Diary entry June 24, 2016

After months of waiting, this week, I was finally presented the opportunity to use the local bus by myself.  I’m pretty sure not a lot of people would share my enthusiasm, but I have used public transportation for as long as I can remember.  So this is a landmark for me.

I walked to my stop 10 minutes early.  The bus arrived 10 minutes late; too many kids out from school made him drive slower and more cautiously than usual.  I dropped my exact fare at the machine; the driver gave me my receipt.  It was a pleasant afternoon.  If there’s no one waiting at the stop, the bus speeds along.  There were only a few passengers; the driver greeted each one as they boarded.

I know if I had just asked, I could have been driven to my destination and I would have traveled for 12 minutes instead of 30.  But this is what I want for the my country:  scheduled bus stops at designated locations, affordable fare, disciplined riders, clean and orderly busses with space for the handicapped.  I truly believe that efficient mass transit will lessen so much of our country’s burden.

In the meantime, I have to bear the thought that my mother still has to leave at 5i n the morning to catch a bus or a shuttle that will traverse the streets for almost (and sometimes over) two hours before getting her to a drop off point some five blocks from her office.  My mother is in her early 60s.

Oh, the injustice that someone half her age enjoys the convenience and the leisure that she should be enjoying now.