The Lady on the Bus says...

Every time my father-in-law comes to visit, he obsessively counts the number of people on city busses. This might be as we sit in a restaurant or drive to the grocery store. And every single time a bus passes he groans, "Oh GOSH, look at that, there's no one (or one person or maybe two) on that bus."

It is kind of funny (because he does it alot) but it's also true. So I've always been kind of down on the local mass transit district because of their inefficient use of vehicles - I know they have mini-busses, so why are the huge gas-guzzling busses driving around town empty? I am very pro-mass transportation, having commuted by it in both Pittsburgh and NYC, but it just seems there are too many busses running in a town this size.

But since I have started taking AJ on bus trips, and therefore studying the schedules and policies, I have a new appreciation for the bus system. With very few exceptions (whatever, SW Carle picketers) a person can get to pretty much any point in this city via bus with very little walking. And the reason the busses are riding around empty is that they all start on the outskirts of town and then go to campus. They really do need the huge busses on campus but as they leave campus, people get off. I live at the end of the line, so that explains why I see mostly empty busses.

I kind of wish I had studied transportation planning (I actually almost did) in grad school so I could think of a solution to this problem. You could probably run mini-busses outside of campus but then most people would have to transfer at least once or twice to get where they're going.

So I'll stop being so critical of the empty busses and hope that as ridership increases, which it is, their gas use will become more efficient. AJ loves a bus ride any day of the week, and since it is so affordable I think we'll keep doing morning trips until it's too cold for my delicate sensibilities.