How This All Started - Part III

As I was having to deal with more and more hassles from the towing and insurance companies and finding out that the driver was uninsured, I became more and more disillusioned about getting to work by car. What was I going to do? Rent a Car for now? Wait to see if by some obtuse chance that he was insured and use the proceeds to buy a new car? Or just say screw it, I'll just ride my bike to work.

Actually given my initial frustration with cars, traffic, and the whole system in general I decided for a while to just take the bus. For $1.75 each way. I could get there in about 25 minutes, which didn't seem too bad.

My previous experiences riding the bus was in spread out San Diego. After getting a hold of a paper route schedule, I would study it to see what time the bus would arrive and figure in the 8 minute walk. This worked ok since I was only along one route I would have to carry a pocketful of route schedules.

Well, now its all so much easier. With my cell phone I just called the number listed on the bus stop. I certainly did not like the phone number gymnastics of having to numerically input whether I wanted responses, in English or Spanish, today's bus, the direction the route number, where on the route etc. But after a while it wasn't so bad. I put the number in my speed dial and when I would here the automated voice responded I would just type in 1182#12. This would give me the current time schedule for the route 82 bus headed westbound. Wow it was actually getting easier and easier. My memories of late buses never really occurred. In fact bus arrivals were dead on with the published schedules. If I wanted to run some errands later or travel further from a stop I would just bring my bike along and put it on the rack which is conveniently placed on the front of the bus.

It was now becoming easier and easier. However, for must of May I was paying the standard rate. I thought, well as of June I'm going to have to get me one of those passes. I made the trip downtown to spend $61.25 for a one month's pass. Wow, little did I know however, that my employer would pay one half of the monthly pass. That was even more of an incentive now. I also found out that for the July pass I could purchase my pass right at my local Lucky's or Safeway. No need now to go all of the way downtown to pick up a pass. So now it was only costing me just slightly over $30 in transportation costs for the month. That would normally be about a tank of gas.

How All This Started - Part II

How All This Started - Part I