Traveling by transit

Living in the suburbs of Toronto, it's usually much less efficient to transit than it is to hitch a ride from a friend or family member, so I rarely find myself in a bus, streetcar, or subway. Still, whenever I end up transiting, I find that the extra few hours it takes me to travel is well worth it; somehow, I always feel much better after riding the rocket.

I wonder whether this positive feeling is the result of knowing that by choosing to transit (instead of asking a parent or sibling to give me a ride), I've lessened the car count on the streets by one. Reductions in our carbon footprint, however small and insignificant they seem, feel good. (The dangers of these 'feel good moments' and how they sometimes make us 'feel like we've done enough' are important to discuss as well, but perhaps I'll leave them for another blog post.)

I wonder whether the positive feeling comes instead from some other satisfaction -- a satisfaction rooted in traveling with people and sharing a space with these people whom you don't know but who are heading, at least in part, in the same direction before you all split into your separate, occasionally-overlapping lives.