Buses Are Terrific
Posted on | January 17, 2008 at 6:15 am | 5 Comments
In an effort to alleviate the intense fear of buses I’ve had ever since I ran into one, I decided to ride the bus to work yesterday. (Well, actually, two buses. It’s kind of cool – they have this thing called a “transfer”, which the driver of the first bus hands you when you pay him, and which you show to the driver of the second bus so that you don’t have to pay again. If only music collections could be shared through a similar system.) And then after work I rode two more buses back home! It was a 4-bus day!
Anyway, my reasons for doing so were many (aside from the getting-over-the-fear thing):
- With the price of gas these days, and the fact that I’m now driving a rental car that gets 24 mpg, it’s actually cheaper to take the bus to work than to drive. (Not so with the Prius, unless you count wear-and-tear.)
- I wanted to see how it was done and to get familiar with the system in case I was ever temporarily car-less, or as an alternative to driving to work on a bad snow day. (Although on really bad days, I can just work from home.)
- I wanted to get familiar with the routes so I could impart the info to N in case she needed to ride the bus out here or back at some point.
- Saving the environment and all that hoo-haa.
- I enjoy people-watching in new environments.
- Some of my co-workers do it and I wanted to see what all the excitement was about.
- I wanted to see if it was possible to get things done while riding on the bus (listening to music, reading, sleeping, etc). Turns out that’s kind of difficult with the cramped seating, or if you’re not acclimated to the route and are trying to pay attention to when to disembark and all that.
- I wanted to support the system and encourage more mass transit and line expansion. They are building some light rail lines closer to my area of town, but they won’t be done for years.
I decided to do the Local route rather than the more-expensive Express route, even though I’m pretty sure that the Express would get me close to work without having to do a transfer. (Both buses stop within a block of my house.) I wanted the full-on bus-riding experience. I live on the edge like that. It’s just how I roll. I choose a day to ride when one of my co-workers who lives near me (same bus stop) was taking the bus and could edumacate me in the ways of mass transit. Oh, it’s not like I’m totally befuddled when it comes to that – I have rode the light rail quite often, and I even took the bus downtown to work for several months in the late 80s. But there’s always unknowns in the system and I figured it would be best to have someone show me the ropes my first time out. Plus, she leaves work earlier than I do, so I would have a chance to fly solo on my way back.
I wish we could’ve chosen a better day for it. It was bitter cold with a wind chill factor that dropped the apparent temperature down into the single digits or below zero. And it was snowing at the first bus stop, although the city was clear. So waiting around at the stop was far from fun. Luckily, I only had to wait a maximum of 10 minutes or so on both trips.
The experience was neither pleasant not unpleasant – it just was. It was nice to leave the driving to someone else. Although in the case of the first bus driver, that someone else was in a pretty bad mood. At one point, she even refused to open up the door for a late runner, who then ended up smacking the side of the bus with his newspaper. I couldn’t blame him.
There was a sign inside one of the buses that had something to do about treating water right, and there was a bullet point that said “Be sure to tell all your friends to ride the bus and learn about storm drains”. I tried to take a cell phone picture of it, but it didn’t come out:
I couldn’t quite figure it out, but it was a fascinating diversion. There were even some dorky mascots on it (”Joe and Flo” or something).
Oh wait! I found the website.
It took me a little over an hour each way for the bus ride, though that doesn’t count the initial time spent waiting at the bus stop at the beginning of each trip. I assume that time could be cut down by timing things better in the future. I didn’t get lost or take the wrong bus, so that was a plus. I didn’t have to walk far or wait long for the connecting bus either way, though I did almost miss the one on the way home. It was a tight connection. But even if I had missed it, due to some weirdness in the routing, I probably could’ve caught the same bus two blocks away five minutes or so later. My co-worker has done that.
The morning buses got pretty full up, but weren’t quite standing room only. The evening buses weren’t quite as full. I never had any trouble finding a seat. I was carrying my big backpack with the laptop in it, and that combined with the small close-together seats on the bus did make things a little tight. I probably could’ve done some reading, but it would’ve been uncomfortable. I was glad that I’ve consolidated everything into a single backpack, rather than the separate backpack and laptop case I used to carry around.
When I’m on a bus, I’m always wondering which of the people on it are riding the bus because they have to, and which are doing it because they want to. I suppose there’s a part of me that feels smugly superior that I’m riding it even though I don’t have to, but I hope I’m not looking down on the others. I can foresee circumstances where I could be in the same position. You can never tell what the future may bring, no matter how many tarot card readings you do.
One grave miscalculation I made is that I drank a lot of water before leaving work, and forgot that buses don’t have restrooms. When I got home, I had to throw everything on the floor and make a mad dash for the bathroom.
So… will I do it again? Probably. I don’t know if I’ll make a regular thing out of it, but I’m sure there will be some sporadic bus rides now and again.
Pet Peeve of the Day:On the trip home on the bus, I did pull out my iPod (my oldest one, the 3rd Gen 30GB touchwheel), only to have it run out of battery power immediately. I don’t understand that, since it had been fully charged from sitting in the iHome all night, and I only listened to it for less than an hour at work. It’s old, and the battery must be dying. Or maybe the coldness sucked the life out of it. Or maybe the new headphones I bought do suck the power at an extraordinary rate like they say. Bummer. There is no end of iPod problems for me. I guess that’s what you get with devices designed to be obsolete. At least I was able to switch to my PDA, which had a few “emergency” albums on it.
Jogged Today: No way, it’s below zero with the wind chill; even colder than yesterday.
Latre.
Comments
5 Responses to “Buses Are Terrific”
January 17th, 2008 @ 10:10 am
I road the bus (two buses) to Boulder for about a year and a half. Once I had the route memorized so I wasn’t worried about where to get off, it was great being able to read or study. It just took some practice to get used to reading in that environment. Of course, the total commute time was longer, but I got to read, for which I always had trouble scheduling time; so, it worked out as a net gain.
I quit riding when the number 6 bus (going downtown) got so erratic in its timing that I was always missing the express from downtown to Boulder. Since those run on half hour schedules, that was a killer.
If I get another job in Boulder, I’ll try the bus again.
January 17th, 2008 @ 10:15 pm
I used to ride the bus quite a bit, but when we moved to our house, to get to either of the places I worked required transfers, bringing the transit time up to potentially an hour-plus each way…it was time to get a second car. I’ve ridden the bus a few times since then, when one of the cars was in the shop or something – and discovered a brand new pet peeve, one that, if I had to ride the bus regularly, would really irritate me. A few years back, the bus system installed several TV screens in the buses. At first, they simply had a few silent ads, and route info, and the occasional map – in other words, they were useful and unobtrusive. However, shortly thereafter they started introducing ads with sound – and worse, they’d only come on periodically, every few minutes or so. The really annoying irony here is that the buses have signs posted prohibiting the playing of boomboxes, etc. – yet apparently the bus co.’s own noise is perfectly acceptable. Next time I ride the bus, I plan on bringing a boombox and playing Metal Machine Music every time one of those ads comes on. Of course, it’ll just sound like the bus’s own brakes, so people probably won’t even notice.
January 17th, 2008 @ 10:44 pm
A few years back, the bus system installed several TV screens in the buses.
That is unacceptable.
January 18th, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
City buses with TV monitors? Flasshe is right; this is completely out of line.
January 21st, 2008 @ 8:58 am
I almost always sleep on the bus, in my many years of riding only once did I not wake up in time. (The driver knew where I got off, he stopped the bus and woke me up.)
I still ride the bus on bad snow days. It beats getting to work and already being tense and angry.