I had never taken the bus. Here’s what a week taught me.
Many Houstonians have never experienced public transportation, but it is vital for those who use it
The bus driver stared at me as I dropped my 12-pack of water and six grocery bags on the floor. He opened his mouth, then closed it. A smirk.
“You’ve never ridden a bus before, have you?”
“Uh, not really,” I said as I unlocked my phone, showing him the mobile ticket I’d purchased an hour earlier.
I grabbed my bags and took a seat. The driver chuckled.
“Oh, honey, don’t worry. I’ve seen people do worse.”
I’m a native Houstonian,
so my foray into using public transit has been long and slow. Growing up in Tomball, the land of no public transportation, it was nearly impossible to get anywhere without a car.
Even after I moved into the city, I thought: Why bother with public transit? It wasn’t until I moved to Miami for a summer that I realized public transportation is vital to a healthy and successful city.
My first observation: Transit
can involve an awful lot of walking and waiting.
Walking, because I live about half a mile from the nearest bus stop. Waiting, because I ended up standing in the Houston humidity for 30 minutes. This particular stop’s only amenity is the shade it gets from a large tree.
There wasn’t a shelter or a bench. It was uncomfortable. I wondered what would’ve happened if it had been raining.
I hopped on the 84, and after nine stops, I pressed the red button on the yellow pole and crossed the street to Fiesta to do my weekly grocery shopping.
When I got back to my apartment complex, it took me 17 minutes to walk the half-mile back to my front door. In the same amount of time, I could’ve driven back from Fiesta and had my groceries put away.
The next day, I took transit
to work. Although the Kinder Institute is housed on Rice University’s campus, it’s closer to the Medical Center.
After consulting the Google Maps app, I decided to make my commute easier, choosing a route that didn’t require a transfer and that would drop me off right in front of my building.
The button to request a stop was close enough, but I had no clue when to press it, especially when we were in bumper-tobumper traffic.
I pressed it. 8:33 a.m. I got to work right on time.
I made my longest trek
— to my grandma’s apartment in Near Northwest.
I had used the light rail earlier in the week to get home from work, and I learned transferring was obvious: just follow the crowd.
I had 10 stops until my next transfer, the Hermann Park/Rice University stop. This intersection is notoriously hostile toward pedestrians — a Rice University professor died after she was struck by a light rail while riding her bike to work earlier this year.
Metro reacted, and research was done aiming to prevent these types of incidents, but knowing that did nothing to relieve the uneasiness in my chest. Still, I had to finish my task. I looked both ways — four times — and crossed the street to my next destination: a sheltered bus stop for the 56.
The 56 rolled up, and I was off to the corner of Washington and Studemont, an intersection that I was familiar with thanks to the restaurants along the Washington Corridor. I’d never before paid attention, however, to the four bus stops in that area, so when I got off the 56 to transfer to the 85, I wasn’t sure where the stop would be. I realized I had to cross Washington, a street full of speeding cars. The nervousness set in again as I pressed a button to activate the crosswalk signal.
I waited a minute, then two. Finally, the walk light was on. I waited a second, then walked two steps before a brown Nissan Versa honked at me. I stopped.
The driver was trying to turn in front of me even though I had the right of way.
I stumbled back to the corner of Washington and Studemont.
By that time, I didn’t have enough time to cross the intersection safely. I didn’t want to cross at all. I crossed anyway. Until then, I’d never felt unsafe until now. I’d expected the uneasiness of trying a new thing but hadn’t actually felt it. Up until this point, the five rides each had their own pros and cons, as well as an overarching thread: Though many Houstonians have never experienced public transportation, it’s vital for the people who use it.
Glissette Santana is the web and social media editor for Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research. This story is a condensed version of a series that originally appeared on the Kinder Institute’s blog, The Urban Edge.