Oklahoma City, OK

I grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia, in a house about four blocks away from a SEPTA train that went directly into the city. Then I moved to New York, where, these days, for $2.00 you can ride the MTA buses and subways, and get to pretty much anyplace you need to go. My commute from 156th Street in Washington Heights down to Water Street in the Financial District–further south than the World Trade Center–took just 40 minutes each way.

Sure, you have to deal with the occasional weirdo–like this guy, who was sleeping off a hangover on the Q train one night, or jerks during rush hour who push and shove and sometimes try to cop a feel. But by and large, these things are secondary to what really matters–accessible, affordable public transportation that works.

And then I moved to Oklahoma City, a town that could really benefit from efficient public transportation. Oklahoma City is huge; if you factor in the surrounding towns like Edmond, Moore, Norman, El Reno, and so forth, it’s one of the largest–in terms of land area–metropolitan areas in the world. It’s not uncommon for people to drive 40 or 50 miles each way to and from work. People live in their cars here (and, like Candy in Tulsa pointed out yesterday, they don’t even see any need for sidewalks in most places) and sometimes it seems as though there are more cars than people. We have a lot of traffic accidents, bad roads, and growing pollution; we run through gasoline like it’s water. There would be a lot of benefits to folks having the option of leaving their cars in the driveway and taking a bus or a train to work.

I’m lucky–I don’t drive, and I have a bus stop near my job and one near my house. If I leave work exactly on time at 5:00 every day, I have about a 50/50 chance of catching the bus that’s supposed to arrive at 5:05–but instead, arrives anywhere from 4:50 to 5:25. It boggles my mind that Metro Transit bothers with these detailed schedules, when the bus drivers, on the whole, are surly and unhelpful, and come and go as they please.

On Monday, it was about 95 degrees outside when I got out of work. I left right on time; I was at the bus stop at 5:02. The “bus stop” is nothing more than a bench sitting right out in the sun; within minutes I was sweating and uncomfortable. The bus arrived at 5:25.

I made eye contact with the bus driver. He was in the left lane, going about 45 mph. He looked at me; I know he saw me. He didn’t slow down, didn’t pull over, didn’t stop–he kept driving without picking me up, and since I was stranded without money or any other way to get home? I had to wait outside, in the sun, 95 degrees, for over an hour until the next bus arrived.

I spend a lot of time talking with other commuters, as well as Joe, who drives the 5:30 #10 bus that’s the second leg of my trip home, provided the jerk driving the #9 actually stops for me. There are a lot of problems with Metro Transit, we all know. Joe is frustrated that he seems to be the only driver who cares about whether his passengers get home or not. Joe is frustrated that he often has to drive a broken-down bus, running low on gas, without air conditioning. Sometimes he has to drive a trolley because they don’t have a running bus for him at all. Sometimes he has to drive a van.

Commuters like me are frustrated that sometimes they’ll sit at a stop and wait for hours for a bus that never arrives, that buses will drive right past them without stopping, that drivers will ignore their requests for stops and drive them half a mile past their destination. We’re frustrated that the schedules seem to be “suggested” arrival times only, and bear little to no relevance to the time the bus will actually appear. We’re frustrated that when we need them–when we’re trying to get home from work at 5:00 or 5:30, Metro Transit is closed and there is no one available to answer our questions or tell us what’s going on. And we’re frustrated that if we make the time the next morning, after we waited hours for a bus, only to have to walk home or find a friend to pick us up, to call to find out what happened, Transit personnel are outrageously rude and claim they don’t have any idea what happened, and it doesn’t matter whether they find out or not.

I don’t have a choice right now–I don’t have a car, and in theory, I have an easy commute home. It’s not a short walk, when the bus doesn’t show up–something to the effect of 6 miles. The soonest anyone can pick me up if I’m stranded is 8:00 P.M. But like I said, I don’t have a choice right now–it’s the best and only option I have.

But they need to step up their game a little bit. An hour and a half sitting in the sun because a bus driver couldn’t be bothered doing his job and stopping for me? Ridiculous.

Take a lesson from New York, OKC: get this transit situation together, and watch people flock to it. Public transit is a huge benefit and a great convenience… it will work for the city, if the city keeps it working.

Oklahoma City, OKC, Oklahoma, subway, bus, Metro Transit, MTA, SEPTA, Philadelphia, New York City, driving, commuting, community improvement