I now have my own personal MRT station! I allow so-called "members of the public" to use it, but I consider it my own. This new "Songshan" MRT line opened on Saturday and runs along Nanjing East Road, which is a major boulevard that I use as the reference point to tell people where I live. It's a three minute walk to the station.

I've never been so close to a major rapid transit system (i.e., not buses). In Noe Valley I was pretty close to a light rail line, but San Francisco's light rail was part of the MUNI bus system. It wasn't BART.

The closest I lived to a BART station was in Daly City, about a 10 minute walk, but BART was not a very versatile rapid transit system. It was basically a commuter system from Bay Area suburbs to downtown San Francisco. It had a single set of tracks that ran through San Francisco and every train on all lines stopped at each of those stations.

This new Songshan line of Taipei's MRT system has transfers to multiple lines which opens up convenient possibilities to quickly get to a lot more places than BART could ever boast. It will be seen if this is a life-changing thing in terms of daily life. Especially on rain days when I can't go out on bike. On the other hand, it's still public transportation; still a drag.

Another big deal about having an MRT line open so close is that the value of my apartment probably just skyrocketed. This means that I owe my cousin Audrey that much more for setting me up here since this is her uncle's property and she's the one who got me in here at a discounted price six years ago.