By Catherine Pickham. Sustainable transport improves our health and quality of life as well as minimising our impact on the environment. It improves our quality of life by reducing congestion and traffic noise, improving air quality and creating spaces for social interaction. So why don’t more of us utilise these options?

My own experience of using public transport is quite extensive, as during my first and second year of university I didn’t own a car. The daily bus trips of catching two buses to make it to my classes were what one could describe as eventful.

From the delightful old lady sitting in the seat adjacent where the conversation begins with ‘would you like my seat’, talking about the weather and pretty broaches can only go so far, when the conversation slows to an awkward state where I find myself pretending to receive the most interesting of text messages.

To the call requesting to move the meeting to one hour ahead of schedule was not as simple as one would think, when you have to scramble your way through separate bus timetables and allocate exactly how much time you’ll have to make it to your destination, whereas as a car would make things so much more simple.

Now the proud owner of a Hyundai Getz, the efficient small car, I find myself moving into the big city and once again turning to public transport to find my way and do my part in a polluted and densely populated environment.

Except this time I will be armed with questions for the old lady wearing the lovely vintage broach and I will leave with plenty of time to spare just in case I’m needed one hour ahead of schedule. *

Catherine Pickham is a third year University student from the University of the Sunshine Coast, studying tourism and event management and undertaking an internship with the Noosa Biosphere.