Carving a line south along 300 W towards Center Street he glides on trucks and wheels like a ice skater on ice. Erik has been using a skateboard for transportation since graduating from high school six years ago here in Provo.
He owns a car and uses it for short trips, less than three miles, 3-4 times a week if the weather’s bad or to pick up groceries, but his commutes to school and work are mostly on skateboard. When on campus at UVU he will at times take the UVX 830X, and then at the end of the day ride the streets and sidewalk back into Provo.
Creative use of multi-transports seems to be the game these days and Erik thinks his use of this is around 80%. I asked him why he rides the board, he told me he saves probably $40 a month on car expenses, it’s more fun than driving, and (now he became serious) that his best reason for skateboarding is “health.” His health wasn’t so good a year ago, so one day he decided to start exercising on his board more. And it worked! Erik says he feels today as healthy as he’s ever felt in his life.
One factor that made this all possible in his opinion is that Provo is more conducive to skateboarding. Erik says when he was living in Salt Lake City’s suburbs nearly no one skateboarded for commuting. I then asked him if he had an E-Bike would he be willing to give up his car altogether. He paused, then smiled and said, “yesss!
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