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I used to live in Pittsburgh, PA. I worked downtown and I never drove to work. I took the bus. Everyday. Twice a day. I had the choice of 3 different bus routes to choose from. On nice days I walked a little farther and took the express bus. Those buses had their own road. No stop signs. No other traffic. Those buses hauled thousands quickly. And the best part was, there were enough of them that I never really missed a bus, and even if I did, there was very little waiting.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh has 228,000 weekday passengers. If we shrink that by half we get 114,000 commuters and some of those have to transfer and may be counted twice. So let’s say 80,000 commuters. That is probably 75,000 less cars being driven each day. And with an average commute in Pittsburgh of about 22 minutes, that ends up to a lot of hours of cars not running. 56,000 hours per day. That is a lot of gas. <\/p>\n
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Now I live in the Richmond, VA suburbs. Buses are not even an option here. The closest bus stop is about 4 miles away and the frequency is not enough to make it a good option for those that even live there. <\/p>\n
We are all going to have to demand better public transportation that works for our workday commute. I need a lot of options and a lot of times to get a bus. Sometimes, I had to work late in Pittsburgh and I knew there would be a bus. The frequency was less later at night, but I knew I could get home.<\/p>\n
I want dedicated bus routes. I want more buses. I would love to be able to read again on the way to work. And yes, my space would be shared with other people. But for someone like me, who cannot remember where I park my car on a given day, I can remember where the bus stop is. I am also more than willing to give up yelling at the other idiots driving in front of me. Let the bus driver deal with all that.<\/p>\n
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