Two decades of public transit

by Tony Wilson

Ever since I moved to “the Mainland,” I have been a commuter. It takes me about 15 minutes to walk from my house in New West to the Skytrain, and 30 minutes for the Skytrain to roll in to my building in Vancouver. I have taken it for almost two decades, and if I had to, I might argue that by using Skytrain to get to and from work every day (thereby reducing greenhouse gasses in the process), I’ve been a good global citizen, and should be entitled to trade carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol with say, Samoa or the Falkland Islands.

Skytrain allows me to plug in my iPod and listen to some music, do a little work, or write articles like this one. And I don’t ever have to fight traffic. I echo Churchill when I say Skytrain is the worst public transit system in the world, except for all the others. Sometimes it’s down, but sometimes the Tube’s down in London too. Occasionally, a drunk with an attitude will make the commute similar, though not identical, to sitting in the Provincial Court on a bad day after a full moon. But on the whole, Skytrain is normally filled with busy commuters going about their daily lives longing for nothing more than an available seat, and a working escalator when they get off. Hope springs eternal, I suppose.

Commuting by public transit has medicinal benefits that drivers in insulated germ free cars wouldn’t understand. Rather than driving to work like you “bubble” boys and girls, we transit commuters are exposed to all sorts of exotic diseases every day (twice a day), and have developed an immunity to all of them. When there’s an outbreak of say, the mumps, ebola or mad cow disease, it’ll be a low-grade fever with us but it’ll knock you drivers out for weeks (or forever).

There doesn’t seem to be as many “police emergencies” (a euphemism for something grimmer) on the Skytrain than on Vancouver’s main bridges, where “police emergencies” can paralyze the city for hours (I was stuck on Canada Day!). An outbreak of police emergencies on our bridges while everyone else in town is happily enjoying the Olympics will immobilize the city more than any rockslide ever could. Perhaps some of that billion dollars earmarked for security should be diverted to hiring 1000 more mental health counselors, otherwise Vancouver could become an Olympic sized parking lot in 2010.

There is a stigma about lawyers taking public transit. Years ago, colleagues at my not-yet-then exploded firm were amused that one of the wealthier partners took the bus each day from his house in Shaughnessy. Twenty-four years later, some of my clients seem just as bemused that I would take the Skytrain instead of driving to work in a BMW, Mercedes or other übercar befitting their image of what a lawyer should drive. “Why do you take Skytrain with all those working people? Don’t you make enough money?” one client asked me, not realizing I had a swimming pool and sailboat expenses to maintain. You have to make choices in life, and I choose the sailboat, thanks. Besides, I’m a working person too.

Lots of lawyers yammer away about greenhouse gasses and saving the planet, but many of them still drive to work even though transit is an efficient alternative, taking less time than even my commute. Law firms that truly believe in environmentally sound practices might score a few more brownie points if they only subsidized transit passes, not parking.

Mind you, if I ever get that convertible Audi TT or a navy blue Miata MX-5, Skytrain’s toast.

Vancouver Franchise Lawyer Tony Wilson practices at Boughton Law Corporation in Vancouver, and has written for the Globe and Mail, Macleans Magazine and Canadian Lawyer. twilson@boughton.ca | www.boughton.ca/people/lawyers/tony_wilson

This article was published in the June 2009 issue of BarTalk. © 2009 The Canadian Bar Association. All rights reserved.