And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming

Starting Sunday, the Elliott Bay Water Taxi (of September Golden Transfer fame) will be back in business. Service is free all day, and there will be a party (with refreshments, folks) at Seacrest Park.

From Metro’s site:

You are invited to the Water Taxi Kick Off event on Sunday, April 29th at Seacrest Park from Noon to 2:00 p.m. Enjoy entertainment at Seacrest Park in West Seattle, balloons and face-painting for the kids, free posters, refreshments and more! Service is FREE ALL DAY during the celebration event, so bring the family and friends!

I am so there. And since my dad lives across the street from Seacrest Park (and has never been one to turn down free food), I’m guessing I can talk him into going, too.

Not-so-great expectations (or, the joys of busing while pregnant)

• When you have the nose of a bloodhound, every bus is a funky bus. Perfume, lotion, hair products, food smells–to say nothing of the less pleasant scents associated with humans–all can cause an olfactory nightmare at least as offensive as that 27 ride last June.

• Walking? OK. Sitting? Very OK. Standing in one place for more than a minute? Not OK. Hence, benchless stops and crowded buses are not a PBC*’s friend.

• New, important addition to the bus chick bag: A sturdy, leak-proof plastic bag, to be used in cases of extreme nausea emergencies when exiting the bus is not possible. (Fortunately, I have yet to use mine.)

• Jeans are no longer a wise fashion choice, as opening a top button (or two) of one’s fly when seated is generally frowned upon by other riders.

• There is no event or destination (with the exception, perhaps, of a Prince concert) worth running to catch a bus for. Important meeting? Court date? Swearing-in ceremony? Eh. They’ll get along alright without you until the next bus arrives.

*PBC = Pregnant bus chick.

A bus nerd + a bus chick = ?

For the past few months, I’ve been a little (OK, a lot) distracted from this blog–in part because of recent losses, and in part because of a, well, a sort of gain. You see, Bus Nerd and I are (rather unexpectedly) “expecting,” and I’ve been spending most my spare time adjusting to the idea of becoming a parent. (Oh, yeah–and feeling sick. More on that later.)

Bus baby on the 3
This October, Seattle will count another bus baby among its natives.

Since we’ve started telling people our news, the most common question we’ve been asked (aside from, “Are you going to find out the sex?”) has been, “Are you guys going to get a car now?”

No, we’re not–and not just because we both believe in adhering to our convictions, even when they become inconvenient. (So far, we haven’t found living without a car to be inconvenient, and despite the many well-meaning arguments to the contrary, we’re not convinced that having a baby will make it so.) At the core, our decision is based on the fact that we both sincerely believe raising our child without a car will be good for the child. A few of the reasons why:

• It will be raised by financially secure parents. (College fund? Check!)
• It will learn to be self-sufficient (at least transportation-wise) at an early age.
• It will have exciting adventures. (What’s more exciting for a five-year old than pulling the bell or sitting in the bendy part of an articulated bus?)
• It will learn how to interact with people of different ages, cultures, and levels of income and education.
• If we’re very lucky, it will develop compassion for its fellow human beings.

If only answering all the other new-parent questions were so easy. We’re still trying to decide if we should find out the sex.

One more reason to love New York

Ever since my little brother moved to New York, I’ve started paying closer attention to what goes on there. What’s going on right now is worth sharing.

Mayor Bloomberg has proposed a series of measures that would accommodate growth (a million more people expected by 2030) and reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions. The most promising of the measures? A congestion charge.

Under the plan, the city would charge $8 for cars and $21 for commercial trucks that enter Manhattan below 86th Street from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays. The charge would be $4 for drivers within Manhattan, and several exemptions would apply. No one would be charged on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive or the West Side Highway. There would be no charge for moving cars to comply with alternate side parking, and there would be no charge for taxis.

[…]

Later, Mary E. Peters, the United States secretary of transportation, issued a statement praising the plan as “the kind of bold thinking leaders across the country need to embrace if we hope to win the battle against traffic congestion.” The Nassau County executive, Thomas R. Suozzi, who has many constituents who commute by car to Manhattan, also was enthusiastic. “People’s first reaction is they don’t want to pay,” he said. “But getting them to switch to mass transit benefits us all.”

(Source: New York Times)

The congestion charge is also, for obvious reasons, the most controversial of the measures. NYC’s Streetsblog (easily my favorite transit blog) details some of the objections:

Representative Anthony Weiner:

While I applaud the mayor for focusing on a long-term sustainability plan for the city, in this case the cure seems to be worse than the disease. We must look at innovative ways to face the challenges created by the city’s own success, but a regressive tax on working middle-class families and small-business owners shouldn’t be one of them.

My take: The fact that this conversation is taking place at all is huge. If New York manages to move the issue beyond conversation, my Christmas wish might come true sooner than I expected.

Devil on the 2 bus

Today, after church, I hopped on the 2 and took a free, Earth Day ride downtown to meet my friend Aileen. Because it was early afternoon on a Sunday, many of my fellow riders–identifiable by their Bibles, fancy outfits, and “What did you think of Pastor So-and-so’s sermon?” conversations–were also coming from church.

One older gentleman sitting in the front section, who apparently wasn’t finished with his worship, decided to bring church to the bus. (He’s certainly not the first.) He sang songs, lectured everyone within earshot about Jesus (“Be thankful he woke you up this mornin’!”), and occasionally, demanded an “amen” from someone nearby. Some of the churchgoers joined in; most of the passengers did their best to ignore him.

I didn’t hear the bus driver ask Church Man to keep his singing and preaching to himself, but he must have, because about five minutes into the ride, Church Man started peppering his praise with, “I just can’t stop–can’t stop talking about Jesus.” Somewhere around Broadway, the driver stopped the bus and walked to Church Man’s seat, hands on hips, brow furrowed in exasperation. Without waiting to be asked, Church Man got up to leave. “You kicking me off?” he said. “That’s OK. They kicked Jesus off.”

Before the doors had even closed behind the enthusiastic worshipper, the outrage from the other passengers began.

“It’s none of my business driver, but why did you just kick that man off the bus?”
“Ooh! Did he just kick that man off the bus for singing about the Lord?”
“The devil’s on this bus.”
And, my favorite: “That’s the devil. I don’t give a sh*t what anybody says. That’s the devil.”

It was a ganging up I haven’t seen the likes of since about a year ago, when (also on the 2), the entire front section shamed a woman for talking on her cell phone. She was scheduling surgery. But I digress.

The frustrated driver didn’t handle the criticism well. He yelled back at the angry passengers, threatening to kick them off, too, and suggesting they refrain from critiquing his job performance. Their anger escalated.

“Just drive the bus, man,” they said. “Mind your business and drive the bus.”

A sarcastic “God bless you driver!” occasionally erupted from the crowd, often followed by a, “He’d better hope he doesn’t meet Jesus.”

Thankfully, I got off before they started pummeling him with their Bibles.

I’ve been meaning to tell you about…

A Dear John letter to the 48:

Let me start this by telling you that despite all your flaws, you’re a pretty cool bus. … And I know, it must be hard for you, trudging from Loyal Heights to Rainier Beach all day long. I know! But 48, things just aren’t working out between us. …

and…

545 t-shirts!

Women's styleMen's style

I was wondering what to get Bus Nerd for his birthday…

Tax reform

From Rodney in Denver:

I’ve been thinking of ways to get more people to use mass transit. I thought making transit passes tax deductible would be a good idea… I’m curious what your thoughts are on this idea?

Well Rodney, having just finished my own taxes, I think it’s a pretty darn good one. There’s a deduction for people who buy hybrids; there’s mileage credit for folks who drive for business purposes; there’s even a sales tax deduction for major purchases (like cars and boats). Why no love for transit types?

I think the trick is in the implementation. A deduction for buying a transit pass wouldn’t be very substantial (given that the cost of passes isn’t very substantial) and therefore wouldn’t provide much of an incentive to buy one. If the deduction was much more than the cost of the pass (in other words, closer to the social benefit of driving less), we’d have to require folks to prove that they actually rode.

Soon, most transit systems will have the technology to measure actual transit usage, and we’ll be able to reward (through tax breaks and other fabulous prizes) frequent riders. Until then, I’ll take the transit-pass deduction. And the free food at transit fests.

This week in transit: bus-related news

• Metro’s oldest driver is 80. He drives the 2.

Linda Thielke, spokeswoman for Metro, said Minard “has a pretty good driving record, with only minor accidents, really minor, like losing a side mirror.”

That’s more than I can say for the guy who drove my inbound 17 on Thursday night. That driver, who was nowhere near 80, was happy to share the details of his tickets and a recent accident (the reason he “doesn’t have to worry about working overtime”) with the passenger sitting in the seat adjacent to his. As if his erratic driving wasn’t reason enough to worry. (Source: Seattle Times)

• Starting late this spring, Community Transit will begin operating a double-decker bus, to “ease the crowds on commuter routes from Snohomish County to the Eastside and downtown Seattle.” I’d certainly like to ride on a double-decker bus (if only for the coolness factor), but I’ve always thought they seemed a bit unstable. How do they compare to the articulated buses that are so popular here? Are the double deckers more efficient, safer, or roomier? (Source: king5.com)

• Metro’s giving free rides on Earth Day.

Any time on Earth Day [Sunday, April 22nd], anywhere in King County, bus rides are free for everyone. There is no need to worry about transferring from Metro to Sound Transit, Community Transit or Pierce Transit bus service, either. All of those agencies are also marking Earth Day by offering free rides.

Like I said last year: Earth Day is a great day to be a bus chick. (Source: Transportation Today)

Time to step it up!

Tomorrow, Saturday, April 14th, folks across this fair land will participate in Step it Up, 2007, “a day of community events across the U.S. where citizens will demand political action on climate change.”

From Grist‘s invitation:

Uncle Sam says...

Who: You, and everyone you know
What: Rallies, parties, parades, sit-ins, hikes, climbs, dives, and much more
When: Saturday, April 14, 2007
Where: More than 1,000 spots around the U.S.
Why: Because it’s getting hot in here

Here in Seattle, the main event is an all-city march that starts at 2:00 PM at Occidental Park, a very bus-chick-friendly (read: bus accessible) location. The mayor, County Kingpin, et al will be there.

Marching not your thing? Here’s a list of all the events in the area.