My year without a car started in the Summer of 2009. We once were a two-car household. One car was given away just before our other car died a sudden death after 15years of age. I was not fazed by the lack of a car, at first. I had my 49cc scooter to fall back on. That was Summer. In came a rainy Fall and the loss of the independence of my own four-wheel, enclosed, transportation was starting to weigh on me. I began taking the Metro busses and Metrolink to get around on those rainy days when I could not avoid an appointment or other excursion away from my home office. Therein was the problem. I would have to plan my trips by public transit, early in the morning and leave at least an hour before I was due at a destination which was only fifteen minutes from home, by car. Why does it take so long to go so close?
BiState/Metro offers an interesting array of complicated and convoluted bus routes. Many bear the name of a major traffic artery and a route number. What makes it interesting is that though they may be named after a city thoroughfare, they do not necessarily stay on that street. They may take long and winding detours down other streets finally coming about where they again merge back on their original route named street. This seems cumbersome and difficult to remember. Does one take the Kingshighway bus to get to North Broadway? Intuitively, the two streets, running roughly parallel should not intersect. What happened to the days of busses running on a grid, up and down and back and forth on the same street over and over again, with some consistency of timing?
Peace,
Mike Baldwin
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