Public transport and a sense of society

I feel more connected to people around me when I am in the street.

This seems pretty obvious, but the effect on your psyche is so subtle that you may not notice the long term changes. When I started road running, I obviously noticed more runners on the road (due to confirmation bias), but I also started to feel less afraid on the road. I had experienced a certain sense of trepidation leaving my “safe” home to go into the “unsafe” street, which diminished as I realised that the people on the street were also real people with real lives, by and large going about their business with no ulterior motives. Now that I walk more I am noticing a similar thing – I am feeling more connected to the community.

In the excellent book Traffic, Tom Vanderbilt posits the theory that being in a car makes us treat other people differently, while they perceive us differently. In effect, we treat the car as a whole new animal, only nominally controlled by its driver. It’s easy to think of the people who inhabit the street as totally different from us when there is a nice glass wall between us. When you walk in South Africa, you also realise just how poor our pedestrian infrastructure is. It’s amazing how often you get the “what are you doing in the road” look when you have no other option. Perhaps on a deeper level there is a question about why I am not in my car. I reckon that people would be more likely to contribute to their local communities if they walk or run.