Silas Avis
Provider: LSE
London, England
2022/23 Year Abroad

One thing that I have had to adjust to is the life of constantly relying on public transportation. If there is one thing I will not miss when I get back to the US is cramming into a packed tube car with a hundred other strangers at rush hour trying to get wherever I need to be. Driving is a luxury that I miss the most and when I get back, I am going on a long drive just because I can. The city makes a strong push to eliminate the use of private vehicles by using the tube and the double decker buses that are a staple of the city, but the streets remain extremely crowded in dense areas nonetheless. Whenever I fly back and have a check bag with me, I will usually use an uber to get where I need to go and those drives always take about 5 times longer than if I were to use public transportation. Between the buses and the tens of thousands of black taxi cabs that fil the streets of London, driving is just not a practical option for getting anywhere until you get out of Central London. For this reason, most London citizens bike to wherever they need to go or simply walk if they do not want to use public transportation. Since the roads are all completely backwards to what I am used to in the US I have not biked anywhere because I still think I will turn into oncoming traffic inadvertently. The emphasis on using bikes instead of cars is also a part of the city’s massive push to drastically reduce carbon emission within the city which most definitely the social issue that I see addressed the most among activists as well as politicians in the UK government. By doing that and switching to all electric vehicles they have actually done a very good job of it as opposed to how it was 100 years ago.