The proximity blues
Getting to school is half the battle
BEN POGGEMILLER VOLUNTEER STAFF
Bus
I live on virtually the opposite side of the city from the university. Taking the bus to school from my house requires reading a bus schedule more arcane than an animated short by Terry Gilliam, transferring to a second bus downtown which is often filled to maximum capacity plus about 20 or 30 people, sweating out about a litre of body moisture, and arriving at school hours later than I had intended. If I took the bus, the Family Circus would be funny by the time I got to school.
Driving
Driving to school by yourself can get mighty expensive. With gas prices what they are, it costs roughly the Royal Bank of Canada to get to school every month, but it still beats sitting in gum on the bus. Environmentalists tend to complain about this option and I respect their efforts, but unless they can give me a vehicle powered by nagging, protests and granola, this seems to be the best option for getting to school. Since the Second World War has been over for a while, those “when you ride alone, you ride with Hitler” posters meant to encourage fuel rationing have lost some of their effectiveness. So aside from the cost, there’s not much to deter you from driving to school. Of course, Winnipeg’s roads are so bad that you have to leave early to make time for a wheel alignment on the way to school.
Carpool
In theory, carpooling should be the best option for getting to university. The gasoline cost and the parking pass cost are shared, and you don’t have to be one of the poor saps that have to take the bus. This is all just dandy until you start planning your schedules. When one of you has a 4:30 lab, one of you only goes on days that have the letter “u” in them, one of you only goes when Earth is aligned with Jupiter, and one of you is in engineering, you could end up being at school from dawn till dusk every day. Of course, in our Winnipeg winters, dawn till dusk is about an hour and a half anyway.
Motorcycle
One word: January.
Personal flight
On flight, my favourite author Douglas Adams once wrote, “The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” It’s the missing part I have trouble with. It’s actually much harder than it sounds and I have the bruises to prove it. I recommend you put some solid time into figuring out how to fly. Aside from being cooler than Lou Reed at the South Pole, you could circumvent traffic and save the environment while you’re at it. Of course, it has been said that with great power comes great mooching from your friends. Pretty soon you’d be flying to the liquor store to buy beer and getting your friends’ Frisbees down from trees.
As you can plainly see, there is no good way to get to school. As a result, I’ve never actually been to the U of M. Is it nice?
