Nightlife / Stephanie Depasquale

Going out without a car?

By Stephanie De Pasquale | Tuesday, October 14, 2008 | () comments

The alternator went out on my car Friday afternoon. No one in the Q-C had the part, so the dealer couldn’t fix it until Monday, which meant I spent the weekend without a car.

I borrowed a friend’s car so I’d still be able to go to Uptown on Friday night to get video for a story I’m working on about the bar, but I had to ask for rides if I wanted to go anywhere the rest of the weekend. I felt stranded.

It reminded me of the summer I spent in Washington, D.C., doing an internship during college. I worked second shift at the Washington Times, so I drove my car to work because the Metro didn’t run after midnight on weekdays, nor would I have wanted to take public transportation by myself at that time of night. But except for going to work, I used the Metro to go everywhere.

For $20 a week, I rode all over D.C., to the National Mall, the museums, the shopping mall, restaurants, theaters, the grocery store, a friend’s apartment in Bethesda, Md., and to pick up my car after getting it fixed when it broke out there, too. You could even take a train to Baltimore for about the price of gas to drive there.

But even though I live right on a Davenport CitiBus route, I didn’t once think of taking the bus to get around the Quad-Cities this weekend. The idea only occurred to me this morning when I came across a story written last week by Quad-City Times reporter Tory Brecht about how CitiBus ridership has grown over the past year.

If I would have used the bus, I could have gotten to NorthPark Mall in 15 minutes, the Hy-Vee Food Store on East Kimberly Road in about 50 minutes, downtown in 30 minutes, and on a weekday I could even make it to work in about 40 minutes.

The catch is that most routes shut down by 6:30 p.m., which still would have left me stranded at night. That and the fact the buses only come by once every 90 minutes, which is far less convenient than the three to 10 minutes I waited at Metro stops in D.C. But on the upside, monthly CitiBus passes are $18, which is less than the $20 I spent per weekend in D.C.

But if I’m ever without a car again, I’ll definitely try hopping on the bus to run get out and about rather than be stranded at home all weekend.

Stephanie De Pasquale can be contacted at (563) 333-2639 or sdepasquale@qctimes.com.