Today is Thursday 10/23 and I am writing about an experience I had on Tuesday 10/21 to be posted on Saturday 10/25. It is one of those nice clear days you get after an all day rain clears the air of pollution. The sun was out in full and there was a moderate breeze making it a perfect day to do laundry. I put in a load, ate breakfast and then hung up the load of laundry that just finished. I brushed my teeth, which I try to do after every meal, grabbed my camera and headed to the 521 bus stop. My plan was to get off at a bridge construction site and take some pictures for two blog entries. I would then get back on the bus and backtrack a few miles and get off at the stop where I can get western type whole wheat square bread for sandwiches. You get eight slices in a package so I got four packages and put them in my backpack with my camera. I got back on a bus to backtrack further to a store where I could buy some western sandwich meat. I put that in my backpack and walked the mile or so home.
Now that I have 28 pictures to choose from I am ready to write about the Tuesday morning experience as I rode the bus to teach my Tuesday morning class. As we approached the bridge construction area, a normal three lanes of traffic bulged into seven as people queued up to merge into two lanes at the narrowest point.
At the intersection we are finally down to two lanes. It is some experience watching these bus drivers working the traffic. There are times when there is no more than an inch or two between bus and cars. There have been times when two buses are so close that the side mirror of the lead bus is actually in front of the side mirror of the bus on its side. That keeps the side bus from passing the lead bus.
It takes a long time to get through the bottleneck, so long that some passengers get off their bus and run up the line and get on another bus covering the same route. Everyone is running short on patience, but finally the bus I was on gets up to the intersection but was stopped by a traffic cop. We would have to wait several minutes while everyone else around the intersection got a chance to move forward. We waited and waited and traffic kept coming through under the bridge being built.
The traffic would either go straight through or do a left turn, but it never stopped and the traffic cop gave no indication he was ever going to stop it. My bus driver had waited long enough. He edges up to crossing traffic, and, as soon as it broke, he floors it and starts to cross just behind the traffic cop. The cop realized what was going to happen, heads toward the bridge for protection. As soon as the bus I was on started everyone else followed. It didn’t matter that the light was red, we were on our way. I wonder who had the courage from the street on the right to cut in and interrupt the flow that he started. It became very clear that the authority directing traffic on the street was no match to our seasoned bus driver.
It will sure be great when the overhead lanes of the bridge are finished to allow through traffic free travel across the city street we now have to stop at.
Now that I have 28 pictures to choose from I am ready to write about the Tuesday morning experience as I rode the bus to teach my Tuesday morning class. As we approached the bridge construction area, a normal three lanes of traffic bulged into seven as people queued up to merge into two lanes at the narrowest point.
At the intersection we are finally down to two lanes. It is some experience watching these bus drivers working the traffic. There are times when there is no more than an inch or two between bus and cars. There have been times when two buses are so close that the side mirror of the lead bus is actually in front of the side mirror of the bus on its side. That keeps the side bus from passing the lead bus.
It takes a long time to get through the bottleneck, so long that some passengers get off their bus and run up the line and get on another bus covering the same route. Everyone is running short on patience, but finally the bus I was on gets up to the intersection but was stopped by a traffic cop. We would have to wait several minutes while everyone else around the intersection got a chance to move forward. We waited and waited and traffic kept coming through under the bridge being built.
The traffic would either go straight through or do a left turn, but it never stopped and the traffic cop gave no indication he was ever going to stop it. My bus driver had waited long enough. He edges up to crossing traffic, and, as soon as it broke, he floors it and starts to cross just behind the traffic cop. The cop realized what was going to happen, heads toward the bridge for protection. As soon as the bus I was on started everyone else followed. It didn’t matter that the light was red, we were on our way. I wonder who had the courage from the street on the right to cut in and interrupt the flow that he started. It became very clear that the authority directing traffic on the street was no match to our seasoned bus driver.
It will sure be great when the overhead lanes of the bridge are finished to allow through traffic free travel across the city street we now have to stop at.
