The Commute

This morning I made the epic commute from Austin to Houston. I left at 5:30, stopped by the Starbucks at Guadaloupe and 38th, took 290 and 610, stopped by the Starbucks at the Kroger on Kirby and arrived at the office at 8:45. It wasn't a bad drive and the traffic on 290 and 610 wasn't bad at all. On the way in I was listening to the local NPR station talking about how bad the sprawl and the long commutes people make are.



I'm not so convinced. The drive wasn't hurtful, although I'm glad I don't do it every day--mostly because I'm not inclined to wake up at 5 am. I think a lot of the pollution issue could be solved by higher mileage vehicles. I don't think you are going to get all of these people to where they want to be during the day (i.e. the office and lunch out and the grocery store on the way back and the dry cleaners and the Montessori school at a specific time) by bus and train without drastically altering the commercial and social landscape in unfeasible ways, even with "Transit Oriented Development" and the most odious use of imminent domain.



I've talked bad about Starbucks putting in a store at Guadaloupe and 38th, but it proved handy when I wanted caffeine this morning. I'm all for Starbuckses along the vast wasteland of a drive to Dallas, but putting in a store in a neighborhood with a good coffee-spot ecology is not sportsman-like behavior. They already have one at 24th street for the campus folks, why put one in to compete with Spiderhouse, Mojos, that gelato place and Moxie-coffee (where I haven't been but I think is at 38th and West St.)?



On the other hand, what other coffee place in the neighborhood opens up for morning-time working folks? Spiderhouse doesn't open up until 8:30 am. I'm not certain when JP's opens, but when Amber and I went there about 7 am on a Saturday, it took a half hour to get coffee even though there was only one person in line in front of me. The one sleepy guy there wasn't enough to really be open. At Starbucks this morning there were two staff, one prepping and one ready to whip out coffee right after their posted opening time.