A newbie's adventures with public transport
Source: Sacramento Bee (Original Article)
Good Lord, time to shove off. Can’t miss my morning commuter bus. A slice of toast and a gulp of coffee and I’m out the door, hoofing it from my Carmichael home to the nearest bus stop, which is in Fair Oaks.
Bus stop? Public transit? Yup, my editor had thrown me under the bus. My assignment: Take Regional Transit to work and write about it. Ohhhkay.
Never mind the special relationship I have with my pickup truck or that I’d never ridden an RT bus and had boarded light rail a grand total of once. The thinking was that my initial inexperience and ignorance would be shared by others who might be considering commute alternatives to offset soaring gas prices and a sour economy.
So, striking out for bus stop No. 104 on Winding Way, I arrived after a brisk 10-minute walk, incinerating about 50 calories along the way. The bus stop, one of 3,674 in Sacramento County, was marked by a sign mounted on a weathered post, its paint peeling like a bad sunburn.
Four minutes passed and second-guessing ensued. Would a bus actually appear? Had I interpreted the hieroglyphic bus schedule characters correctly on www.sacrt.com?
In the distance, the bus materialized but didn’t seem to be slowing. Alarmed, I tried the “Hey, I need a ride” wave. My bus, one of those compressed- natural-gas-burning behemoths, pulled over and shuddered to a halt.
The bus driver pegged me as a newbie right away when I blurted out: “Does this bus get me downtown?” and “Do I pay for the entire trip now?”
She nodded, looked annoyed and commanded me to insert $2.25 “in the slots.” Then, she gassed the bus into traffic. The monster heaved and pitched as I staggered to a seat.
My RT bus was remarkably clean and loud, and the seats didn’t exactly shout La-Z-Boy comfort. Only one other passenger was aboard, so seat selection wasn’t a problem.
During the ride to the Watt/ I-80 light-rail station, more commuters boarded until the Frequent Flyer Card belly of the beast was nearly …continue reading