Busing: Day One

With the truck in the shop, I’ve decided to ease the familial burden of being carted to and from work by my wife and take the bus for a month instead. This may not sound terribly exciting, but - based on my busing experiences in the past - it could prove rather comical, which is my hope.
Well, I was lucky enough to know where the bus stops because I’ve taken the bus on a couple of other occasions at the height of the gas prices last year. At the time, I looked around for a solid 30 minutes before I could find one, though, because I was looking for stone benches or those little waffle-like seats under a Plexiglas roof like I knew in Arizona.

Apparently in Roanoke, busers just endure the elements because the only indication you have that a location is a bus stop is a sign about the size of a half-gallon of milk (hence all of my wandering). But this morning, I knew where to go, and I had a rough understanding of when I needed to be there after checking the time tables online.

So I walk maybe a quarter mile from my house and see another person standing in someone’s front yard where the nearest bus stop resides. I wonder if the homeowner who inevitably has busers lingering in his yard everyday gets some sort of stipend from the city, or got a discount on his house. Perhaps the realtor only took him through the back door and showed him the front porch when no buses were due.

I stand at the bus stop merely for a matter of seconds before the bus arrives, and I completely forget to look at my watch to check the exact time. The cost is $1.50 one way, which is a fair bit more than I would pay in gas for my car to drive downtown to work.

Granted, I live pretty close to work - maybe ten minutes away - and I have free parking compliments of my employer. So, given those circumstances, the bus is a bit of a ripoff, but I’m going to give it a whirl.

In the past, when I took the bus, I had my wife come to pick me up at work when she got home, completely negating any lack of carbon footprint or cost of gas that I’d previously intented. This might have been that I have to catch my return ride at the Campbell Court bus station, which can get a little shady, or it could have been the principle of not paying another $1.50 for a ten-minute ride.

Well, here goes. Stay tuned for occasional updates on how this month progresses.