckers! I’m going to beat you. I am going to get to my place faster.’
Lori is a fair-weather rider so she misses riding in the winter months. But that’s how it goes in the PNW. It’s rainy or wet most of the time and dark at 4:30pm. That’s ok.
Because for the other 8 months out of the year she is gets to enjoy something she forgot about for years - how much fun it is to get around without the barrier of a windshield.
Which reminds me of something else Lori mentioned. The e-bike became their second car… but that wasn’t planned.
She was already used to using her e-bike, so she gave her car to one of her kids after they graduated university. She and her husband planned to get another car to replace it, but they never did.
Talk of needing one just kinda petered out…
No forethought or planning. The need for another car was just never came up. The one they had was enough.
Which is telling.
“Bike” the Code
At the end of the day (and at the beginning), Lori and thousands of others e-bike there way to work or school all over the world.
You’d think they were part of some global initiative to cut emissions or something, but that is not it. That is a good thing. Everyone likes that part too.
But it more of a reconnection with the outside that reconnects us inside.
Total open brain space. I get to think about everything that happened during the day and process it, and release it by the time I get home… I am so grateful for it. It literally makes me so happy. It’s a little crazy how happy it makes me…
I’m sure Lori and others feel as if they cracked the code on smiling more… turns you just gotta bike it.
Lori "Biked" the Code