Thanks for catching that Post piece, Chad. When I first saw it, I banged my head on the table to ease the pain, and promptly forgot about the story.
It is as if our various transit boosters think 95 percent of the workforce arises at 7am, drives directly and solo to their workplace to arrive at 9am, works non-stop and with no side trips until 5pm or 6pm sharp at which time they depart and travel directly back home again. Repeat.
True story time:
I worked in DC with an admin assistant who lived in Northern Virginia, fairly close in. She used mass transit to get to and from work. She had to leave by 6:15pm or she’d miss a connecting bus that did not run for another hour or more. Needless to say, she was often stressed out by 5:30pm.
I used a combination of rail and bus and walking exclusively for two years solid in DC, and several years more of car/rail commuting. Suffice it to say that you could easily add two or three hours to your workday with relatively minor transit snafus or near misses. Some days it was just impossible to actually board a train due to insufficient parking. I did get to see a visiting Chinese orchestra all pile onto the bus one day, instruments in tow, all sporting “Kiss Me I’m Irish” stickers. I think it was November.
Lastly, and my favorite, some friends here in Charlotte resolved to take the bus downtown form their east side home rather than constantly try to find parking. They studied the skeds, made several phones calls to confirm their routes, and were surprised to find to get where they wanted to go they had to ride past where they wanted to go, and then catch another bus back.
While waiting at the transfer station they were shocked to find a homeless man walking around eating raw sausage from festering package (did I mention it was August?) and offering some to other lucky mass transit patrons. They declined the offer and have not ridden the bus since.
