One thing I love about being in Korea is the public transportation! I use either the subway or buses when I’m going to sightsee or events. It’s very affordable compared to transportation in the US – I calculated that I would save hundreds of dollars, thousands over years, if I took Seoul’s transportation compared to my car in the US. The transportation is so efficient and more environmentally friendly (as an Environmental Science major, I appreciate this). Some of the buses are electric, and because there are so many people taking the transportation, the carbon footprint is much lower. It makes me wish that my city, Kansas City, had infrastructure like this (our public transportation is notoriously bad). It’s improved a bit with the introduction of the streetcar, but it’s not enough to discourage residents from owning a car on a large scale. Unfortunately, the infrastructure is built entirely for cars. Downtown is choked by highways, making it difficult to walk to, and there is a very large number of surface parking lots in Kansas City. If you look at a map of all the surface parking lots, they take up as much surface as the buildings do. It’s ridiculous.

Another benefit of public transportation is that it could offer more economic opportunities. For people in low-income households, it would be more affordable to take public transportation to their job than to own a car. Additionally, they could find more potential job opportunities that are further away from home without having to worry about the long commute (e.g. gas money, putting a lot of miles on their car). The reduction of cars would be beneficial to the health of everyone in the city, since it would decrease emissions due to a) less people driving in the first place and b) less people driving means less traffic and higher fuel efficiency. It would be difficult and costly for Kansas City to get a subway, but the buses and streetcars could certainly be expanded. Also, maybe this is just me, but taking the subway is so fun! I like tapping the little card and riding on the subway because it’s like a train, and I can go places without being the one driving! It feels like a treat to go from my suburban neighborhood to a very walkable city like Seoul. One more thing- I went biking with some friends recently and there was a super long bike path; we were on it for an hour and there was a whole bike roundabout at one point! I was amazed at how far you could go, and it was so much safer because the path was for bikes only. I hope in the future the United States can learn from this. Cars are a scam!

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Learn more about this blogger’s study abroad program: Korea University