My colleague, Russ Minick, wrote earlier this week about the pleasant trip he took with his family to a Major League Baseball game in Oakland using public transit. Here's another vote for that mode of transportation in getting to the ballpark. I'd love that opportunity in Fresno, but mass transit here is essentially no transit. Our leaders would rather subsidize cars than buses and trains. And then we complain that people are dying from air pollution in the San Joaquin Valley.
We have made bad choices in Fresno, but more on that at another time. Here's my trip-to-the-ballpark story:
I was visiting my daughter this week in San Diego and her Father's Day gift was tickets to an interleague game Tuesday between the Padres and the Baltimore Orioles in the new downtown ballpark. Watching baseball is a father-daughter tradition in our family. We toyed with the idea of driving to the game and paying the outrageous parking fees charged in downtown San Diego. Fortunately, we decided to take the San Diego Trolley to the ballpark.
My daughter's apartment is in La Jolla near UCSD where she is going to school. So we drove from there to Old Town, parked for free and hopped on the trolley. The cost was $8 each for the round trip. It was scenic and swift, and we arrived early enough at Petco Park to see batting practice.
The game was excellent, the Padres winning a lopsided 12-6. The best part was that we were back in Old Town about 35 minutes after the game. If we had driven downtown, we'd still have been in ballpark traffic by the time we were back on I-5 for the short trip to La Jolla.
It would be very cool if we could take a trolley or other form of light rail to see Grizzlies games in downtown Fresno. What are the chances?
Yes, parking in downtown San Diego is a nightmare - but the beauty of this community is that you have OPTIONS that are affordable to most. The trolley is quick, safe and relatively inexpensive. Typically, I am someone who is married to my vehicle. But the trolley is more convenient and cheaper than parking downtown. I fully support an expansion of the routes currently available in San Diego and, as a former Fresno resident, I think a trolley system would be invaluable to the Fresno community.
- Loving mass transit in Sun Diego