Public transportation sounds so unglamorous, so sensible-shoes. So it’s a riddle to me how I became such a stranger to it. I like practical things, and my stance on glamor is almost always the less the better, yet I have never been a reliable user of public buses, trains, etc.
Unless I’m on vacation, or my vehicle is in the shop, I’m in one of those single-occupant vehicles that traffic planners have nightmares about.
Of course, it’s not practical for me to use public transportation these days, I tell myself. No, my schedule is too variable for me to have to rely on some fixed-schedule bus.
That argument is getting harder to justify than it used to be, for a couple of reasons. First, those little white Snoqualmie Valley Transportation buses are everywhere. I often meet them on the road as I drive to work, and even more often, I end up following one home at the end of a day. They’re cute. They’re also cheap — I think it’s $1 per trip — and kind of fun to ride. Every driver I’ve met on them is friendly and helpful, and I’ve gotten at least two story ideas from them.