Bus Tales

That's the title of my forthcoming book on public transit in a mid-sized American city. I have tales to tell of drunks and prostitutes and transvestites, as well as racing the bus on my old bike and catching 5 transfers in one trip. But today's tale is a simple, Kafka-esque one of the insanity of life.

My story begins with Daylight Saving Time. This morning it was still dark when I left for work, and my body said it was 5:30, though the clock said 6:30. I arrived, after a perilous 5-minute walk in the dark, at the bus stop, and a few moments later, the bus arrived.

Now, this is one of the new buses the city bought recently. They are 99% emissions-free and still have that new-bus smell. But today we saw that they truly don't make 'em like they used to.

After the bus pulled up I waited for the doors to open. And I waited. and I waited. For about 3 minutes, the driver struggled to get the doors open. Finally, with a push from me and a pull from a passenger inside, we got it opened, and I--somewhat nervously--stepped in.

For most of the ride, the doors then worked fine. But once downtown--about 5 stops from where I get off and walk--the same problem surfaced. We sat there for a minute while the driver attempted to get the doors open. After announcing that we would wait at the downtown bus station for maintenance, she closed the doors--the doors that would not open! It was like a horror movie (a pretty lame horror movie, but what do you expect, Stephen King?).

So, the moral of the story is you get what you ask for when you board a bus you know might not let you out. (For the record, I was able to pull the door open and catch another line to work. Apparently, the compressed air that controls the doors was not working properly.)