Random Thread ～Owaranai Insomnia '25 ver.～

[TotallyUncool]

I got my driver's license at 26, I think - and I'm from a generation where everybody wanted to get a license at 16 (or 18 at the latest).

[Zunu]

I was around 30 when I got my license, and even then only because a friend of mine was trying to unload her old car on me.

[esm]

I got mine at 21 but I never really drove and I lost my license with my wallet when I was 25. Never got a replacement, and my ID has been my passport card. So even though I voted in Wisconsin, Illinois, and DC, I never had a state/territorial ID in any of those places.

I’ve only lived in walkable cities though, and ride share apps have been life-changing. Thinking of moving to Atlanta if I can get a job there for the next school year.

[erilaz]

I got mine at 16, but I hardly ever drove after I got it. I haven't been behind the wheel in at least 20 years.

[TotallyUncool]

I lived in a town where I could walk pretty much anywhere I wanted to go, or else get rides with friends, but when I did start driving, it increased my range (in terms of what I could do and where I could go) enough so that I didn't really want to go back to not driving. I'm glad, though, that public transportation is becoming more useable (and more built out) in the L. A. area - if Southern California had the kind of coverage that they Bay Area does, I would definitely use if more often.

[erilaz]

^ Despite my occasional complaints about AC Transit, public transportation is indeed good enough in the Bay Area that I rarely have to resort to anything else. I'll usually catch a ride with friends if I need to go further into the South Bay than BART will take me, but I seldom have to do that more than a few times per year. I admit that owning a car would be useful sometimes, but for me, I think it would ultimately be more of a burden than a help. Last time I went to a concert in San Francisco, a friend gave me a ride, and we spent over half an hour driving around in search of a parking space.

I'm sure that public transit is much spottier in the L.A. area, but I've managed well enough without a car (or ride-sharing) on my rare visits down there since the 1990s. Last time I was there, already seven years ago, I used the Metro to get from LAX to my motel in Little Armenia and back, and (with a comfortable bit of walking) buses got me from my motel to all the places I needed to visit: the Armenian bookstores in Glendale, Amoeba Music in Hollywood, and the now demolished House of Blues on the Sunset Strip to see SCANDAL.

[TotallyUncool]

At this point, public transit in the L.A. / Orange County area is good in the most heavily-serviced locations, like downtown L. A, Hollywood, Koreatown, LAX, etc., but outside of those areas (and peripheral areas within walking distance of Metro Rail), it drops off considerably. Most people in the L. A./OC metropolitan area live in areas where public transit access is more like what you'd find in the San Jose / Fremont area (at least as I recall it), or maybe the back-of-East-Bay suburbs along the 680 corridor - a few train stations and a lot of sketchy bus service.

There are a lot of plans to build Metro Rail and the various bus lines out (some of them well into the construction phase, and more scheduled), and eventually we may get service that's equivalent to BART + AC Transit out in the valleys, Orange County, etc., but for now, it's far too much like the South Bay.

[rikkikow]

Hipster duck spotted today with an afro hair-do? A mutation or something?

[esm]

Crested ducks?

[rikkikow]

Crested ducks?

Well, I'll be darn! My doctor was telling me about the white ducks with the afros too. Learn something everyday. It's a duck world.