Transit

I specifically got a request from Julia to blog today, and I've been meaning to post for a few days anyway. I think I'm going to give a vent to a little frustration I have with Louisville, which is a great city in general.
However, it is a terrible city not to have a car in.
I do not have a car, and I do not want a car. I don't want to live somewhere I need to have a car, and frankly, Louisville is a terribly hard city to live in without one. Especially living where we do, on a very isolated college campus, it's incredibly hard to get to even the most basic necessities on foot, though it's much better on a bike. I don't have a bike either, though, so that doesn't help me much.
Everyone here is very dependent on their cars and reluctant to use any other way to get around. Nick has some horror stories about the general unfriendliness towards cyclists when he's riding downtown, and the roads are not built for sharing. The transit system is old, and while the routes seem quite comprehensive, they don't run very often. For example, the bus I take to work every day comes about once an hour. That's fine for getting to and from work, when you can easily leave at a scheduled time every day. It's much harder if you were relying on the bus to, for example, go to the post office or go grocery shopping.
And while it might seem corny, the car-only mentality here (and most places, really) is exactly the start of the floating blobs of fat that humans have become in Wall-e. (If you haven't seen it, go! Right now! It's amazingly good, and makes you want to hold someone's hand. And walk places so you don't turn into a floating fat blob.)

Moral of the story: cities have to change their patterns, and get smaller in terms of land area so public transit (and really all public infrastructure) is more efficient. People need to invest in that by not driving everywhere. And until then, I'm going to need to live somewhere I can get around by foot/bike/public transit.