I awoke to shooting stars. They were shooting inside my head. And they didn’t shoot for very long. Didn’t matter. This got the day off to an anxious start. Anything can get the day off to an anxious start. And this symptom, definite evidence of mortality in some manner, had to be addressed. Once Jane had helped me get my clothes on and hurtled upstairs to prepare for her day at church, I did a quick, furtive search of Messrs. Google. Turns out that seeing stars can be a sign of low blood pressure. Or Parkinson’s. Or Lewy body disease. The list was actually growing even longer about the time I decided to pull the plug on further examination. I needed coffee.
A quick ascent to the upper level, a quick espresso. A quick goodbye before Jane absolutely rushed out the door. And here I was. 75 years old, having recovered from a morning bout of cardiovascular disease, heart failure, the aforementioned other maladies, and attempting, rather valiantly I must say, to put everything in perspective. Which is, at final count, who cares? The day had dawned. I had dawned with it. Please. Dropping dead is one of my responsibilities as a human being. It’s in the job description. Honestly.
My friend Bruce in British Columbia manages to live one day at a time. I am trying to follow in his footsteps. He is my avatar. Besides, some of these days are simply too wonderful to miss. Like yesterday.
My nephew was in town. He is all of 31 years old, shares my passionate believe in the Urban Project, and is full of amazing news about attempts to make transportation and housing work for everyone in America. We share this idealism. And when you consider that I am much more than twice his age, it’s all a particular gift. Besides, he has friends in high places. One of them is a fellow graduate in transportation planning. And damned if we didn’t meet her at San Francisco’s Ferry Building and set it off in pursuit of urban wonders. Of course, it must be said that we set off only after being fueled by Philz coffee, a Bay Area chain that has transformed how we mortals think of coffee. And, we think of coffee often. Those of us who live in San Francisco and, as my nephew does, Seattle. And being accompanied by his friend from the Metropolitan Transit Commission, well we just had to see things.
Our first goal was the new terminus of the San Francisco light rail in Chinatown.
No stranger to controversy, San Francisco’s Muni has sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into bringing a light rail subway across town, connecting the existing Caltrain station, Union Square and, yes, Chinatown. Actually, the price tag is in the billions. It’s very controversial. Which was why it was so refreshing to hear someone from the MTC express skepticism. Yes, it’s expensive, but the cost of not doing the project would have been very expensive. And what does this mean? It means that the Chinatown neighborhood depends on tourism to keep things going. And Chinatown residents, many of them aging, need to get around. I don’t know all the other reasons, but without an injection of improved access, my MTC companion assured me that the neighborhood might be dead within 10 years. And Chinatown is one of the densest urban areas in America. It is second only to New York. People don’t have cars. Certainly they don’t park them here. If there was ever a transit village, this is it. Anyway, I delighted in hearing all this. Local transit advocacy groups have complained that the Central Subway, as it’s called, was draining too much money from other projects in San Francisco. But I hadn’t heard this other perspective. The human cost of not improving transit to Chinatown. I loved it.
And with that we carried on. Which meant that we continued an astonishing wheelchair surge up Nob Hill. Now, Gentle Reader, you understand that I am feeling particularly fragile these days. My wheelchair has been breaking down. I have been breaking down. I consider my days numbered in the low digits. And here we were, the three of us, going straight up San Francisco’s most famous peak. Nothing happened. I didn’t die. However, they plan to go downhill, well, that went off the rails. Not that there were any rails. Except the Muni light rails and those were all underground, of course. And the idea to go down to Union Square and see where the new station would be, oh well, that had to be nixed. Going straight down Powell Street, or certainly Taylor Street, well, it’s not for the faint hearted. It’s not for my Swedish wheelchair, either. Instead, we proceeded straight down California Street toward Van Ness Blvd. where, if you want to know, Muni is completing its new Xpress bus project. Bus Rapid Transit, to be exact, another addition to the jewels in the urban transit crown.
Even better, en route, my transportation maven companions agreed to a brief stop at Trader Joe’s. Had to buy some beans. Fiber bars. And so on.
We carried on. And somehow, having covered three miles and ascended and descended something not far short of 1000 feet, damned if we weren’t back at the Civic Center BART station. My sense of joy was indescribable. This was the longest trip I had managed by wheelchair, perhaps ever. Certainly in San Francisco. It took nerve. It took human companions. And it only took a couple of hours. There was still some November light left in the day. Enough to go outside and briefly expose my face to the late autumn sunshine. The days are getting shorter and shorter. Life is getting shorter and shorter. But there is still cappuccino. And there is more. And it doesn’t matter how much.