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Spare the Air Day

If you ever want to know what the bay area would be like with affordable rail transit, you needn't look any further than today's Spare The Air Day program. Every year the city pays for a few days at $2.3 million a pop, during which all public transportation is free to encourage commuters to avoid driving their pollution-causing cars.

At the beginning of the day, I thought it was great to get more people to ride the trains that I already ride every day. But by the time I rode the free train to work and back, crammed into an un-aircondiitoned car, with no place to sit, everyone stinking of cigarettes, body odor, and pot smoke, I see that having the train be too expensive does have its benefits. In part I'm being class-ist, yes, but to a certain degree I feel like almost anything can be ruined by too many people.

So if CalTrain hopes to get more commuters, I hope they add more cars, more air conditioning, and more cleaning staff. Until then, next time the city has an "Unwashed Homeless People Come Out Of The Woodwork And Make The Train Smell Like A Toilet" day to help protect the environment, I'm going to drive my car to work.

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