I am definitely one for public transportation - public transport on the whole?- completely favored. But the bus, oh the bus. This is what's shunned about the bus - not the fact that it's crowded, or that it brings out the crazy, or even the musty odor that clings to the weird vinyl fibers that make the seats fuzzy - it's the stopping.
Perhaps I should be more specific in this post; I'm not talking about the Greyhound, or the school bus, or buses in other countries (which are usually far more unreliable but an infinitely more interesting experience), because they are okay. I'm talking about taking the bus in a major metropolitan area as your commute.
Undoubtedly, when you take the bus at that time, it's going to stop. It has not escaped me that, unless somehow all reason and logic disappears and you find yourself in the plot of an over-rated mid-90s action movie, the point of the bus is to stop at certain destinations. It's the amount of destinations that I am talking about. A bus stop, EVERY block. The bus stops, the driver accelerates, and immediately there's that ding. The Stop Requested ding. And then the deceleration - it is a never ending cycle wherein I inevitably get off at least two stops before the geographically logical destination just to avoid the process and probably get to where I'm going faster anyway.
Ride a bike or take the subway - far less stopping.
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