Public Transportation

I like public transportation. I grew up with a bus stop in front of my house (convenient). I walked to school but rode the bus to go downtown. I would car pool and even walk to work but the public transportation was the most reliable method. The route I took went down to the end of the street, turned left to Broad Street then drop me off in front of Murphy’s. The trip took about 15 minutes and cost a few coins. In the summer it was hot even with the windows up. In the winter it would become slower and crowed with those who didn’t want to drive but knew the bus could plow through the snow. Most days it was a steady pace with regular faces sitting quietly on plastic seats reading the morning newspaper. For a few minutes there was time to check the daily notes, review the to-do list or just watch the city go by. Some days would be disrupted by a rider who wanted to complain loud enough for all to hear with the driver having to deal with a tantrum, sometimes ending in an arrest as the audience watched. Sometimes you didn’t want to get too close to the other rider on your row and other days were standing room only. I did ride a school bus to summer day camp that was a bumpy noisy ride and just hoped to get there and back alive. While waiting for your public transportation ride, would stand in sun and rain. Sometimes there were others in the neighborhood that took the same route at the same time. Might have a brief talk with the stranger until we boarded and found separate seats. Occasionally the bus would whiz pass and would have to wait another 15-30 minutes for the next bus. A secretary working in a different department moved into the neighborhood and rode the same bus. It was a brief time to flirt and laugh making the trip too fast. The interiors were updated with cloth seats and instead of a strap to pull was a pressure strip on the wall. The fare changed from dropping in coins and getting change to scanning a card. The riders changed from the commuter businessperson to homeless looking for air conditioning. Some days were entertaining and some days were uncomfortable. For distant transport, the railway was the preference. Not the fastest method to get from point A to point B, but riding the rails was better than the bus or the airplane.

One would now promote the simple solution of having a mobile machine parked in front of the house. It is a very private method to move about protected from the weather following hundreds of others to and fro, back and forth, here and there. Then it is parked, sitting empty, dripping oil and rusting for most of the day, just like your house or apartment.

So now the world is reopening, are you ready to cram inside public transportation?