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.”
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…
I was wondering what to get Bus Nerd for his birthday…
Tonight, I ran into one of my favorite classmates (and I use that term loosely, since I only attended one day out of ten) from the February bus driver class. Alan Brooks, the Seattle OG who told me about the transfer-eating passenger on the 255, drove my evening 545.
Alan is cool people, friendly and funny and helpful, which will make him one of those drivers people remember and like. Alan is also quite insightful. Case in point: On our ride, he mentioned that he’d driven the 550 earlier in the day. He called the oft-running the route “the 7 of the Eastside.” It was a very apt comparison, one I would never have thought of on my own.
For those who don’t ride either route: Both run frequently, and both have, as Bus Nerd would say, a lot of “trife”: inappropriate, insane, dramatic, or otherwise trifling behavior. (Note that “trife” can also be used as an adjective, as in, “Those girls in the back are rolling joints. That is so trife.” Looks like I’ve got another word to add to the glossary…)
One day soon, I’m going to take a ride with Alan when I’m not on my way somewhere, so we have more time to talk…maybe the next time he drives the 550.
Today my employer sponsored Bus to Work Day, a morning celebration at Overlake Transit Center to promote fabulous alternatives to driving to work. Those of us who bussed to OTC today were rewarded with:
• Information from Metro, Sound Transit (“Public Transportation Adventure Jim” was there), and other alternative-commute reps.
• Prize drawings (crossing my fingers for the Zune).
• FREE FOOD! (Folks, nobody appreciates a free bagel/chocolate muffin/croissant/Krispy Kreme doughnut/cinnamon dolce latte like a bus rider.)
As if it isn’t hard enough to get a seat on the 545.
I saw this ad on the 545 during last night’s insane ride home:
In case you don’t have superhuman vision, here’s what it says:
Your fantastic new job gives you such joy you start walking to work every day and before you can say tiddlywinks you’ve started a car-free revolution and the toxin levels in Puget Sound plummet and the orcas are taken off the endangered species list because the salmon make a miraculous comeback and with the abundance of lean protein our offensive line bulks up 23 lbs per player the Seahawks win the Super Bowl and Seattle is given 3 billion dollars by an anonymous donor and while building an agreeable mass transit system secret documents are unearthed and we discover who killed JFK the Roswell aliens really landed in Fremont and the meaning of all life right here in the Northwest.
Too bad I’m not looking for a job.
Today, I had coffee with Anirudh Sahni. I first heard of Anirudh several years ago, back when his efforts to change the 545 route were getting a lot of attention. At that time, I worked at Microsoft and rode the 545 every day. Though the changes he was advocating wouldn’t have affected me, I thought they made sense, and I was impressed by his (please excuse the Microspeak) “drive for results.” Anirudh researched. Anirudh organized. Anirudh met with transit officials. Anirudh wrote letters to the editor. People like me responded to surveys and said stuff like, “I hope ‘they’ hurry up and make those changes.”
In the end, all that work changed the route only slightly, but it changed Anirudh fairly dramatically. What started as an attempt to make his commute to Microsoft more convenient became a full-fledged crusade, and the crusader became, as he puts it, “obsessed with transportation.”
Anirudh no longer rides 545; he no longer works at Microsoft. These days he spends a lot of his time working on transportation issues, and (lucky for me) he is a walking encyclopedia of knowledge about public transit in this region. Two (of the many) things I learned from him today:
1) Fully 79% of Metro riders own cars.
2) During peak travel times, the average car rider takes up 25 times the amount of space on the road as the average bus rider.
People are choosing to ride, and they’re choosing to do so for good reason.
