Friday reading: An unplanned transition to transit
Posted on June 27th, 2008 – 6:05 AMBy Roadguy
It’s apparently “long form” week here at Roadguy: A correspondent we’ll call Busboy offers us the following 1,300 words about his recent switch to the bus. Check it out, and share your thoughts below.
ALONG FOR THE RIDE
I am 8:49 a.m. attractive: Guys with white t-shirts tucked into khakis.
The earlier you ride the city bus, the more attractive the passengers. I make the cut close to 9 a.m., when I should already be sitting at my desk slouching towards spinal deformity, pecking at my keyboard and menacing sources over the phone. This is one of the many startling lessons I’m learning as a newly christened bus rider. I didn’t particularly like this lesson in vanity, but I certainly couldn’t ignore it either.
I became a bus rider on Friday the 13th when a commercial-size van drove full-speed into the rear end of my 2000 silver Honda Civic about 11 a.m., crushing the trunk flush with the backseat. I knew deep in my heart that the $10,725 car I paid off last October was headed to the big parking lot in the sky, but I dutifully plucked a banana from the shards of glass and strewn miscellany and threw it into a nearby trash can. I didn’t want it smelling like rotten fruit. That’s how much I loved my car. Goodbye, dear friend.
That first Monday post-crash I enthusiastically prepared for my life as a mass-transit taker. I awoke at 7:30 a.m. and was aboard the Number 6 bus by 8:25 a.m., just about the time I usually dragged my carcass out of bed for the breezy 8-minute drive to work. I figured that 35 minutes was plenty of time to get downtown and walk six blocks to the office.
I was starting a new life. I was going to up the ante on my eco-friendliness. I plunked eight quarters into the farebox as savvier riders swiped magical cards past a magical device. Note to self: Get a card and save yourself the manic search for change every morning and the unsightly bulge in your pocket. I took the transfer ticket, knowing full well I wouldn’t use it. A memento by which to remember the dawn of my new life, I thought as I slipped it into my back pocket.
Single, bored and male I instantly noted the attractive crowd, ear buds planted deep into ear canals, nose sandwiched in a book, newspaper strategically held aloft to minimize eye contact with others. Ties and shirts; a suit or two; flattering dresses; and nary a wrinkle.
I’m not proud of myself for noticing these things, and I don’t pretend to be a good person. I don’t even think shirts and suits are all that great. But I saw and I took note, and I would never be the same again.
Come Tuesday morning my new life had already begun its downward spiral. I woke up late and walked a block to the bus stop in mall-walker mode, arms swinging like pendulums and legs scissoring like blades. I was not going to risk my reputation with the 8:33 a.m. crowd. Alas, that’s where I ended up. Not too shabby, I thought as I boarded.
Wednesday came and then Thursday. In less than a week I had dropped four buses to the 8:49 a.m. tier. This is where hitting the snooze button four times gets you: five rows behind a guy clad in a white t-shirt tucked into straw-colored khakis. I stared blankly out the window at the passing scenery. Oh look, I thought, SuperAmerica looks so festive dressed in red, white and blue. I never knew.
I deserve this, I said to myself. If I can’t get myself to work on time, I don’t deserve to sit near Mr. Tight Corduroys or Young Man in Gray Suit. I had tried to get to bed earlier to no avail. I had set my alarm earlier. Futile. I could not exorcise the demons of my car-dependent ways. I would find happiness with the 8:49 a.m. crowd. Hello, dear friends.
A week and a half later I was stomping towards the bus stop on Hennepin Avenue when the mechanical brontosaurus lumbered past. (I refuse the indignity of running after buses.) I hurried across the street. Perhaps it was the Number 17, I assured myself. But the minutes ticked away. No bus. I found myself face-to-face with the 8:57 a.m., pocket heavy with unsightly change, my soul heavy with shame.
The world was so much safer in the sanctuary of my car, where a carousel of indie rockers serenaded me and trail mix was a glove compartment away. Bottled water rolled about the floor. Cell phone chargers, a toothbrush and a first-aid kit were stashed nearby. Maps abounded. A kite was always in the trunk. I could’ve raise a small family in that car. But the bus, it forces you to tote an umbrella two-thirds your height on beautiful days just because some suit with hair on TV says it might rain. It means you clutch an embarrassment of a lunch in a lumpy, plastic Target bag that looks like a bundle of beloved refuse.
It asks so many questions of you: Are you going to tell the college-age kid standing in front of you that his backpack is open even though giant clamshell headphones clamp over his ears? Are you going to stop a bus you don’t need for someone half a block away running full tilt, arms flailing? Are you going to sit next to her? Or him? Why? Are you going to get off here with everybody else, or are you going to make me lurch every block and disembark one stop over?
All my Honda ever asked was: What will it be today, sir? Rock-and-roll, or NPR? Now my moral compass is questioned daily, and I’m ashamed to report that it simply spins in a vicious circle, like a hurricane promising only to break your prettiest and dearest belongings.
My car got such great mileage that I hardly blinked at today’s gas prices. It only failed after I had abused it, like the time I drove over a snowy curb and dislocated the muffler. It came with 20,000 miles when I bought it after graduating from college in 2003. Three days later it carried me from Iowa to New York City (and eventually, back) without so much as a cough.
It was my first car, and unlike my parents’ geriatric Chevy Cavalier and Nissan I occasionally drove in high school, I never had to pull to the side of the road to prop the hood open because smoke was billowing from the engine. (The Nissan would actually catch fire one day.)
That fateful Friday morning I had stopped on 4th St. at 17th Av. SE. in preparation for a right turn when I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw an angry, steely grill staring back. Suddenly, my car imploded, both airbags blooming frighteningly fast from their hideaways in a terrible, rubbery stench. The back windshield rained down on me like razor-sharp hail. The picture of my 5-year-old niece wedged onto the dash fell into my lap. My right calf throbbed, apparently severely bruised. Even that yellow banana survived the trauma seemingly blacker and browner.
I wanted to believe I couldn’t live without a car, but as I limped from the University of Minnesota campus to downtown and, eventually, home that Friday, the city grew smaller and life without my car, more limitless. Today marks two weeks since the accident. Ten days of bus ridership that have strangely made me more aware and appreciative of people, the city and the closeness of distance.
I’ve given up trying to work my way back to the 8:25 a.m. crowd. Who am I kidding? I, too lazy to iron and thus, wearing the same shirt twice in one week, am just an 8:49 a.m. kind of guy. The 8:57 a.m. won’t be happening again, though. I swear it.
19 Responses to "Friday reading: An unplanned transition to transit"
get a bike. if your commute was a breezy 8 minutes in a car, it would probably only be a breezy 15 by bike. Also, you never have to wait for your bike to come pick you up. It’s always ready.
very well written narrative. I enjoyed reading it.
My bike isn’t always ready. My bike let its rear tire get punctured by a piece of wood last night, halfway home. A piece of wood! A splinter!
This narrative makes me long for my salad days in Chicago when I rode transit to the Loop on buses and trains full of Ally McBeal-esque Attractive People with quality fabric and department store cologne and Starbucks cups firmly planted in hand. It was the heady go-go days of the late 90s, and I was in my early 20s. Now I drive my old Saturn down the Bloomington strip, with less hair, listening to Lite FM, vaguely missing those days of crowded, yet mostly efficient transit.
Busboy- great writing.
Snuffy- inflate your tires.
As a recently new bus rider I just have one question…
Why do the city buses always smell like a port-a-potty?
This REALLY makes me appreciate my car 
Look up “Transit Usability” on google.
A clue: your corporate behemoth will probably subsidize your fare 75%, check
HR. Do not buy a “Go Card”.
Grocery stores carry the 10-20-40 buck fare cards that give a 10% discount, get one if you cannot get the corporate welfare deal. Anyway, you will soon be
ripped off totally, Jimbo F. has reported the fare will hike 50% in the next year.
Like they say above, get a bike
if the commute is just several miles.
But I see you will be getting an auto soon, if you don’t get the subsidy
the cost in time and fare will make
a Humvee look cheap and the many
annoyances from unshoveled bus stops
to lack of navigation aids will drive
weak car-loving amoral namby-pambies away.
“Why do the city buses always smell like a port-a-potty?”
Because to a certain (but small) transit-riding demographic, they are.
Snuffy you need to get puncture resistant tires made of kevlar for your bike. Also check the tire-pressure to make sure it is adequate. I liked this article. Going to public transportation isn’t easy but makes a lot of sense. I personally like riding my bike on my days off for errands and the bus to the airport if I have a plane to catch (which is rare).
I have a friend who is a school bus driver for Mpls. Regularly, in the summer, he will drive one or two children, in a large size school bus.
Disel, at $5 / gallon. To transport one or two children! Our government is wasting our money and natural resources everyday.
DGB. On the other hand, my wife works for a school bus company which contracts with the Minneapolis schools to transport kids. High gas prices directly impact their profits, so they have a vested interest in making sure that they’re getting as much bang for their buck as possible. At the company picnic this year the owner talked about the need to conserve and even told the drivers to mention if they saw inefficiencies like you talked about.
Of course one problem is that the school district plots out the routes without regard to how fuel or time efficient they are, or even if they work at all, then give them to the contractors and expect them to make it work. Getting a route changed involves going through the school district red tape factory and can be difficult unless there’s some really obvious problem. (“I can’t go that way because the bridge is out, remember?”)
Seems like a pretty clear lesson to me, make sure that the people planning the bus routes are the ones who’s paycheck goes down if they’re wasting gas.
Josh R says: “Of course one problem is that the school district plots out the routes without regard to how fuel or time efficient they are, or even if they work at all, then give them to the contractors and expect them to make it work. Getting a route changed involves going through the school district red tape factory and can be difficult unless there’s some really obvious problem. (“I can’t go that way because the bridge is out, remember?”)”
Nothing but a big fat excuse. It all starts at the top Josh. It all boils down to an enficcient system, riddled with rules, unions, etc.
Jim,
I ride the 6 as well, but usually between 6:30 and 7:30 am. I can attest to your assessment of beauty. A boatload of them get off at Hennepin and 11th. I think they’re all Targetrons.
Also, if you get a Go-To Card, the same discount applies as the other cards, despite what previous commentors have said. I usually put on $20 at a time and get $22 in fare…that schematic works its way up to $100 yielding you $110 in fare.
DGB said “Nothing but a big fat excuse. It all starts at the top Josh. It all boils down to an enficcient system, riddled with rules, unions, etc.”
Um, yes that was my point. The contractors would have the incentive to be doing things more efficiently, but the school district insists on keeping it’s hand in by planning the routes.
(Insert snarky comment about reading comprehension here.) 
The Go-To Card is the best thing that’s happened to Metro Transit since rail was added to the mix on the Hiawatha Corridor. This drastically speeds up the ride as fare paying doesn’t take as long.
What would really speed things up (and increase ridership) would be charging no fare and allowing folks to board and disembark from both ends of the bus (or streetcar in a few years when they start coming back). Upgrading certain high frequency lines to streetcars also will speed up the commute as streetcars allow wheel chair users and other folks who need the lift to roll/or walk right on without waiting for the lift, like LRT.
The new hybrid buses are “low riders” that allow much faster access for wheelchairs and other mobility aids. I was pleasantly reminded of this last week when my bus stopped for two older people who were using those wheeled walkers. On an older bus that would have meant a good 5 minute delay as the lift was deployed twice, but with the new bus the driver just extended the ramp and they walked on. We were back on the road in no time flat.
I really have to switch to a go-to card, the only thing that’s really stopped me is the fact that I like being able to keep track of how much I have left on my pass by looking at the back.
Josh R: When you ding in with your Go To card, the reader displays the amount remaining. I’ve been using it for a couple of months now, and haven’t had any of the problems I used to have with the stored value passes such as misreads, unrecorded transfers, getting around to buy a new one, etc.
Let’s not forget that one of the biggest hurdles to changing school bus routes is the parents themselves. Every parent wants their kid picked up right at their front door, which is obviously very inefficent. Having kids walk a few blocks to the bus would vastly improve bus route efficiency, but the parents don’t want kids walking that far lest they get hit crossing a street or picked up by some sicko.
Nice narrative. Busboy grows up. I have not noticed the ‘attractiveness’ factor. Perhaps the white collars get to work earlier in downtown? Always thought it was the blue collars.
Eventually you time it so you get the last available bus you need.
You’re an excellent writer!
