Transit Adventures After a Month Without

We got back to transit this week! We were out of town for a month hanging out in Montana. The state’s pretty awesome, but in the small towns we were around, transit wasn’t really a thing, and we missed it! If nothing else, just getting to zone out while someone else drives is a huge privilege.

There’s not much to this post, but transit makes me smile, and I’m smiling again writing about it, so here goes.

On Tuesday, I had to turn in our rental car, so I made a quick jaunt to the airport. My mood improved as soon as the car keys were out of my hands. No more worrying about someone else’s incredibly expensive property and the huge load of regulations surrounding all things driving. Even more happily, a leisurely stroll through the airport put me in front of the SFO museum’s (there are several mini-museums in SFO) new exhibit about Victorian wallpaper!

All cultured up, I headed for the BART platform. The ride was simplicity itself, dumping me back close enough to the house to walk, but guess what? Thanks to the efforts of San Francisco Transit Riders and other folks around town who called into SFMTA board meetings, I didn’t have to. Our neighborhood routes survived the pandemic.

The bus route winds up, down, and around several hills on its way back home. As the bus stopped a hill or so before the house, I saw three familiar people get on: the 11, 9, and 7 year-old gang of kids! My partner had called in an order to one of our favorite Chinese carryout places down the hill before I left, and then asked the gang to pick it up. They had, and then, using the Transit app, had realized they could skip walking back up the last hill. And voila, we all enjoyed discussing our afternoons as we cruised back home without a driving worry in the world.

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