Westbound 27 stop, 3:05 PM

A young woman is waiting for the bus with an older woman and a little girl (possibly her mother and daughter). All are reading books just checked out from the library. After a few minutes of not talking, the young woman points to the bus stop across the street.

Young woman, to older woman: “Remember that fight I was telling you about? That’s where it happened.”

Older woman: “Oh yeah?”

YM: “She had the bombest Air Forces, and Lee stepped on them. So she was like, ‘Lee, aren’t you going to say excuse me?’ Lee said ‘no,’ so she got her a** whooped right there at the number 8 bus stop. The ambulance had to come.” [YM chuckles] “I enjoyed it.”

Westbound 545, 7:30-ish

Two men are discussing a recent dental appointment.

Guy 1: “She said they were all abscessed. All 18 of those teeth are bad. She could’ve pulled them all today, and I wouldn’t have cared.”

Guy 2: “Why didn’t she?”

Guy 1: “She wanted to make sure I could pay for it. If you can’t pay, they won’t do anything.”

Guy 2: “It’s just as well, though. You would’ve been walking around with half your grill missing.”

Bus reading

Some of the many books I’ve seen folks reading on buses (and at stops) of late:

10,000 Splendid Suns

Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment

Clan of the Cave Bear (I’m ashamed to admit I read this when I was 12.)

The Color of Magic

Diatoms to Dinosaurs: The Size and Scale of Living Things

The Dispossessed (It’s been a minute since I’ve read Le Guin.)

Hamlet

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (times a bazillion)

Hackers and Painters

The Namesake

The Sun Also Rises

Witch Gate

I’m busy reading The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by the late Jane Jacobs. I just finished Mountains Beyond Mountains, an inspiring book (loaned to me, once again, by my friend Donna) that made me look forward to my bus rides–more than usual, that is–so I could get back to it already. It’s about Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health, and one of the most amazing human beings I’ve ever had the privilege to learn about. My next bus book will almost certainly be a novel. (I’ve earned it after three straight nonfiction selections.)

What’s your current bus read?

The Big Green Bus comes to Seattle!

It appears that this will be a weekend of celebrations, what with the hydroplane races (not really my flavor, but hey), Umojafest, and a great, big bus party. Check it:

SEATTLE, Wash. – Eleven Dartmouth College students, a bus powered by vegetable-oil waste, and one monumental goal makes for the summer’s most wicked road trip. On a mission to empower Americans to reduce their environmental impact, the Big Green Bus will travel over 12,000+ miles, visiting 45 cities, including a stop in Seattle, on Saturday, August 4 from 5 p.m. – midnight, at evo.

… The bus, a retired school bus retrofitted to run on vegetable oil waste, features a NASA-quality solar panel that provides electricity, a telescoping wind turbine, and sustainably-harvested hardwood floors, and serves as a rolling eco-lab of interactive exhibits and presentations, demonstrating both cutting-edge and simple cost-effective methods that every American can adopt to reduce their environmental impact.

[…]

Environmentally-minded Seattle partners including evo, Clif Bar, Sierra Nevada Brewing Company and Five Ultimate, along with local greasy spoon Roxy’s Diner, joined forces with the bus to host a serious Big Green Bus party! In addition, to environmental education, this event for the entire community, will feature local band Handful of Luvin, DJ 100 Proof and all-you-can-eat fun (with free cold beverages)– and only a $5 admission.

The Big Green Bus team, arriving in Seattle after a looong ride

Buses, music, and all you can eat? The one weekend I’ll be out of town…

More about walkability

Now that's my kind of sidewalk. There's even a bench. Last week I posted a link to walkscore.com, a website that calculates the walkability of a given address based on the number of stores and other amenities within–you guessed it!–walking distance. It’s a cool site (and probably accurate in most cases), but I’m hoping it will eventually evolve to something a bit more sophisticated. The thing is, walkability is about a lot more than how many stores are in your neighborhood. For me, it’s about the safety, convenience, and general pleasantness of actually getting to them.

My house, for instance, scored an 86. I’d give it about a 75. (Note that Bus Nerd would strongly disagree with me on this. He thinks walking around here is perfectly fine.) Much as I love being so close to a library, two community centers, two parks, lots of schools, and six bus routes(!), I do not love the narrow sidewalks, speeding cars, and pedestrian-unfriendly street crossings. There are several stores nearby, but they are almost all in strip malls, and to actually get to any of them, you have to cross huge parking lots (full of speeding cars).

Not that any of that stops me. I love walking. I walk to church, to the grocery store, to the beauty shop, to the coffee shop, to the park, to the pool, to the video store, to the drug store, and–at least a couple of times a month–all the way downtown. Truth be told, I prefer walking to riding the bus. If the weather was always nice and I had all the time in the world, I’d walk everywhere I needed to go–well, within five or so miles. (Once, I talked Bus Nerd into walking all the way to Pier 55 to catch the Water Taxi, and then from Seacrest Park, where the Water Taxi dropped us off, all the way to the end of Alki to meet my brother for lunch. Oh yeah, and then back.)

But enough about me already. What do you think makes a neighborhood walkable?

July Golden Transfer

This month’s Golden Transfer goes to my hometown, Seattle, WA (aka the 2-0-sickness), which has permanently designated Third Avenue as a transit-only corridor–during peak commute hours, that is.

From a Mayor’s Office press release:

SEATTLE – Based on the outstanding success in moving buses quickly and efficiently through downtown, Mayor Greg Nickels today announced that local transit agencies will continue to use Third Avenue as a priority corridor when the transit tunnel reopens in September.

The decision to continue prioritizing bus service on Third Avenue during peak hours will allow King County Metro Transit to reorganize surface bus routes and balance transit traffic across downtown. Eighteen bus routes will move to the tunnel when it reopens.

Hallelujah!

And that’s not all. In September, when the tunnel routes return to their retrofitted home, some routes that currently run on First, Second, and Fourth avenues will be moved to Third, speeding up those routes, freeing more street space for displaced cars, and (most importantly) making it easier to bus riders to figure out where the heck to go to catch the routes they’re looking for. (For details, check out the tunnel page on Metro’s site.)

SOVs: Don’t let this happen to you.

So thanks to my city, for identifying a relatively painless way to move more people through the downtown core more quickly. Maybe one day, in the not-too-distant future, Third Avenue will be closed to cars all day.

Hey–a bus chick can dream, can’t she?

About those missing shelters…

Good news! From Dale at Metro:

We noticed…that you are interested in what became of the bus shelters in the photos…next to the Douglas Truth Library. The shelters were removed last week for refurbishing, and will be re-installed this week. All Metro bus shelters are pulled every 7 to 8 years, repainted and reinstalled w/new windows, walls, and translucent roofs. When a shelter is pulled it is usually replaced the same day or within a few days after the removal.

The terra cotta tile artwork that was in these shelters, will need additional restorative work before returning to the shelters, but should be re-installed in the shelters sometime this fall.

I am relieved to know that my shelters will soon return. Now if only we riders were provided with warnings before our shelters were removed. Something as simple as a paper rider-alert sign near the schedule would have eliminated a lot of confusion.

No shelter (or, “Dude, where’s my bus stop?”)

This morning, I walked out of my house to discover that the two bus shelters on my corner had been removed.

These were no ordinary shelters. They were spacious and attractive, with wood carvings that told the story of the community on their walls. And bus riders actually used them. A lot.

Here’s what one of them used to look like:

My friend Monique (aka Original Glamazon), waiting for the 27

So, the question is, why did Metro remove them? Are they being replaced? The last I heard, we were trying to get more shelters in King County. Why waste money replacing shelters that are perfectly functional, even pleasant? Are they being removed permanently? If so, why? At the very least, we should have seen a “rider alert” message at the stops and/or on Metro’s website.

As if the trash-can removal at our adopted stop wasn’t bad enough. What’s the deal, Metro?

Back door!

On my way home the other day, a woman (who apparently needed to get off at 23rd & Union) waited until all the other passengers getting off at that stop had disembarked before moseying toward the back door and mumbling something inaudible in the general direction of the driver. The oblivious driver proceeded to pull away from the stop. “I want to get off,” she called out, louder this time. The bus kept moving. Before the driver had made it halfway down the block, she was screaming, “I want off! I want to get off!” at the top of her lungs. Thankfully, the driver pulled over and let her off. (My ears wouldn’t have survived the ride to Marion.)

Then, today, on my way to work, a man who got off at my stop asked for the back door so quietly (and for some reason, listlessly–it wasn’t that early), I’m surprised he heard himself. Like I said to Bus Nerd, who witnessed it with me, it was the weakest “back door” I have ever heard.

There’s something thrilling (and, for us shy types, at least, a little bit terrifying) about getting off at the back door. Will the driver notice you and open it automatically, or will you have to (gasp!) draw attention to yourself and your need to disembark? And will you be able to get the driver’s attention (along with everyone else’s), or will you find yourself stuck on board, embarrassed and forced to hoof it back to your original destination?

I’ve made something of a hobby of observing “back door” requests.

There is the casual, confident, open-sesame-style command of the experienced rider (Back door!), who never questions whether the request will be granted.

There is the red-faced, whispered entreaty (Back door?), the one that begs, “Please don’t look at me!” and apologizes for the inconvenience.

There is the polite request. (Back door, please.)

There is the shouted, indignant demand of the entitled. (Back door!)
(Subtext: “Do as I say, public servant!”)

There is the shouted, indignant, demand of the panicked. (Back door!)
(Subtext: “Didn’t you hear me? Please don’t drive away yet!”)

My favorite “back door” of all time, though, was by young man (who was actually trying to get on the bus) at Montlake several months ago. He stood in front of the closed doors, resigned, and muttered (more to those of us lined up behind him than to the driver), “Back door, dude.”