For the bikers

While I certainly don't take a bike to school from my home about 30 miles away, a lot of commuters do travel on two wheels. Walking down 3rd Street toward PPG place it's easy to see how many Point Parkers rely on bikes to get around--the bike rack outside of Thayer is always full with all varieties of bicycle. Commuters who currently travel by bicycle or who are thinking about it might want to check out this site for information and tips on this type of commute.

The End is Nigh

The end of my 4+ years of commuting is near! Sure, I may have to commute to a job in the future, but for now--I'm excited to be done with the bus. Sure I'm also excited about graduating and being done with school, but somehow, the concept of no longer having to get the bus each morning and afternoon really has a warm place in my heart.

Bus Passes

I typically buy a weekly bus pass from my local Giant Eagle, it's 10 trips for $27. I went to get one this weekend so I would have a pass for this coming week. They were out until Monday. So now I have to scrounge around for ones and quarters. It's $3.00 each way and I have exactly $3 in my wallet. I could go to an ATM but it won't give me ones and I need exact change. Time to go beg my mother! Hurray!

Double Transportation

My car was failing me at the end of the week. Even though I rely on a bus to get me Downtown, I rely on my car to get me to the bus stop. Relying on two forms of transportation to get where you're going only creates more opportunity for failure. I could walk to the bus stop, but what is a drive of only a few minutes would be about a 15-20 minute walk involving crossing a main highway. Oh, the perils of commuting.

Oops

I went to school as usual yesterday. Around 11am I got a text from my boyfriend saying he was going to be working from home because he slept through his alarm. I immediately begged him to come pick me up from school in a few hours after my last class because it would save me from waiting around for over an hour until the bus arrived. He agreed and came for me a bit later. We drove home, made a quick stop at the grocery store and spent the rest of the night at home. UNTIL...at about 11pm, just before I was going to sleep, it hit me. My car was still parked at my bus stop! I don't solely rely on a bus to get from my home to school, I drive my car about 3 or 4 minutes to the bus stop in the tiny town of Irwin, across Rt. 30 from where I live. So yes, I had forgotten all about it and surely would have been out of luck in the morning when I went to drive to the bus stop once again and my car was not outside our apartment. Reluctant to get up and go get it that late, I had to get up early with my boyfriend the next morning so he could drop me off for the bus.

Annoyed on the bus

There are certainly unwritten rules of the bus--I often refer to this code of conduct as "bus etiquette". It's come to my attention that not everyone seems to have picked up on this code, and here I will have to call them out.

Headphones: On the top of my list of bus annoyances are those people who have headphones on but have either music so loud or headphones so poorly made that their music blares for all around them to hear. See everyone around you casting hateful glances? Yeah, we're all thinking we don't want to listen to your "Club Hits Vol. 8" and that you need to invest in better headphones or turn the volume down.

Food: It amazes me the variety of food that people bring on the bus with them. I can see snacking on a granola bar or something of that nature but bring a personal pizza onto the bus? A subway sandwich? First, while they smell good--I don't want to ride for an hour smelling food I can't eat. Second, these choices just seem messy. If the bus hits a pothole, the person in front of them is going to end up with a hat of mozzarella and sauce or the floor will be carpeted in shredded lettuce. These just aren't travel foods, people!

Phones: It's understandable if you need to make a quick call on your phone to handle some kind of important business while you're on the bus. It's also understandable to answer your ringing phone (and preferable if you have an ultra obnoxious ringtone) while you're on the bus--but carrying on hour long conversations just isn't appropriate. The people that don't understand this rule, also insist on speaking loudly and about inappropriate topics. We don't want to hear your conversation but in such close quarters, it's unavoidable. Tell your caller you're on the bus and will call them back when you get off, please.

Baggage: This is a commuter bus, it goes from Greensburg to Pittsburgh--not from Ohio to Pittsburgh. There is no need for the amount of baggage some people bring on the bus with them. A briefcase is acceptable. A backpack or messenger bag is acceptable. A purse is acceptable. One passenger will all three of these accessories and more is not acceptable. Everyone on the bus will roll their eyes as if synchronized and a passenger gets on lugging a tote bag, a duffle bag, a suitcase, a purse, etc with them up the aisle. Each person in an aisle seat is bound to be cracked in the head with one or more pieces of this excessive baggage. I see no need for it! Sometimes I see women (the business type who wear skirts, pantyhose, and sneakers) with a purse inside of a slightly bigger purse/tote bag. This isn't quite as unacceptable as it is weird.

If you fit into any of these categories, stay off the bus.

Eco-bus update

I ended my last post with disappointment as I was thrilled to hear of new technologies in electric buses, but was discovering that in ten years there didn't seem to be any new developments. I was wrong however. Once again, I've looked to the New York Times and this article, written in October of this year, explains that fleets of electric buses have in fact been showing up across the country over the past ten years.

"Transit systems from New York to Taipei, and from Ames, Iowa, to Ann Arbor, Mich., are adding hybrid buses at a rapid clip," the article explains. "New York, by far, has the nation’s biggest fleet of hybrid buses, which run on electricity and diesel fuel, with nearly 1,000 in all five boroughs, most in Manhattan."

One of the main problems with the buses mentioned in the previous article was their cost, at $1 million, it seemed impossibly expensive for cities across the country to replace their public transportation system with these new vehicles. The latest Times article says "the price has dropped by half, although hybrid buses are still twice as expensive as conventional diesel buses."

Still, the savings in fuel costs that these buses bring to city budgets (50,000 gallons of diesel fuel saved for a 45 percent improvement on fuel economy) may make them a worthwhile investment.

Check out the article and consider the possibility of these buses appearing on the streets of Pittsburgh in the future.