Murf's Adventures with Public Transportation

It has been slightly more than a year since we became a 1 car family. Since Big A was in school full-time, a second car wasn't necessary nor something we could afford so once the lease on his Chevrolet Impala expired, we turned it in and stuck with just my Saturn Vue.

The past year has gone relatively smooth. Yes, having 2 cars is ideal and having 1 requires a bit more scheduling but it wasn't anything unbearable. When the Vue needed work done on it, I took it to a highly recommended place near work and a coworker would pick me up and/or drop me off.

However, after not being completely satisfied with this mechanic, we switched to one closer to home who is great (and worthy of me baking cookies for and bringing them in, I think) but due to it's location, it has enabled me to ride public transportation twice. In a previous entry, I mentioned that the bus company and my employer have some sort of agreement that enables the employees to ride the bus for free. Just slide your employee ID through their reader, it beeps, move to your seat.

The first time I rode it from work to the transit center was back in late April and I was met by Big A and Hooch in my brother's 21 year old Ford Econoline Van that we store in our driveway over the winter (and used mainly for tailgating at U-M football games and transporting freshly cut Christmas trees back home). Now that he has it back, today I decided to take public transportation all the way home - the #6 that goes from work to my city's transit center and then the #10 that takes me about a block from home.

There is a bit of a layover at the transit center before the #10 shows up. The schedule indicates only about 15 minutes before it shows up and another 15 minutes before it leaves there. Today it showed up at the time it was suppose to leave so it enabled me to people watch longer than planned. Normally when I pass the transit center, everyone seems a little shady and it's in a questionable area near a strip club. However, during my 25 minutes of standing there, I saw a police car go by about 5 times and the bus company hired a security company to loiter around the people waiting for the bus.

Other things that I noticed:

• An ingenious businessman took a nondescript building across the street from the transit center and opened a well-placed liquor store. He knows his clientele.
• People just want to get where they are going. The man standing right next to where the bus would be if it was there more so than anyone else. He kept asking what time it was.
• The bus drivers seem to have been hardened over time. None of them make eye contact or smile and say hi.
  
• I am quite normal which was very eye-opening to me.
  

I spent most of the time on the buses or waiting for the bus people watching. I can't imagine having a bus as your only mode of transportation. There were 2 women in wheelchairs that the bus driver had to strap their chairs down. He had to turn away a 3rd woman because it can only hold two wheelchairs. There is always a woman with a baby and its stroller getting on board. There are people with grocery bags. One man that was on both of my buses was carrying a midsized bag of dry dog food.

I feel bad about my recent bout of self-pity and what I will do when Big A gets a job which will mean there is a chance that I am carless to some degree because of it until we save up for another car...and how lucky am I that the possibility of a second car, not to mention having one car to begin with, is somewhat attainable? I keep thinking of this older woman on the bus that reminded me of a shorter, grayer version of what my mom might look like today if she was still alive and just feeling sad that she had to ride the bus with her two plastic bags of groceries. Or the older ladies in the wheelchairs or the men that obviously had some mental issues (which one was attempting to fix by sneaking in drinks from a vodka bottle on the bus before a lady in the seat between us tapped him on the shoulder) that probably prevented them from getting a drivers license.

Living with one relatively small income has been a learning experience. It's stressful at times when you wake up and your first thought is your small bank balance until the upcoming Friday pay day and then there are times that usually hit me during inclement weather or seeing people who really are in predicaments and realizing that I'm still quite lucky. Having a car really is a luxury that most of us take for granted. Having 2 is decadent. 3 or more is just crazy.


Sidenote: It took me an hour longer to get home than it would if I drove and I've been exhausted every since. I wonder if my fellow bus riders will also sleep well tonight.