Right now I'm sitting at Peet's Coffee & Tea at Telegraph and Dwight. It's 5:00 on a Friday. Rush hour. Looking out the window, I see two buses go through the intersection almost simultaneously, the 1 and the 1R. One is half full, and the other is nearly empty. Cars are backed up Dwight as far as the eye can see. And I ask myself a question I've wondered a thousand times.
Why don't more people ride the bus?
Personally, I like riding the bus. While trains are faster for certain kinds of trips, they don't offer the same kind of experience the bus offers. Trains are boring to me. They're either underground or way above ground, and I like the surface experience the bus offers. And yes, I realize that not everyone likes that experience. Buses have a reputation for attracting "the crazies." But I think you get crazy people on trains too, so I think that stigma is unjustified. And it's more than made up for by putting you in direct contact with the life of the city. I took the F bus across the Bay Bridge last night, and it was spectacular. Granted, I'd never been across the Bay Bridge before, but I don't think anyone could ignore the urban beauty of the San Francisco skyline at dusk, no matter how many times they see it. I wouldn't have been able to fully admire this view if I was driving a car, and I wouldn't have seen it at all if I had taken the train.
Buses are also cheaper. They're cheaper to build, they're cheaper to buy, and they're cheaper to ride. They're more expensive to operate on a year-by-year basis than light and heavy rail trains, but the enormous up-front investment required to build a rail system makes a comprehensive bus system by far the more sensible choice. I'm going to talk about the debate between bus and light rail in another post, but suffice it to say that expanding bus service makes more sense than building a light rail system when your resources are limited because you don't have to build new infrastructure: the roads are already there.
So, again, why don't people ride the bus? It's an hour later here at Dwight and Telegraph, and I've seen a lot of people. Most were walking, many were in cars, some were on bicycles, and a few were on scooters and skateboards. Dozens of buses have gone by in this hour. They were definitely in use, but none of them were standing room only. People obviously need to get places at 6:00 on a Friday afternoon, and it's their prerogative to choose how to get where they need to go. I just wish more people would see what I see when I look at the bus.
Credits: Image of Buses from SF Gate, Image of San Francisco Bay Bridge from Pulsar Wallpaper.
