In Transit

Public transit has been an important part of my life for about 40 years and I think it’s worth saying something about this. Time has a different quality for the rider than for the driver. While you may have to rush to catch, or miss, a bus or train, you spend far more time waiting. It’s a largely passive experience you have very little control over. The transit gods, like the parking gods, are whimsical and often perverse. All you can do is be patient.

I’ve always enjoyed having the time to think. You can always read, especially on longer train rides, and thanks to laptops you can often work in transit -- and I’ve often done both -- but mostly I like to take advantage of the down time to ponder and imagine. Together with time spent walking, this is my philosophy time.

The other thing about trains is that they tend to show you another side of the world. Often you can catch a glimpse of the 19th Century, of a past that has been mostly eradicated from today's auto-centric world. Sadly, the modernization of Caltrain, for example, has largely destroyed these views into the past in the interest of better service for today's increased passenger loads. I’m glad there are more people using the trains, but I’m sad I can no longer sit at the old Sunnyvale station, with big Navy turboprops roaring overhead, imagining the freight cars on sidings that used to service the neighboring fruit packing plants back when the Valley was still filled with fruit orchards.

There is also the intimate knowledge one gains of places where one waits for a bus day after day for months or years on end. Divisadero and California is one of those places for me. 24th Street and Castro. Market and Stockton. By now there are probably a dozen of these places all over town where I've spent an inordinate amount of time for one job or another.

Greyhound

And then there are the cross-country bus trips. Greyhound doesn't have the best reputation but I've always enjoyed long bus trips. There is something dreamlike about passing through the more industrial areas on the east side of L.A. around dawn after crossing the desert from Phoenix.

The longest bus trip I took was round trip to Chicago from San Francisco. The first night passing through the Sierra on the way east isn't so bad, but the second night, around Nebraska, is a bit much. By this time the passengers have formed a sort of zombie bond as they mechanically exit the bus at every late night stop in a bleak and dead station. The lighting is always bad and the odors are worse. It's like being really sick when you do mundane things that give you no pleasure just because you are so tired of lying in bed. But by the time we reached Illinois, on the home stretch, we were almost cheerful and friendly with our new found traveling community.

You never know what kind of people you will meet on these rides. I've spent much of a ride between L.A. and Phoenix in stimulating conversation with a bunch of interesting people. The driver of our bus headed for Chicago stopped a highway patrolman in Utah to have him come aboard and tell the rollicking group at the back to settle down. My trip back from Chicago was much more pleasant because I ended up making-out with my lovely seat mate from the Illinois-Iowa border all the way to Salt Lake City. I guess I figured bus travel was never going to get better than that since that was my last Greyhound trip.

Amtrak (long haul trains)

I also rode the Sunset Limited to L.A. from Phoenix in the mid-'70s, back when that was still possible. There was no denying that the train was nicer. But I didn't follow up that trip until 30 years later when I rode the California Zephyr from Chicago to Emeryville (Oakland.) The great thing about passenger trains, compared with buses or planes, is that you aren't trapped in your seat. You have more room plus a lounge and dining car. You can walk all over. It got to the point where I was never actually in my assigned seat when traveling coach.

After enjoying the Zephyr, I started riding the Coast Starlight which runs up and down the coast from L.A. to Seattle. First I rode from San Louis Obispo to Oakland and then from Oakland to Seattle and back. The last time I took this trip I paid extra to get a sleeping compartment (you spend one night on the train and arrive in Seattle the next evening). This was even better. The Coast Starlight is the only Amtrak train that has an additional "social" car, called the Parlour Car, just for the use of people in the sleeper section. This car is quite posh and you can eat meals and have drinks there in addition to just hanging out.

Even with the limited vegetarian food options, this is my favorite form of travel. Now if they could just get the promised WiFi to work.