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.