Me at Outside the Beltway, yesterday:
For most of my adult life, I’ve worked in the Downtown area of Rochester, at one job or another. For the first year or so, and on and off after that, I tried using the bus. After getting mugged twice, having bums hassle me for change, (Which I never carry anyway) having people smell up the bus with various remarkable bodily functions, having one person puke on me, and having my journeys take often as not an hour longer than a car trip would have taken, I gave up on government transport.
I’ve ridden on rail systems, which admittedly were marginally better, (DC and the TTC) but even in those situations, being totally dependent on such systems being on time proved problematic when they were not.
I will tell you that in recent years, the TTC rail is showing signs of going the way of the less desirable bus systems, in that one of the first things I did on a recent visit to the GTA was trip over a kid in a sleeping bag coming out of the Bloor street station.
Granted, that’s a function of the neighborhood going to hell, but that’s part of the point; In my truck I never run into such problems, regardless of neighborhood conditions, particularly if the employer is good enough to provide an enclosed parking space, which I usually get as a part of my employee negotiations.
For me, this is not simply a matter of cost, but of function, particularly where getting back and forth to work is concerned.
(Fascinating fact: It’s hard to give a good impression to a customer when your clothing smells like beer and vomit. Who knew?)
Tags: bodily functions, bums, bus systems, government transit, GTA, neighborhood conditions, parking, parking space, puke, Rochester, sleeping bag, TTC
