March 2001

IntraCity Commuting
The Lives of Commuters Special

I am a huge fan of the buses in Washington, DC. They are the ultimate people movers in a city that has many different modes of transportation. The bus has always been the most affordable way to get around. The fares are low and it goes nearly everywhere in the city. Plus, with a transfer, you can ride across the city for the price of one fare.

This is not to say that they have always been that good. WMATA, which runs Metro, formed when the private bus system, DC Transit, was forced public. In fact, my father has told stories of riding DC Transit buses and even trolleys in Tunisia and Cairo. However, in my brief life, they have been good, and I have been riding them for 20 years.

I. 42

I ride a very popular bus to work most days. The 42 runs from Mount Pleasant to either Farragut Square or Metro Center. I don't go that far, I take it to Connecticut Ave. and M Street. Downtown. My brief time on the bus, however does not spare me from some of the characters that frequent the 42 line.

There are the usual cast of characters including rude business men and women who don't fold their newspapers correctly, who won't give up the seat they are saving for anyone but me, who won't move all the way to the back of the bus. The school kids who have a seemingly unlimited amount of energy at 8
am, and love to talk shit. And the drunks, the crazy, and the homeless. The cast is complete

One particular morning a man a the bus stop took advantage of the incredibly long wait for the bus to ask everybody at the stop for 2 dollars (and when they said no, he would ask for one dollar).A kind hearted soul relented, and gave him a dollar which he used to GET ON THE BUS. This meant that the ENTIRE ride was filled with his pleas as he cruised the aisles for money. I was asked twice. I coulda killed that woman.

(As an aside, I recently saw that same man in a line at Barnes & Noble. He first asked everybody in line for that same dollar, then got in line to pay. He had a stack of CDs and a book. I paused to watch his transaction. He had 3 dollars, and asked the cashier if he could get those CDs for the 3 dollars. The cashier actually answered, 'I don't think so, guy.')

II. Taxi!

My Ethopian cab drive means well enough. He just wants me to be entertained on my way out to Tyson's Corner. We talk on the trip out, he tells me about his experiences with the adkins diet, which he is just starting, and work, which is hard. I talk about riding my bike. It is a nothing conversation. We get lost.

Now I am stuck in a cab, in the depths of Northern Virginia, and I am relying on a driver who is actually asking me to look at a map for him. I am a terrible navigator. We get more lost. Still, conversation turns to
other subjects making the scenic tour of NoVA less trying. Eventually we get to the large construction site where I was supposed to be, oh, an hour earlier.

Two weeks later, I hop into a cab for the ride out to Tyson's corner. I tell the driver where to go and how to get there (the parkway to 123) and he says, 'Is that a construction site? I think I took you there two weeks
ago.' Son of a bitch.

I ask him about the diet. We talk about the consumptive American culture. We get lost.

III. Walk

I walk home from work in the evening. It is too important for the evening to leave the transit to anyone else.