Getting Romantic About Transit

Love at the
bus stop. (Photo: lucam
via Flickr)

Today on the Streetsblog Network, we came across a sweet post from
one of our favorite network members — Seattle’s Carla Saulter, better
known as Bus
Chick. She’s celebrating a milestone — seven years of living
car-free. And she takes the occasion to share some memories:

It’s been an eventful seven years. I bought a home, got married,
lost my beloved mother to cancer, and had two children. Navigating so
many major life events without a car in a city
that all but requires one has certainly had its challenges,
but it has also integrated the bus into all of my significant
recent memories*–and made it impossible for me to imagine my life
without Metro. As I wrote in my
Real Change column back in 2006, buses have
associations for me.

Riding
the Water Taxi reminds me of the days I spent with my mother during
her last months of life. The first
time I rode it to my parents’ Seacrest Park condo the spring after
she died, I cried. Sometimes I still do.

The 545 will forever feel romantic to me, since it’s the
route Nerd and I rode together in the early days of our courtship. I
don’t think I’ve ever looked
more forward to a commute — or for that matter, to anything.

It’s unusual for someone to use the word “romantic” when talking
about a bus. But it shouldn’t be. Plenty of people do their courting on
buses and trains. And transit often takes us to see our loved ones. Do
any of you out there have sentimental associations with particular bus
or subway lines? Let us know in the comments.

More from around the network: Cap’n
Transit tries to get to the root of Joel Kotkin’s bad attitude. Psystenance
asks you to banish the phrase “avid cyclist” from your vocabulary. And Tulsa
Alternative Transportation Examiner talks about windshield
perspective in Oklahoma.