Busing: Day Six

Okay, so something odd has happened with my little bus experiment. No, I wasn't mugged or molested, nor did I meet my new best friend or come to the conclusion that the mumbling guy who stares out the window is actually chanting the winning lottery numbers for a month from now.

Nothing that exciting. Mostly, I've noticed that I have gravitated away from the bus in direct proportion to how well my wife and I have adjusted to being a single car family. This wasn't my intention, evidenced quite clearly by the completely unused week-long bus ticket I still have in my wallet as an unwillingness to admit that I pissed away $14.

We just made slight adjustments here and there, as we often to, and the change to using only one car was tacit and unconscious, but is almost complete, nonetheless.

I still took the bus to work this morning, and I might take it home as well. And this itself might become a routine, at least while the Jeep is in the shop. But it's clear to me now just how completely personal and private transportation has ingrained itself in our lives.

Many rightly argue that - even if you wanted to be a fan of mass trans in a smaller city - you could only go so far because everything from the layout of certain businesses to city zoning are predicated largely on an assumed level of personal transportation.

Of course, now I'm scratching my head as to whether we could survive with just one car. Hmmmm. Though both cars are paid for, the lack of insurance alone could pay for my bus tickets. Hmmmm.

Busing: Day Four

Upon shaking my wife's piggy bank for another two quarters, exactly two state quarters shot into my hand, so I knew it was going to be a good day. I went with an iPod today to avoid speaking to anyone in lieu of reading the same copy of Wired magazine. It was a moot point, really, since there didn't seem to be too many riders today.

The driver was different: a younger woman. And while I'm sure it's my imagination, it seems like none (or very few) of the regulars are on board, as if in protest to the new driver and showing a sort of driver loyalty. I know the time's the same; I've got that down cold now.

I suppose it could be that today is a Friday and - just like most anywhere you go - things are just a little off on Fridays. Like the fact that everyone in my building seems to shed ten years instantly every Friday, clad in designer jeans and more casual jackets - clothing that magically makes them seem younger in every other way.

The two young black kids who get on each day (the only regulars today, so far as I can tell) whip out their riding credentials like a television police detective: quick flop open, then back. So they don't actually have to scan them, it seems. I rub my hand over my goatee and wonder: Could I pass for a high school student if it meant free rides?

Busing: Day Three

Raining again. I got the bus stop right on time only to discover I had no quarters, and the only other bills I had were a ten and a twenty. So, I run back home, fly in the house, and proceed to raid my wife's piggy bank, into which she only puts dimes and quarters (mostly quarters by, say, a five to one ratio).

I shake it in the dark of my bedroom only to get a quarter and four dimes. I shake again and feel something larger, so I grab it and go. But by the time I'm passed the laundry room some subconscious (and far more astute) part of my brain says: "Something ain't right" so I look at the two coins to find that the second one is one of those Sacajawea dollars. There might be three of those things in the whole half-gallon growler that passes for my wife's piggy bank and I shake one out.

So I got back and get the right change, yelling at the dogs to get out of my way so I can run back to the bus stop. I make it, luckily, with about a minute to spare.

The ride is uneventful, not even the chatty Cathy who normally talks up the driver the whole way is speaking. Probably the rain. Some guy gets on and pays with what sounds like 150 pennies. An SUV seems to have forgotten basic physics and passes us on the left right where Campbell becomes a single-lane street due to the cop cars parked in the right hand lane in front of the police station.

At least I have a basic idea of the time now, since I looked at my watch approximately every ten seconds while running to and from the house for exact change.

Busing: Day Two

It’s raining, so I wanted to get to the stop like yesterday - at the exact second before the bus arrives. But, since I didn’t look at my damn watch yesterday, I have to arrive early and just stand in the rain for a while. I try to read my latest issue of Wired magazine, but the pages are getting wet despite my best efforts, and holding my briefcase in the crook of my arm is a pain in the ass anyway.

So I just stand there and debate on playing the brick breaker game on my BlackBerry. If someone else comes up and waits with me, I’m sure I’ll break out the trusting phone just to look too busy to make conversation.

I can’t help but notice the drivers staring at me as they cruise by. Do I stare at people waiting for a bus when I’m driving? I can’t tell exactly what their stares imply. It looks like it could be pity, but there’s something else there. By the time the bus passes by on the other side of the road (meaning it will be to me very soon) I think I have the looks figured out. It’s a tacit thanks, to me and to fate. They’re saying: I may not like my car payment and my insurance payment, bu that’s all right, because I’m not that dumb ass standing on the corner in the rain.

When the bus comes, I swear is earlier than yesterday. I look at my watch but immediately forget the time because I have to juggle everything to get out exact change. I have no idea what would happen if I used two dollar bills. Would I get change, or would the bus driver reproachfully scowl at me or roll his eyes in digust? I don’t risk it, but put in the dollar bill and two quarters as quickly as possible.

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.