#143 - trimet

for the most part i enjoy doing my part and not contributing to the emissions caused by a car that i drive excessively to and from the store three blocks down. i walk there and back, it's no big deal. if i have to go a little farther i've got my trusty bus pass. the tri-met system is pretty good usually. i've got the #10 right in front of my house, #72 two blocks down and another maybe five blocks away that i only take in a pinch. so i'm in a pretty good place. the #10 is pretty reliable but only comes every half hour, going to my work, downtown and MAX line (light rail). the #72 is more frequent and i can take it to the MAX which goes to my school. i can also take the #72 the other way and connect to the #8 which is also frequent and takes me to work, library, downtown and the MAX. the MAX is actually pretty awesome, there are three different lines that can take you east to gresham (school), west to beaverton and hillsboro (friends, uwajimaya), and to the airport. it's faster, more frequent and doesn't smell as bad.

that was a lot of silly info, sorry. sometimes buses are running late, or i miss it cause my timing is off, or there are loud people on it. there are lots of reasons for me to be annoyed but for the most part it works for me. going anywhere pretty much takes an hour but i plan ahead. today i planned to go to dodgeball pickup. i wanted to get there at about 7:30 so i figured 6:30 would be great. there was a #10 bus coming at 6:38 so that was perfect. good. so i got on that bus and rode it to the rose quarter transit station, where a number of buses also stop. for some reason there was a lot of traffic and so i arrived around 7:16 (about 10 minutes late). i looked at the time schedule for the bus i wanted to take (the #77) and it said 7:16 so i was excited cause probably it was running late also. i waited, and waited, and waited...till about 7:35 only one bus came through when there should have been at least a few. it was strange. so i called their "transit tracker" which is not very accurate. it said the next #77 wasn't till 8:15! there was no way i was going to wait that long for a bus so i decided to take MAX downtown and catch another bus that went to the same area. that went well and i was downtown by 7:40. the #15 is a frequent bus and so i thought i'd have no problem catching it. it was a couple blocks from the MAX station and there were two guys already standing there. i figured the bus would arrive in a few minutes and i'd be playing dodgeball by 8. it was not to be. this "frequent" bus didn't arrive till 8:03! so i stood in the rain waiting for that one. i finally got to dodgeball, changed and started playing around 8:30. i had some aggression to take out! it was so frustrating!

usually we play till about 9:15 but what happened?! the lights went out at 9! so i was cheated out of an extra 15 minutes AND missed out on the first hour of my planned dodgeballing. after that i was just so upset and wondering what would happen next. it was a long night of irritating things happening (or not). i spent two hours waiting and riding buses basically for a ride that would take at MOST 30 minutes by car, more likely 20. so frustrating! it is times likes these that i desperately want a car because it would be so convenient!

i have thought of it a lot lately, of getting a car. right now there is no way i can afford it or the fuel and insurance costs but perhaps when i graduate and start nursing. i still don't want to rely on it but i know that if i got one i'd become lazy and drive everywhere just cause it's convenient. there is a program called zipcar that you pay a certain amount and have access to hundreds of cars around the city. they pay for gas and it's a pretty sweet thing. i haven't really looked into it yet because USUALLY riding the bus isn't such a pain. sure, it takes an hour to go to school but i can read or relax or sleep or listen to music so it's a pretty nice hour. i know most of the bus system pretty well since i've been using it over four years now and generally i like it. i feel good that i'm using mass transit and helping the environment. if not helping, at least not doing more harm.