I have started riding the bus into the office in Decatur. Katy and I are doing the one car family thing and I’m working in Decatur twice a week to keep myself out of the house and maintain a bit of my sanity. Marta has an absolutely putrid website, but I was finally able to find a route that went from very near my house to very near the office location. This morning was the first attempt (on Monday, Katy drove me to the Marta station a few miles away and I rode the train to the station very near the office).
This morning, I left the house at 6:15 and walked a half mile (according to Google Maps) to the bus station. The bus rolled up within a minute or two, right on time at 6:22. I hopped on, paid my $1.75, sat back and read (“The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle“, by Haruki Murakami, which is awesome so far). The bus arrived at the Avondale station at 6:50 and I was opening the door to the office (a short walk away) at 6:55. Awesome, awesome.
Things I love about riding the bus, after Day 1:
- It takes me 30 minutes in my own car, 45 minutes by bus. But, I’m reading, not driving, so it’s sooooo much better.
- I get my body moving and energized with the walk to the bus stop.
- The dirt head in me loves that I’m not throwing extra pollution out – the bus would be running that route with or without me.
Since I’m an early bird, I don’t have many concerns about the bus being off-schedule. The 6:22 bus should always be there right around that time (barring a breakdown or something), because it won’t have any traffic to deal with.
It’s interesting to me the negative social connotation that riding the bus seems to have. Even in DC, where public transit was a normal thing, it was as if riding the bus was “for poor people, or people with suspended licenses”. I don’t get it. The bus I was on was clean and comfortable. The driver was nice, the other riders were quiet (mostly half asleep).
I love the bus. Of course, it’s Day 1, so that can certainly change, but for now, I’m happy to report that I’m officially a fan of the bus. And there are stops within spitting distance of our house! I’ll now be looking into all the routes and where they can take me.
This may sound strange coming from a planet-be-damned Republican, but I really think we need much, much more mass transit. If SoCal had a decent system, I think I would use it. On a larger scale, I think we desperately need high speed rail in the U.S. I can’t understand why we don’t have such a system. It’s more cost-effective, less polluting and, in some cases, faster than flying. And worlds more comfortable.
Yay! Sean went to Japan and became a mass transit hippie!!!