Behind every no-show bus, there’s a story. This is one of those stories.

Metrobus Route 70 runs from Downtown DC to Silver Spring. (Photo courtesy of Caitsith810, via YouTube)

Following my routine Sunday afternoon hike through Rock Creek Park to Silver Spring’s Denizens Brewing, I decided to head down to Timber Pizza (in Petworth) for dinner. My choice of transportation – Metrobus Route 70 – was a second-nature decision. The direct bus route stops within a couple blocks of both the brewery and pizzeria, and is scheduled to operate every 15 minutes even on Sunday evenings – reasonable service, by DC-area standards.

While at Denizens, I pulled up the Transit app so I could synchronize my departure with an arriving bus. I noticed that there was a 30-minute gap in service on this every-15-minute route, which isn’t too uncommon here in the nation’s capital. I took it in stride, and perfectly timed the next bus a half hour later.

The bus was quite full, which at this off-peak hour was a sign that the prior bus indeed hadn’t shown up. But I was able to find an empty seat and settled in for the ride.

We made it a few blocks, then pulled into a stop – and remained stopped.

I soon noticed some commotion near the front of the bus, which didn’t seem too alarming at first. I figured one of the usual culprits – a driver change, a dispute about the fare, a lost soul endlessly asking the bus driver whether or not this is their bus – was at fault, and the delay would be brief.

But several minutes passed, the commotion died down, yet we were still stationary.  At this point, I realized this wasn’t an ordinary hiccup and walked up to the front of the bus to figure out what the issue was.

I learned that we were stopped because a legally blind passenger, while attempting to exit the bus, had stumbled into the row of seats across from her. She needed to cross Georgia Avenue, the pedestrian-hostile street Route 70 runs on, to get home.

Since this would have been incredibly dangerous for her, the bus driver had called in a supervisor who could provide her a car ride home. He informed me that the next 70 bus was coming in 12 minutes, implying that the bus we were on wouldn’t be going anywhere soon.

An out-of-service Metrobus. (Photo courtesy of Oren's Transit Page)

I quickly processed the situation. While the purpose of my trip was purely recreational, it’s likely that other riders had more time-sensitive needs, and that some of those riders had already endured a lengthy delay (given that all evidence suggested the bus immediately before ours had also been cancelled).

Thus, I offered to personally assist the blind passenger home, which would have ensured that she reached her destination safely and released the bus to transport other riders to where they needed to go.

The passenger simply sat quietly. But the driver and others near the front of the bus didn’t seem interested in my proposal, telling me that the situation had been addressed to their satisfaction.

At this point, I probably should have resigned myself to the tribulations of American transit.

But I couldn’t get past my desire for a better transportation product. Every time I see transit fail, I feel like a knife is in my chest. I couldn’t stop thinking about passengers down the line, waiting alone in the dark for nearly an hour without any explanation. Having read article after article about riders abandoning transit for various car-based options, I shuddered to think how many people, egged on by a gleeful Unsuck DC Metro, would give up on our bus system for good due to this latest meltdown.

So, I plead my case, clarifying that my intent was to help the blind passenger, as well as everyone else on the bus. In return, I got yelled at. I tried to explain that reliability issues affecting American transit systems are causing people to defect to options like ride hailing, endangering the very concept of mobility for all, but in response, a rider screamed “well then, take Uber!”

An Uber car blocks a bike lane in Portland. (Photo courtesy of Bike Portland)

At this point, the blind passenger spoke up, asking for us to calm down and avoid any further conflict. 

While all this was going on, another issue had arisen toward the rear of the bus, a few rows from where I had originally sat. Apparently, a rider had thrown up. The driver inspected the vomit situation and promptly informed the remaining passengers that, because a single row of seats wasn’t usable, the bus had to been taken out of service entirely (though we could still wait on board until the next bus showed up).

The next bus and the supervisor assigned to drive the blind passenger home arrived at the same time, about 10 minutes later. I checked to make sure the supervisor didn’t require any assistance, then followed everyone else to the other bus.

With three buses’ passengers now squeezed onto one, quarters were cramped, and I was in close proximity to the man who’d shouted at me earlier. At some point (it may have been before we switched buses, but I’m not sure as my mind was racing at this point), I asked him exactly what I had done wrong.

He felt that I’d crossed a line by tying our bus’s situation to broader issues affecting DC-area transit. I acknowledged his views and agreed with him that WMATA had done a great thing by looking out for the blind rider's safety, but before we could discuss the situation further, he became furious that I’d opened my mouth at all and cut off all conversation.

On the second bus, I was able to chat a bit more with other passengers who had witnessed what happened, bonding with people from different walks of life as only transit makes possible. Soon enough, we made it to my stop, I shook hands with the fellow riders I’d spoken with, and then, at long last, hopped off.

Before walking over to the pizzeria, I stopped and stared off into an alley, planning to spend a few minutes reflecting on what had happened.

But within seconds, a ride-hailing vehicle pulled up and parked in the bike lane next to me, awaiting a passenger.

At this point, I cracked under the pressure. I’m never exactly thrilled to see obstructed bike lanes, but in this case, with what felt like a city’s transportation future in the balance, I teared up for the first time in a long time. At least 10 minutes passed before I pulled myself together. 

     

A Milwaukee bus driver helps a blind passenger cross a street in a construction zone. (Photo courtesy of KRDO)

I’ve experienced plenty of unusual delays on transit. For example, on Christmas Eve a few years ago, a passenger on a Chicago-area Metra commuter rail train, carrying bags full of merchandise from Crate & Barrel, refused to pay the at-the-time $3 surcharge (it’s now $5) required to purchase a ticket on board (rather than at a station). He also refused to exit the train, so we had to wait 20 minutes for the Morton Grove cops to show up and take him off in handcuffs. And on a morning commute in San Diego, I saw a standing bus rider fall to the floor when we started moving at a green light. The rider, who’d neglected to hold on to the handrail, was unhurt, but after he got up he demanded to fill out a complaint card on the spot, writing a lengthy essay before we could progress another inch.

None of those experiences affected me as deeply as this one did, however.

Perhaps two-and-a-half years of tolerating DC’s transit negativity have gotten to my head, giving me a sense of desperation and a no-room-for-error mentality. Maybe I’d seen one too many service cuts, which seem to have become the infuriatingly universal “solution” to all challenges – including aging infrastructure, fluctuations in ridership, and, as I saw, the mere presence of a passenger who requires assistance – that transit systems in the nation’s capital can face.

Or I may have become fed up with our region’s lack of basic amenities for handicapped riders, such as stops with benches and level boarding, as well as safe, complete streets.

But as my Sunday evening ride on the 70 has replayed over and over in my head in the days since, I’ve come to believe that what I saw was a simple, but sobering reminder of the daunting obstacles mobility-impaired individuals in our country are confronted with every day. Unless – or until – our lives take a turn that puts us in their situation, we can’t fully understand.  

I've experienced the consequences of negativity before. We can't let those consequences affect our mobility.

A New York Subway train pulls into 161st Street-Yankee Stadium station. (Photo courtesy of NYCgo.com)

I’ve written before about the negativity that surrounds discussion of U.S. transit and is especially problematic in Washington, DC. My sentiment about excessive complaining dates back to when I was a freshman in high school.

That year, our baseball team entered the season with big expectations. It had only been two years since our school had reincarnated its baseball program, and the team had won just one game during that time. But I was among a promising crop of young players who hoped to help make the Sacramento Country Day Cavaliers a contender.

We won our first scrimmage impressively. But then, the rain started pouring on us – literally.

It rained almost every day during March 2006, one of those months when California experienced floods instead of wildfires. In the small-school Central Valley Christian League, infield tarps and grounds crews weren’t a thing, so we experienced rainout after rainout, even during respites in the weather.

Thus, we practiced, day in and day out. We didn’t have a baseball field on our campus (we played our “home” games at a public park that the city perpetually deemed “unplayable” during the rainy season), so we got the most we could out of a patch of grass behind our gym.

Finally, the weather cooperated for a couple days, and game day arrived…on the road against Woodland Christian, a local power at the time. We held our own for a while, but couldn’t overcome our inexperience. The Cardinals’ pitchers shut us down, and after a couple times through the lineup their batters figured out my change-up. They pulled away in the late innings, and the final score was 10-0.

Despite the loss, our young team showed plenty of potential that afternoon in the shadows of Yolobus headquarters. Though some of our players had never taken part in a competitive baseball game before, we hadn’t humiliated ourselves and were able to compete toe-to-toe for several innings with a team that, despite its town’s lack of passenger rail service, would go on to win our league.

But instead of using those positive achievements as an inspirational foundation to build on, our coach dwelled only on what we had done wrong in his postgame speech. He ranted about how horribly we’d played, implying that we hadn’t given any effort. We spent the entirety of our next practice – held during yet another heavy rainstorm – running around and around our patch of grass. This was not a planned workout session designed to build our strength and improve our ability, nor a test of some new mode of active, shared micromobility, but instead a form of meaningless punishment.

Our demoralized team never recovered. We had some flashes of glory – including, during my junior season, two no-hitters in the same week – but from that fateful 2006 day on our dugout was a place of pessimism and negativity, rather than one of enthusiasm and hard work. We later found funding to construct an on-campus practice infield and moved from the CVCL to the Sacramento Metropolitan Athletic League, but were unable to shed our mediocrity. We entered the final day of my senior season with a shot at a .500 finish, but failed to get the job done, sealing a fourth straight losing year.  

Studies have linked ride hailing to worsening congestion in cities, and such congestion can delay buses. (Photo courtesy of CityLab)

Transit in the U.S. today has a lot in common with the 2006 Country Day Cavs.

Over the past half-century, preferable transportation options have been little more than an afterthought to most Americans, neglected in a culture where mobility was synonymous with cars and nothing more. But today, a new generation is yearning for more convenient, sustainable, and affordable ways to get around, creating hope that options like transit and cycling will develop into mainstream transportation modes.

However, the past couple of years have demonstrated that plenty of challenges must be overcome for this to happen. These challenges – including the impacts of venture capital-funded, car-based competitors; endless fighting for street space; infrastructure hostile to people who aren’t in cars; strict zoning laws; and constrained government budgets – have put us in an uphill battle comparable to the one our baseball team faced in Woodland, testing how we handle adversity.

So far, much of the transportation community has given into the inevitable temptation to dwell on the negatives, much as my coach did.

Discussion often focuses on the uniquely American phenomenon of short-term declines in ridership and how traditional transit doesn’t stand a chance against [insert trendy buzzword].

For example, a recent headline in CityLab – a publication with a perspective generally favorable to transit – essentially declared Los Angeles’s Measure M, which was passed two years ago and is funding dozens of ongoing and proposed projects benefitting rail, buses, bikes, and roads, a failure. The article had a couple decent points, such as the fact that supporters of American transit projects focus too much on reducing traffic congestion, and not enough on how the projects will improve the overall transportation system.

But its overall message – that transit can only succeed if we intentionally go out of our way to make driving “harder” – is unnecessarily defeatist. As demonstrated by robust bus service in low-density Canadian communities and recent ridership increases in car-loving American places like Houston, it is also incorrect.

Furthermore, Washington, DC-area news sources have published multiple articles recently regarding the effects of the ongoing government shutdown on the region’s transportation system. With more than 100,000 area workers furloughed, usage of both roadways and transit is down from this time last year, as would be expected. Though going such a long time without a paycheck is horrible for all involved, the resulting reduction in farebox recovery has given local media – which has cast the reduced traffic congestion in a positive light – yet another reason to predict doom for increasingly reliable WMATA.

Woodland, CA's Clark Field, where Woodland Christian beat Sacramento Country Day 10-0 in 2006. (Photo courtesy of Small BallFields)

It’s much easier for people to point out wrongdoing than to formulate constructive solutions to problems. In the short term, it’s also more self-gratifying to be negative, as dwelling on shortcomings we don’t bear direct responsibility for helps us forget about our own imperfections.

But in the long run, as I’ve seen with both baseball and transportation, negativity only harms our quality of life.

At Sacramento Country Day, the consequences have come full circle, as the school’s administration rejected a recent proposal to allow high school students to walk to a nearby shopping center at lunchtime. Though the proposal had countless upsides – such as increased physical activity, access to a healthier array of lunch options, and a chance to experience a real-world activity prior to college – the administration cited a pedestrian-hostile intersection near campus as one of the primary justifications for its decision.  

Routes connecting small and mid-size towns may be the key to American transit’s success

Stoughton, WI is one of countless American towns deprived of public transit. The town's train station, pictured above, has not seen any scheduled service since the 1970s, but remains as a relic of a better transportation system that deserves to be revived. (Photo by Tommy Anderson, courtesy of Pixels.)

A recent New York Times article analyzed the current state of public transit on both coasts of the U.S. The article compared fledgling Western systems, which enjoy substantial political support and are undergoing expansion, to legacy Eastern systems, which face reliability issues and maintenance challenges.

In reality, mobility throughout our country continues to fall short. Operators of legacy rail systems, facing constrained resources, must make painful service-maintenance tradeoffs, while advocates must fight tooth and nail against automobile interests for every inch of bus lanes, bike lanes, and transit-oriented development projects needed to complement those core systems. Newer systems may enjoy more stable funding sources, but despite recent expansions, large portions of the sprawling metropolitan areas they serve remain without good options. Thus, most residents of these regions continue to purchase and depend on cars, making it challenging for transit to attract new riders.

Evidence suggests that in the long run, transit systems in both West and East Coast cities will turn out okay. An overwhelming proportion of Americans support transit improvements, and even the controversial stopgaps some people have turned to – such as ride hailing and shared e-scooters – demonstrate that people are sick of the auto-dependent status quo and desire the freedom to choose how they get around.

But carnage on our roads, inaccessible life needs, and the effects of climate change have made our transportation shortcomings an urgent issue, and we don’t have time to wait for the seemingly endless standoff against auto and oil interests to resolve itself. Instead, we must make well-functioning public transportation a valued part of our culture, considered every bit as important as our electrical grid and water supply.

 

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The ultimate cure to the problems plaguing U.S. transportation may lie in Middle America, rather than the cosmopolitan locales advocates tend to focus on.  

In parts of the world that consider public transit a basic necessity, functional service is not just a niche product serving specific neighborhoods and job centers, but rather a complex, national (or, in some cases, international) network of essential infrastructure. Trunk routes serving large cities boast the shortest headways and move the most riders, but even in small and mid-size communities, trains and buses are modern and provide a viable form of mobility for residents and visitors. The resulting local and intercity links help keep these places economically and culturally connected, reducing interregional inequality and catalyzing long-term growth.

But in the U.S., modern mobility is largely confined to posh urban areas. Outside of our vibrant metropolises, the quality of transportation today has arguably regressed since the mid-20^th century, and car crash fatality rates are three times higher in rural areas than in cities.

The regional streetcar lines that once connected our towns – commonly referred to as “interurbans” – are long gone, and (in contrast to the large cities that lost their streetcars in the 1940s and -50s) the areas these lines served have never attempted to redevelop their transit systems. Communities that once enjoyed frequent rail service now are left – if they are lucky – with once-a-day, oft-delayed trains that may arrive in the middle of the night. Even intercity bus service in much of America has been cut substantially over the past few decades, as the private companies that operate those services have shifted their attention to point-to-point routes that cater to young, budget-conscious urbanites.

Vast swaths of our country don’t have any transit service at all. While the Dallas suburb of Arlington, TX may be the most notorious – and mocked – example of a locale lacking any form of public transportation, countless towns remain completely left out of the modern mobility trends that people in cities have come to take for granted. 

Stoughton, WI, located south of Madison, is one such town. Though a train station still proudly stands just off Main Street, it’s now nothing more than a Historical Society annex, serving no transportation purpose. When my dad and I visited relatives in Stoughton over the holidays, we were able to catch an intercity bus from Chicago that took us as far as Janesville, but had no choice other than to accept a car ride from him to get the rest of the way.

There’s also the Sharon Line neighborhood of Youngstown, Ohio – where my grandfather grew up – named for an interurban streetcar that once connected the area to Sharon, PA. The rail line ceased operation in 1939, making way for an automobile-oriented future. By the 1960s, the local economy was collapsing, and more and more homes in the neighborhood sat abandoned. In 2016, the city’s leaders decided to officially give much of the once-vibrant middle class neighborhood back to nature, closing several miles of streets as the forest retook the land.

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Anti-transit forces have utilized this increasingly stark disparity to their advantage, turning public transportation into yet another politicized issue that pits “coastal elites” against “real Americans.”

Whenever a transit improvement intended to benefit Middle America is proposed, opposition is especially fierce, as special interest groups spend millions of dollars to convince people that new service will not bring beneficial connectivity, but rather will somehow oppress the everyman and ruin traditional ways of life. Such misinformation campaigns have helped stymie large-scale rail expansions in aforementioned Wisconsin and Ohio, as well as ballot measures that would have fixed the broken transportation systems of Detroit and Nashville.

The special interests spend so much money to oppose transit in places like the Rust Belt and Sun Belt because they fear if residents of those places could use trains and buses to get where they need to go, they would do so.

Due to their small size and quiet streets, America’s small towns are already relatively walkable and bikeable, and a local bus route or two would satisfy additional transportation needs. Such local routes, which even a minimal transit-dedicated tax, among other possible funding sources, can support, could feed into intercity buses – or, where feasible, rail – that connect these towns to each other. For example, Wenatchee, WA, a town of around 30,000 people, is served by a network of local and intercity buses – as well as Amtrak’s Empire Builder train – and 100,000 annual passengers use Galesburg, IL’s Amtrak station, which sees four trains in each direction per day and offers connections to four local bus routes.

If transit were part of the underlying fabric of so many peoples’ day-to-day lives, auto and oil interests would have to cease their relentless culture war against forms of mobility they don’t profit from. To stay in business, these corporations would need to reinvent themselves as one cooperative component of a sophisticated transportation system, a costly endeavor they have little desire to pursue.

Recent electoral results suggest that this reinvention may soon be necessary. For example, despite the best efforts of groups such as Americans for Prosperity, voters in places including Indiana, Georgia, and New Mexico – not just the traditional progressive megacities of the West and Northeast – have recently approved or extended transit-dedicated taxes. In California’s agricultural Central Valley, Jeff Denham – once Congress’s leading opponent of the state’s high-speed rail project – was sent packing in the 2018 midterms.

To ensure this trend continues, turning our country into a place where extensive, well-functioning transit is considered essential infrastructure (on par with roads, pipes, and power lines), we need to craft viable mobility solutions that benefit currently neglected communities. This will require careful planning and laborious on-the-ground effort. But in the end, it will ensure Americans view transit as a national necessity for all, allowing planners from our largest cities to our quaintest towns to thoughtfully consider the specific form improvements should take, rather than endlessly debate whether or not such improvements are necessary.