When I started my current job–well, not my current job, but my first job working for my current employer–I commuted by Big Blue Bus. And later, when we moved, I continued to commute by bus: briefly via Metro, and then by LADOT Commuter Express.
Each was its own experience. The Big Blue Bus was full of Westsiders–commuters and a handful of unruly middle school students (they got a lot more ruly after I wrote a letter to their principal, and why isn’t ruly a word?).
The Metro bus was a mix; the Orange Line was mostly commuters, and the bus to which I made a connection was largely people who worked in one form of manual labor or another.
Commuter Express was, as you might expect, a vehicle primarily for commuters. It covered the longest distance and made the fewest stops, and also it cost the most.
But it was the quickest bus route between home and work, and it kept me from having to do the driving myself. I got to sit down (always in the evening, and most of the time in the morning). I made friends who were on the same schedule. I got to read, and, if I wasn’t too tired, to write.
When we started riding Commuter Express, Mr. Sandwich and I commuted together. Once Baguette was born, though, we needed to stagger our schedules to accommodate day care dropoff and pickup. The bus became the only “me” time I could count on.
As time passed, I adjusted my riding patterns, changing my stop to be sure I got a seat–and, as more people began riding–a place to park my car. Baguette’s morning schedule changed, too, and more and more, I found myself parking the car at work.
Meanwhile, I was paying for a bus pass. But last month, I realized that it simply didn’t make financial sense to keep the bus pass. I was only riding once a week, and paying for parking on the other days. After some discussion and agonizing, I gave up my bus pass and bought a parking permit.
So, for the first time in eight years, I have ceased to be a bus commuter. It feels alien and strange. Commuting by bus was a big part of my identity; I feel a little as if I’ve failed. It’s a harder shift than changing my name when I got married, or than becoming a mother, even though all three of these things were at my instigation.
And even though I know that this, too, may change, I miss the bus.
I’d miss the bus commute, too! I’ve not had home and work locations that would make a bus commute possible in… forever, really. But Mr. Snarky had a bus commute for several years when he first moved here, and it was nice.
I had hoped to use public transit for my commute when I lived in New Jersey, but L.A.–ironic as that seems–is the first place I’ve lived where it was possible. Partly that’s because at first we lived in an area that was overlapped by lines, and when we moved, it was because we deliberately looked for places that would allow us to commute by bus. Hopefully I’ll get back to it at some point.