Busing: Day Five

On Friday, after taking the bus to work, I decided to purchase a monthly bus pass to commit myself to the higher calling of busing. I walked the two blocks to the Campbell Court station and parted the haze of cigarette smoke from the half-dozen smokers lighting up just outside the south-facing double doors.

I went to the counter, and looked at the rates to make sure I had enough cash. Stepping up to the teller window, however, I found a note reading: Out to lunch. I checked my watch; it was 3pm, making me immediately envious of the bus station worker's lunch break.

I left and came back later, again set on a monthly pass. It was a Friday right before a weekend when I'd have a car, and I knew I already had a ride for that evening, so I asked: "Can I get a monthly pass starting Monday?" and she screwed her face. "They're month to month. You get one for the calendar month, not for a month from when you bought it."

So I decide to go for a week-long pass. "Well can I get a weekly pass for Monday?"

She again looked like I might have a second head I have always been unaware of. "Well the week starts Monday and goes through Saturday. We stopped selling them for this week."

"You're not selling them now?" I asked.

"Nobody would want to buy a week-long pass on a Friday," she said. "But we selling the one for next week."

"That starts on Monday?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Okay, I'll take one of them," I tell her. She tells me the price: $14.

I pay it, though the math is immediately suspect. If I ride to work to and from home each day, it's $3/day for 5 days, equally $15. If I lock myself into a week-long pass, I save one dollar.

I guess I do get to ride on Saturday, in case I want to be gung-ho and come to work on my day off.

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.