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For the last week, I've been staying with my sister in Walnut Creek while Natalie and I completed our apartment hunting. We found a fantastic 900+ square feet apartment in the Oakland-Grand Avenue-Piedmont area that we will be moving our possessions into later this week.

In the meantime, I've been commuting on Interstate 680 from Walnut Creek to Pleasanton for my new job at EMC Documentum. The job has been going great, and the commute isn't too bad; however, it's a far cry from the 10-15 minute cruise from Marina to Monterey when I was working at the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC). My new commute takes roughly 45-60 minutes during rush hour when it would normally take about 25-30 minutes during off-peak hours. I hate inefficiency, and this one is particularly offensive. It's been a good opportunity for me to rediscover National Public Radio (NPR), which I used to listen to regularly when carpooling from Capitola to Marina. It's one of the most thought-provoking media outlets on radio, in my opinion.

So, I've been considering the different commuting options from our new apartment to work. Since we'll be in the Piedmont area, I can ride BART from the MacArthur station to the Dublin/Pleasanton station. This is a 44 minute journey, which is respectable. However, there are some logistical problems that remain.

First, the MacArthur station is about 2.5 miles from our apartment which means that I will need to get to the station by car. Natalie can drop me off, or I can drive myself if there is available parking. Lastly, MacArthur doesn't have a good reputation for safety. So, leaving a car there during the day and part of the night might be a bad idea.

A lesser problem is getting from the Dublin/Pleasanton BART station to my workplace. There is a municipal bus line that takes about 10 minutes to travel between the BART station and my office park. I consider this a safe, convenient solution for getting between the BART station and work.

So, there are three discreet legs of my journey from home to office if I use public transportation. This complexity might result in my just driving from home to work, since it is a reverse commute and takes about 35-40 minutes by car. I regret making this decision since I am a fan of mass transit.

So, I'm spending an unusual amount of time considering commuting variables. None of these problems existed when I was working in Monterey, or from home as an independent contractor. I've heard that the population explosion in the East SF Bay Area (Pleasant Hill, Walnut Creek, etc.) occured only after the BART lines were installed. Before then, it was impractical to live in those areas and commute to SF and beyond. But now, it's just a matter of driving to a BART station and getting on board. BART has contributed to suburban sprawl. And when sprawl begins to overrun the systems that spurred it's growth in the first place, what happens next? Traffic jams, poorly connected transportation systems, and frustration.