INtake writer drinks the kool-aid regarding IndyGo

I took the bus to work for a week three years ago, when my car was in the shop having the transmission replaced. I caught the bus downtown on Route 18 - Nora, and took it north to my workplace, which is in an office park on the far north side of town. Although this was three years ago, none of the problems I'm discussing here have been resolved, and most have been made worse by reduced schedules and routes, so the schedule here is even less flexible than it was when I took the bus.

The timing of the morning bus to work was a pain, because the schedules for the route I needed to take were too far apart. I either arrived at work quite early or quite late depending on which bus I got on. The buses needed to run more frequently for me to get to work at a reliable time. At the end of the trip, the stop closest to my work place was five blocks away, and on a road that had no pedestrian sidewalks at the time, so I had to schlep the distance amidst traffic on a busy street.

The ride home was more difficult, because the only bus home ran just after I was supposed to be off work, and I had to go five blocks to the stop to make the bus. I could have waited for the next bus, but it didn't run until 8:19 p.m., so if I missed the bus I was out of luck. Forget going to the grocery store, or running errands after work; I had to wait until the weekend to accomplish those.

Meghan describes the ride as "30 minutes of priceless peace and quiet" but my ride was quite a bit longer than that; it took between 45 minutes and an hour to arrive at my destination, and that's not including the time spent walking to the stop from my home or work, or the time I spent waiting at the stop for the bus to arrive. For people who have to ride the bus every day, taking public transportation eats a significant portion of their daylight hours.

If you take a look at the IndyGo map (PDF File), it becomes apparent that significant portions of the city aren't covered very well, so if you're going somewhere that isn't a major retail area, you're out of luck. So long, friends in the 56th and Guion Road area.

I'm not saying that public transportation is a bad thing, or that I would necessarily prefer to drive my car. But the trade-offs for me weren't significant enough for me to park my vehicle and ride instead. IndyGo will need to add lots more buses to their schedules and routes before I would feel comfortable with considering it to be a regular option.

And for people who have to take the bus because they have fewer options than I do, addressing these issues could create a major change in their quality of life. These are some of the things that those who tout the "why don't they pull themselves up by their bootstraps" party line don't take into account.