Tuesday morning, I walked four blocks to the hospital near my house, where the Highland EZ bus stop is. And I waited.
After about twenty minutes, I looked carefully at the bus stop sign, and realized that it said that I needed to call for a ride, so I did. At this point I discovered that this bus wouldn’t run until 7:30. It was about 4:45am at this point.
Tip: read the bus schedules. Read all of them. Read the fine print. Give that fine print time to sink in.
Now remember, my car is still at work. The Park-n-Ride lot in Highland is more than a mile away from my house, and it’s cold. So, I took my wife’s car and drove to the Park-n-Ride. There, waiting for me around 5am, was the Highland Express, and it was the one that would take me straight to a light rail station! This was good news.
From here I was able to hop a train that got me all the way to Shrewsbury, or well over three-quarters of the way to work. Now I had to find Bus 11, which would take me right in front of work. Next problem: immediately a Bus 11 showed up, but its destination was the Civic Center; that is, it seemed to be going the wrong way.
Suddenly I was plagued with doubt. Is there a chance that the sign was wrong? Or that I was misinterpreting it? It didn’t seem likely that source rather than destination would be imprinted on the bus. I let that one go, and then waited, and waited, and waited. And eventually I called Tracey to ask her to double-check on this.
As I waited, I walked around the bus stop at the foot of Shrewsbury MetroLink station, and realized that there were blue poles in the ground, with labels. Two said “11,” one also said “Civic Center Stn,” and the other also said “Meramec College.” Bingo. I figured this out right about the time Tracey told me that one should have already been there. Within a minute a bus marked “11 Meramec College” hove into view, and I could finally be fairly sure that I was on the right track.
Next problem: you have to tell the driver where to stop. He’ll only stop at bus stops. Thankfully there was somebody with me on the bus who was also stopping there, so she activated the “stop requested” line by pulling it, in plenty of time for the driver to pull over. I was across the street from work, but that’s OK; the alternative was to wait at least ten minutes for him to go to the college and circle back. Not going to do that.
Tip: If you’re going to make a mistake in pulling the line to ask the driver to stop, stop early rather than late.
You don’t know how far he will have to go after the stop before he can stop again. Better to have your goal in sight and have to walk a little farther than you had planned, then to have to double back several blocks, particularly if you’re already late.
All told, that trip was about 2 hours and 15 minutes. Not too shabby, overall. I’ve spent more time than that when I hit rush hour full-on, but not usually.
For the trip back home at the end of the day, I thought I’d experiment a little bit. This wasn’t a good idea, because I still hadn’t worked out the details of catching the Highland Express in St. Louis on my way back home, but I figured it couldn’t be hard. I decided to take the bus all the way instead of taking the light rail, to see how much slower it would be.
I boarded Bus 11 before 4:30; in fact, I got to the stop just as it was coming over the hill toward me. Better timing could not have been achieved.
It took an hour and a half to get all the way to the Civic Center again. We were stopping practically every other block, all the way down Chippewa. It was miserable. But I didn’t doubt that I would still make it to the Highland Express.
Finally it got to the Civic Center (which I would have reached at least half an hour sooner had I taken the light rail), and I started working my way up the street to the corner of 14th and Market, which is where I thought the Highland Express would be. I could find any signs indicating that that bus would be there, though. I wasn’t sure what to do. Suddenly it dawned on me that I didn’t know what side of the street it would be on. After some thought (not enough), I got on the side opposite Scottrade Center, and was confident that I could run to catch the bus if I could just flag it down. Then I waited.
Thankfully the Express buses from Illinois are green, as opposed to the white and blue buses run by Metro St. Louis. I was looking back and forth for the bus, to be sure I didn’t miss it. Then, suddenly, I was overtaken by fear again. I checked the schedule.
It was 6:00pm, and the very last Express would stop there at 6:05pm. I watched as two buses crossed 14th Street, but neither stopped nor turned down Market. Should I have been over there instead? I didn’t know.
I called Tracey to verify. Indeed, that would be the last bus. While I was talking to her, the “14X Highland Express” turned onto Market… on the other side of the street. I frantically flagged and waved my arms. No matter. It stopped at a red. I ran for it. The light turned green, it kept going, and I stood there, realizing that I had once again missed the bus, and had no chance of catching a bus to Highland any more.
I was going to have to rely on Tracey again, except that this time she didn’t have a vehicle either; I had used her van to get to the Park-n-Ride.
She suggested that our friend and fellow churchmember Val could drive her to the lot, then she could take the van and come get me at Shiloh-Scott. I agreed. I grabbed the light rail to the end of the Illinois line and got to Shiloh-Scott a little after 7pm. By the time we got home I had been out of the house for nearly sixteen hours, and the trip from work to home was three and a half, counting the drive from Shiloh-Scott to Highland.
Mission #2, failed. No more experimenting tomorrow; I would take the light rail. But I would be driving home anyway, because I couldn’t yet trust the system to get me to church on time for the Bible study on Wednesday nights. Phooey. So, I guess we’ll pick this up on Thursday.
