Centraal is essentially two stations in one: the metro and the national Belgium trains, so I had to figure out where the metro was. Once there, I asked around about how to get to Midi, and no one seemed to really be able to stop and help amidst the morning rush hour. There was a moment when I thought Uber might be the way to go, but then I paused, googled a map of the metro (which I should have done before - noted!), and realized that I needed to transfer. I bought my one-way ticket as well as a Mobib card with 10 journeys loaded on it for my future metro, bus and tram rides and made my way to Midi. That first experience was a little overwhelming, but it's all been easy since then!
Absolutely! Brussels is a very environmentally conscious city. The availability of multiple methods of transportation reflects this value of sustainability. Admittedly, they are still working on the efficiency of their system. There's a lot of ongoing construction for new metro stops, and while some metro stations have turnstiles that you can enter only once you scan your Mobib card, some older stations have scanners along the wall near the entrance or simply in the metro, which makes way for a lot of free-riders on public transportation. They're slowly but surely updating the stations with the turnstiles to avoid this problem in the future. When possible, people opt for public transportation and even more specifically carbon-free, cost-effective transportation when they can.
