A Carless Low Point: The Mooch

I was hoping it wouldn't happen so soon.  It's only Day Three.  My AM commute was fine: another very pleasant ride on Route 81, which took about a half hour from the White Flint Metro to the Rockville Metro.  But, to get to a work meeting, today I had to borrow someone's car.

I attend regular meetings of the C&O Canal Network, which is a gathering of stakeholders and advocates for the C&O Canal and Great Falls Park, on behalf of our office.  The meetings take place at the park's visitor center, located down a windy entrance from where Falls Road meets MacArthur Boulevard.  In other words, it's lovely, but it's way out in the middle of nowhere, from a public transit perspective.

Going to meetings of this kind in the community is part of my job, and I fully expected various meetings like this one would arise during the month I'm going carless.  I had been operating under the assumption that the County had a car share program that would be available for people just like me.  While it's true that the County did institute a pilot program for such a car share service, it was eliminated, along with an avalanche of other really great things, from the Fiscal Year 2011 Operating Budget - and understandably so.  Various departments still make cars available to their employees, but if you want to pick one up, you need to get yourself to the depot, located on Seven Locks Road in Rockville.  It is not my intention to be critical of the County - this is a blog about getting around without a car - so I will refrain from commenting on the wisdom of locating the County's fleet of vehicles for use by employees in a spot you need a vehicle to get to.

I plugged my destination into Google Maps, and was given the route to your right.  Three buses, a nine-minute taxi ride, and one hour 54 minutes later, I'd arrive at Great Falls.  Seriously?  The 46 to the 34 to the 402 and then hail a cab?  I decided that this was not a good use of my time.  I talked it over with my very supportive Chief of Staff, who immediately offered to let me borrow her car.

Three days in, and there it is: the mooch.  I was really hoping that this endeavor in my own carlessness would not result in just using other people's cars.  I'm chalking this one up as a rare exception in order to get to a remote (to say the least) part of the County for work purposes.  But I'm not gonna lie, I do feel a like I cheated...  Tomorrow will be better.