nj public transportation

I stayed up til some unearthly hour last night/this morning wasting time on the internet, but managed to force myself to wake up a couple hours ago so that I could finally commence my wonderful search for a chiropractor.

They’re not all that well advertised on the internetz, although there are apparently a ton of them around here. Out of the 10 I found so far, however, there appear to be only 2 who have reviews of any sort (luckily, they happen to be good). However, they are also the ones farthest from where I live (~8-9 miles).

As I’ve mentioned previously, I don’t have a car around here, so I rely quite heavily on public transportation and my own two feet. I started calling all their offices this morning and was met with pretty grumpy-sounding office staff. I would go as far as to say that some of them were borderlining downright rude.

Unfazed, I talked with the ones who actually answered and left messages with the ones who didn’t. The last office I called was actually the friendliest/seemed to give a crap about me (hooray!). They were also doing a promotion that they let me in on–free consultations! Score!

But it’s also one of the ones that happens to be 8.5 miles away. I initially tried calling a couple taxi services…
NB: It’ll cost you about $25. Not too expensive.
F: (…What’s your definition of expensive?! That’d only be a dollar off from a roundtrip ticket to NYC. How about no?) Okay, thank you!

Edison: That would be $20.
F: (…yeah, that would feed me for at least a week. No thanks.) Okay, thank you!

Metuchen: If you take the train to Metuchen instead of Edison, it’d cost you $8 instead of $20.
F: (You’re such a nice soul! But that’s still expensive.) Okay, thank you for your time!

But! He did give me the idea to see how far it would be from the Metuchen train station as opposed to Edison (darn my ignorance of geography and the placement of all these towns). 2 miles. Would I lug a 55 lb. suitcase a mile down these streets to save $6? Why yes, of course! So would I walk 2 miles to save 8 bucks? You bet I would.

However, googlemaps, being the blessed soul that it is, also told me of the existence of a bus. For $1.50, I could save about 17 minutes of my life! (Or less, depending on how quickly I walk.)

Back in the days of the car accident, I started school about a week later and rarely went home, so I found a chiropractor in Davis. It took 2 buses to get there at the time, since I never had a car (or license, for that matter) and hadn’t succumbed to the biker-friendliness of the town yet. Apparently, I could also take 2 buses to get to this one (not free, but 5 cents over $3 isn’t too bad) and save 70 cents from not taking the train.

Just for today, I think I may allow myself the luxury of taking the train+bus option, since the consultation is free. If it’s too freakishly expensive there, I’m going to hope with every fiber of my being that the one 0.3 miles away from my house is awesome and not too expensive. (They’re not open yet, so I haven’t been able to reach them.)

I’ll let you know how it goes, but here’s to hoping that these buses are reliable!

($25 down to $2.25-$3.75 is pretty effing awesome. Gotta love public transportation. I’m so glad I talked my parents into letting me live here instead of the other option. Saving $185/month on what would have been their rent and living at a more convenient location? Hells yes.)

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transportation

I’ve already mentioned somewhere on here that I am car-less, but for reiteration’s sake, I’m car-less!

This isn’t such a big deal, because I get to save on a number of things–first and foremost, a car.

If you’ve ever met Speedracer (the name of my brother’s Camry; he is so named because when I drive uphill (e.g. on the way to Pleasanton/Davis) and floor the gas, he goes ~45-50 mph. Don’t ask me what happened to him. :[ I really don’t know. I’m sure part of it is also that I’m scared to push him because I can hear him struggling so valiantly. He gets an E for effort, but he would never survive an east coast winter. (That and the fact that to transport him here and back would be ~$2200, because my mom doesn’t believe in my/my friend’s driving ability enough to permit me to go on a cross-country roadtrip, not that it’d even be that much cheaper.)

Renting a car is also out of the question because, as I am considered a “young driver” (under 25), it’s an extra $20 per day. Yeah, how about no.

Leasing a car might have been an option, but as I’m only going to be here for 9 months or so and the minimal leasing period is 3 years, that’s also illogical.

This way, I get to save money since, by not needing a car, gas money, parking permits, and my [in]ability to drive through snowy terrains will be complete non-issues. (I last saw snow 5 years ago, and although I learned how to put on snow chains on the spot to avoid having to pay someone else to do it, I was definitely not the one driving.) I’m also extremely used to walking/biking/public-transportation-ing myself everywhere because I haven’t even had my license for over a year yet. Yeahhh. (It’s a long story, but it was a combination of my parents tricking me and me being too busy. ._. But you could get around faster on a bike in Davis anyway, and I was contributing to helping the environment, one pedal at a time!)

I walk about 2-3 miles every day to get to and from school (built-in exercise!). Rutgers has an awesome bus system entirely free to students/the public and it runs fairly frequently, even on weekends.

However, because it’s so awesome, it frequently looks like this.

So how did I manage to pack myself onto this, you ask? I have some experience in stuffing myself into compact spaces. I asked the bus driver if he’d mind if I sat in the place where people usually put their bags. He was cool with it, so I climbed over the rail and in I went. We made a couple more stops, but obviously, no one could get on, so I asked one of the girls who’d just tried to board the bus if she wanted to sit up there with me.

This freed up about one more spot, so her friend managed to squeeze on as well…

…but there was no room to hold onto anything, so they held hands for the entire bus ride to prevent the one standing from lurching across the front of the bus.

My housemate gave me her UMDNJ School of Health-Related Professions hat! Not actually my department, but I like it, and it’s close enough! :P
I’m convinced that the longer I stay here, the more articles of red clothing I will magically acquire. Whether it’s because peer pressure or somethin’ else, we’ll never know, but I promise I’m still wildly loyal to blue & gold!

Just as a public service announcement, the next eleventy-billion posts will be of food, since I need to get a start on the recipe section! :O I will pepper it every here and there with posts about life so you’ll know I’m still bein’ studious and/or that I do something other than eat!