Carrie Wolski’s first memories of taking the bus were from when she was three years old. Twice weekly, Carrie and the other children enrolled in Humboldt Educare would board an Arcata & Mad River Transit bus to take field trips to places like the Judo Hut (the former home of Humboldt Community Television), the Fire Station, Arcata Community Recycling Center, and the Arcata Co-op. Instead of always remaining within a playground and classroom/daycare area, Educare staff reasoned, why not bring these young minds out to explore more of their community? And in this sense, the bus was as much a destination as a means to get there.

Her familiarity with riding the bus probably helped Carrie, now in fourth-grade at Jacoby Creek School, feel comfortable riding the school bus since kindergarten. Carrie now mentors and reassures some younger bus-riders in her neighborhood, who start out a little wary of riding the bus alone. Her bus stop is one of the first on the route, so she has constant day-to-day familiarity with all places along the bus route in her community — the Jacoby Creek Land Trust, Redwood Roots Farm, Bayside Grange, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, and the Presbyterian Church — and countless other places and details along her way.

Carrie appreciates riding the bus for many reasons: she enjoys seeing friends on the bus, “because its fun,” it’s “better for the environment,” because it “saves [her family] money,” and because it gives her a greater sense of independence than would her mom driving her. By the way, Carrie, thanks for not contributing to all that morning school-front traffic congestion! She sometimes takes advantage of her bus commute as a time to read.

The bus is not the only sustainable transportation mode that Carrie enjoys and takes advantage of. Since she was very young, Carrie has been riding bikes, beginning with a “trailer bike” — a frame with a seat, handlebars, and one wheel that connects to the seat-post of an adult bike. Following the trailer bike, she received a stand-alone bike that served her for a few years, and more recently, she’s been riding a larger, slicker, and faster blue and black Specialized Hotrock bicycle, a birthday gift from her mom in May 2007. “I also have a headlight for bicycling,” says Carrie, explaining how its design allows it to be worn with her helmet.

She joins her friends to explore her neighborhood and other areas on their bikes. Carrie’s mom, Maggie Gainer, asks that Carrie and her friends stay off of the nearby Old Arcata Road, which has narrow shoulders and lacks an adjacent sidewalk or off-street trail near where they live. Outside of her own neighborhood, Carrie travels the hilly “Golf Course Loop,” and the Hammond Trail, which she and her friends enjoyed riding on during a recent Sunday afternoon at Hiller Park in McKinleyville. Carrie and several of her friends have had biking birthday parties at Hiller Park.

For Carrie, sustainable and balanced transportation is about doing the right thing as well as having fun and exercising her own independence. She’s looking forward to more car-free adventures. Thanks for biking and riding the bus, Carrie, and agreeing to be our profiled Commuter!