Blog du Wren

Public Transportation Excuses

I've had a very public transportation-y week. In all, I've ridden 6, count 'em, 6 public transportation systems (Island Transit, Whatcom Transit, Skagit Transit, Sound Transit*, Community Transit, and Metro Transit). In some of the downtime inevitably provided by traveling while not having to focus on the road, I started thinking about why people choose not to ride the bus. As kind of a response to some of those reasons, I wanted to share this anecdote in hopes of getting people to maybe reconsider their excuses.

A few weeks ago, a friend was in visiting from out of town. Being that I don't have a car, all our motating* was either by foot or bus*. One particular bus trip got me to stop and realize how many of people's usual excuses we were defying. We were on a relatively unfamiliar system (we were in Bellingham, whose bus system I don't have much experience with), we were going shopping at the farmers market so had a couple of bags of groceries, and we were traveling with a 15-month old in a stroller. Even with all that, the trip went splendidly. Extra time provided by the bus schedule allowed us to explore the town more, the 15-month old really enjoyed watching out the window as the bus cruised along, and we got some good exercise walking to and from the bus stop.

(p.s. I love public transportation.)

Saturday November 3 2007

File under: transportation

Toggle Comments (7)

comment?

on Mon 05th Nov, 2007 08:33 am PST trista said:
i too love public transportation... and my univega.
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on Mon 05th Nov, 2007 12:38 pm PST Emily said:
She really DID love looking out the window. The bus does make a mom a bit nervous, without the 5-point harness and all, but statistically I'm sure it was safer than most other forms of transport. Good times.
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on Mon 05th Nov, 2007 01:03 pm PST Sean said:
I like to throw Max in the backpack and Jack in the Baby Bjorn so we can carpool on our segway.
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on Mon 05th Nov, 2007 10:15 pm PST Saxtor said:
Is this Christen?!
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on Mon 05th Nov, 2007 11:45 pm PST Siri said:
Hey--have you seen the new double-decker Sound Transit buses? Very London. (p.s. I also love public transportation--people watching at it's finest.)
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on Tue 06th Nov, 2007 08:25 am PST Wren said:
Sean, I would pay one shiny dollar to see you laden with 2 kids on a segway. I would pay two shiny dollars to see Christen's expression when it happened.
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on Tue 06th Nov, 2007 08:52 am PST Saxtor said:
They had the double-decker Community Transit bus for 3 weeks on the afternoon Seattle>Stanwood route that I ride. They have it jumping around routes for a year to see where it best fits, and then they'll order more. Personally, I got tired of it by week 2, since every day, the top level was some sort of "OMG ISN'T THIS SOOOO COOL!" party among the same handful of boisterous people. It is cool, but it seems like the novelty would eventually wear off after a couple days and you would go back to loudly talking on your cellphone...
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