From Work - 12.1

Well, took me a little bit to get to this last post. Firstly, I want to thank everyone who supported me in this endeavor. I even want to thank those people who told me I was nuts. You all kept me dedicated to this. I also want to thank all the great bus drivers and employees of JTA who were exceptionally kind and helpful. I got a great call from the Director of JTA on Friday afternoon telling me he really appreciates what I've done and hopes it will work in raising the awareness of the bus to commuters.



Ok, on to the more mundane. It was just another routine bus ride home on Friday night. Although, It seemed there was a lot of traffic. I did doze of for much of the ride (it was a long week) as much as I could, despite the frigid air conditioning in the bus. So, I didn't get back until 7:20ish. Which is one of the later times I've gotten back.



Now, it did take me a while to get to this post because I have been feeling a little under the weather this weekend. This leads me onto a final point about public transport. Be cautious about airborne pathogens. Take your vitamins and wash your hands because you're on there with a lot of people and there's probably a ton of germs flying around.



Well, I hope everyone learned something and got a chuckle from some of my dry wit. I'm going to try and do a week after follow-up comparison with driving my car. So, once again, thanks and keep riding!

Jacksonville.com Feature

I'm being featured on the Jacksonville.com homepage right this very minute. To watch the video interview click here. Fun stuff!

To Work - 12.1

Last day of the adventure. What a bittersweet feeling. Now I know what Lewis and Clark must have felt when they reached the Pacific Ocean, or Neil Armstrong when they arrived back on Earth. OK, maybe it’s not that dramatic, but the same feeling of accomplishment is there.

My routine is getting less exciting, and more, well, routine. The bus is no longer a big mystery but an old friend. The R1 picked me up promptly again a little after 8AM from Atlantic Beach and we were off. The bus was even more full than yesterday. Most people looked like they were going to something work-related. Maybe my message is getting out?

In fact, I know it has. I received a call yesterday from the Times Union who will run a little blurb on the second page of the Lifestyle section next Monday. I was pretty excited about that, but then to add icing to the cake Tracy from Jacksonville.com, the Times Union’s web component, sent me an email requesting to do a video interview. She met me downtown and we rode the WS1 to my office while I gave her the rundown on what I was doing. I hope it came off well. I really wasn’t prepared to give a speech. Hopefully, she’s a better editor than I am impromptu speaker. I should have the video up here by this afternoon. So, Stay tuned.



I did also want to mention a couple of other things I forgot to in previous posts. First, there are two “Fare Zones” that I travel through. The border between them is at Atlantic and Kernen. At this stop the bus driver gets up and walks along the aisle making sure everyone has paid the correct fare to take this extra-long ride. If you think you’ll be going this far it’s good just to get on the bus and ask the driver who will then procure you the right tickets to get you where you’re going. If there’s anything I’ve learned on these trips, it’s “ask the driver.” They’re all very friendly and helpful.

Secondly, you can take your bike on the bus. There’s this nifty rack on the front where you can place your bike if you need some extra wheels to get you to/from your bus stop of choice or final destination. A man that rides the morning R1 brings his bike everyday and gets off at Regency Mall to continue on two wheels.




Finally, to make the bus stop to pick you up, just wave at it. And once you're on, to make the bus stop, push the yellow or black strip on the wall or ceiling. Easy as cake.

TGICF. Thank God It's Casual Friday.

From Work - 11.30

Ok, I must confess. I kind of cheated today. But it was not without its good reason.

We had a meeting with our client, the J. Johnson Gallery, out at the beach today at 3:30 PM. So, I caught a ride with a co-worker to the gallery. I know what you're thinking. You've gone soft on us, Travis! What about your quest?

Well, to you naysayers I say, I carpooled didn't I?



But in all fairness, I still rode the bus. I declined a ride all the way home from the gallery to Atlantic Beach, in favor of taking the bus. I hiked over to 3rd Street and on pretty much every block was a stop for the R4 and R1 buses. I'd seen the R4 drive by several times in the morning, with it's head sign saying "Atlantic Beach," but I knew it didn't go downtown so I never rode it.



I waited less than 10 minutes and here came R4 up the road. So far I haven’t had to wait more than 15 minutes at any one bus stop. Which, I think, is pretty darn efficient. I had to wait a lot longer for a couple buses in Europe. And don’t even get me started on taking the wrong bus to the other end of the Amalfi Coast.

The R4 was deserted and I was the only one on the quick ride back up to Atlantic Boulevard.



The only other city in America I’ve ridden the bus has been another beach town, Ocean City, MD. They had this great bus that ran all day and night up and down A1A and cost a dollar to ride on way. It was affectionately called “The Drunk Bus.” But despite its stigma as such, I can’t imagine how many lives it saved from drunk driving.

Maybe I’ll try and convince my roommates to take the bus out for a drink tomorrow night.

To Work - 11.30

I ran out of coffee at my house this morning. And I need my coffee in the morning. So I left a couple minutes early and walked the few blocks up to Starbucks on Atlantic and 3rd Street. I assumed that since my daily R1 bus drove down Atlantic it would surely have some stops closer to 3rd street.



I was right. I passed at least three more stops on my walk, the closest being about 100 yards from the front door of Starbucks. So, I got my coffee, sat down on the bench and listened to some news from my BBC World Today Select Podcast. There was a very interesting story about Steven Hawking saying we should go colonize other planets to ensure the survival of the human race. Far out stuff.



The bus was pretty full today. Almost every row had a person in it. Unfortunately I think this slowed us down. All the stops to pick up passengers gave me about a 2-minute window to get aboard the W1 at the main station. Usually I make it with about five to ten minute to spare. But today the W1 was already sitting in its bay when we pulled in.

I think if I would have missed it I could have taken the R5 since it travels the same route, but I have no idea when it leaves from the “Central Hub.” Look at me, seasoned veteran already.



As a side note, it was a beautiful day out today. I broke a sweat waiting for the bus, drinking coffee in Atlantic Beach. Ah, Florida.

From Work - 11.29

Again it was a pretty smooth ride from work today. It seems I've got a pretty good routine down. And when you're not worried about "Am I on the right bus?" or "Why's the bus stopping here?" you can dwell on more philosophical things.

On the R5 (from my office to downtown) there was a lively chat going on between the bus driver and a man sitting in the front seat. Well, it wasn't so much of a conversation as the man telling the driver stories from his life. This got me thinking. I've seen someone chatting with the bus driver every trip thus far. I may be reading a bit into it, but it seems to me that not only is the bus a means of transportation for some people, it's also their daily support group, psychologist visit, speed dating event, or just gossip group. This is something I think gradually going the way of the buffalo: personal social interaction. We have to be careful in an age of instant messages and text messages that we don't loose this great way to get emotions out.

Ok, before I get to deep and preachy, lets switch the topic back over to the bus system. Now, I bought this weekly pass, which has been great. But I don't think, if I wanted to maybe ride the bus a couple days a week due to my demanding workload, it would be practical.

The other option I seem to have found at this point is just paying by the ride, $.75 each. The problem with this is that I hardly ever carry cash on me let alone exact change for a bus fare. There's a great solution JTA could implement. This weekly pass, I swipe in a little card reader when I get on the bus. I don't see why JTA couldn't make a card like those at Starbucks where you add money too it and then just take off what you need each time. Now, they may have already implemented this, but I haven't heard about it. I don't profess to be a research journalist. This leads me to the last thing I mulled over on the way home.

I think some of the problem with commuters not using the bus system could be that most don't know about its details. This ignorance leads to trepidation. I guess it's up to brave explorers like me to bring back moon rocks to show the Earthlings, or more like information and experiences to share with citizens. Either that or maybe there’s some good marketing campaign JTA could do to just raise awareness and ease of use for professionals.



Well, sorry for the lack of pictures so far. There just hasn't been much new for me to photograph on this ride that you haven't already seen. The one great thing about Wednesdays is Hungry Howie's Wacky Wednesday $4.99 Large Cheese pizza special. So here's a pic of me ordering pizza on the ride home (yes, Hungry Howie’s is on speed dial) and the resulting treasures.



Tomorrow I'm going to mix things up a little bit so stay tuned because it could get interesting.

To Work - 11.29

Not another bad morning altogether today. This bus riding is getting pretty routine already. I downloaded a BBC World News podcast this morning and enjoyed that while sitting at the bus stop. That’s one thing I do miss about driving my car into work. I used to listen to NPR during my drive and feel really up to date on current events. Unfortunately NPR’s podcasts come in little snippets for each program/topic, so it would take a lot of syncing with my iPod to get an entire program. The good thing about the BBC news is that today’s news is already there when I wake up since they’re 6 hours ahead of us.

For the remainder of the ride I had “borrowed” my roommate’s Wired magazine and read a very intriguing article about the beginnings of the iPod. I’m kind of a Mac fanatic (not to mention owner, and stockholder), as a lot of people in my industry are, so anything about the history of Apple is very intriguing. Plus, Steve Jobs is just an interesting personality.



Not really much else to report on the ride in. I was kind of wrapped up in the article. I did get a nice Anonymous comment yesterday encouraging me in my quest, and pointing out the fact that a lot of Americans won’t make the commitment to save a little pollution and sacrifice a little independence by riding public transport. While, admittedly, that wasn’t the main purpose of my experiment, I can’t help but feeling that this is a true sentiment. I was keeping track of how many people drove by the bus stop on Atlantic in big cars with one person in them. The percentage was definitely biased towards these single drivers. Just think how much gas and pollution we could all save if even 10% of these people could make a commitment to public transport. I can’t help thinking I’ll be back in this single-driver statistical anomaly after this adventure, but the idealism of the alternative is nice to think about.

Ok, that’s enough for today. Back to all those pressing deadlines I left yesterday.



Here's a fun game. How many buses in the picture above?

From Work - 11.28

Well, that was an interesting evening. First off, one of the downfalls of either riding the bus or working in advertising is you work late a lot of nights. Then you have to make the decision of leaving work to catch your bus and getting a guilt trip from the office, or staying late to finish more of your unending workload and risk a later ride home. I chose the former option. I've had plenty of girlfriends give me guilt trips so I'm used to that, and the bus makes a nice excuse to get out at a reasonable hour. Lets just hope I can finish up the rest of those projects tomorrow.

So, I went over to the bus stop by The Garden Club on Riverside (because it has a bench) and caught the R5 again at ten before six.

Something weird happened one stop before the Central Hub. The bus stopped there for something like ten minutes. Just waiting out cycles of the stoplight with the doors open. I don't know why. Maybe we were early? Just seemed weird to me.



When we did pull up to the Central Hub there was a truck with flashing lights and a whole section taped off. My first instinct was "Oh, great, some crime scene or something." But it turns out they were just cleaning the bus stop. Why they do that at rush hour I have no idea. A little part of me still wants to fantasize some dramatic Hollywood murder/mystery moment just went down and they were covering it up. But we'll give Jacksonville the benefit of the doubt, and judging from the nonchalance of the cleaning crew and bystanders they were probably just cleaning the gum out of the brick.

So, I waited out another 15 minutes and got on the R1 back out to the beach. On the way over the Mathews the driver turned on the windshield wipers. This was perplexing as I'd checked the weather that morning and was told there was only a 10% chance of rain.



This is when things really started to slow down. I typically take 95S to Butler Boulevard home when it's raining because I've found Jacksonville drivers to be a little over-cautious driving in the rain and JTB keeps things moving. Add to that a disabled van in the left hand lane of the Arlington Expressway and we've got some nasty slow rush hour traffic.

This was the first trip thus far I've gotten rather uncomfortable and antsy by the end. The plastic seats were just getting hard to get comfortable in and the "Stop Requested" voice was met in my head with a silent groan.

I finally got off the bus at 7:17PM and had to walk three blocks in the light drizzle. I guess I can't blame JTA for the weather, but I wish weather.com would have implied I needed to bring my umbrella.

As something else completely unrelated to the bus, I forgot my house key (which is on my car key ring) and my roommate was still at the office (he works in advertising too, and hasn't had enough guilt-giving girlfriends to deal with leaving on time) so I had to pretty much break into my own house. So, as another lesson learned, always bring your house key, even if you're not using your car.

Alright, enough for today. Back to watching Sunday's Chelsea v. Manchester United match I recorded on DVR.

To Work - 11.28

Well, my 13-hour thanksgiving drive caught up with me this morning and I woke up feeling like I still needed 8 more hours of sleep. I even skipped a supposedly epic early-morning surf session with a good friend of mine.

I managed to get down to the bus stop again, and was surprised to find another riding companion there. We got on a bit after 8, I swiped my card, sat down, and promptly passed out against the window. What a delight to nap on your way to work!

I was woken up when the bus driver came around to check our passes form Fare Zone 1 into Fare Zone 2, but quickly dozed off again. When we got to the "Central Hub" I wasn't missing any possessions and felt much more awake.



It was a quick transfer onto WS1 and off to Riverside. It seems after a day of slight nervousness I've got the routine down. So far, I'm figuring any professional looking to commute on the bus could easily ask a couple questions of their driver, do some minimal online research, take a couple small leaps of faith and have a pretty good routine within one day.



I did find out the source of yesterday's dilemma. It seems Nov. 6th JTA changed their service routes. These were posted in the bus. I just neglected to take notice yesterday. It seems since I started researching this project in late October that they've changes the R1 service from going along Riverside to being an express bus down to the ever-popular FCCJ Kent Campus. So, my once straight-shot route now has a transfer. This obviously isn't too bad, unless, perhaps R1 gets caught in some nasty traffic on Atlantic Boulevard. I guess it's important to read things printed on bright yellow paper with the headline "ATTENTION RIDERS."

I did a little more of my German book on the way to work and arrived at ten after nine refreshed from a little morning nap.



Here's a German phrase of the day for today: Statt des Autos nehmen wir die Bus - Instead of the car we take the bus.

From Work - 11.27

I was a little nervous about the night ride back to the beach. Because of my uncertainties with the ride to work, I did some more surfing around JTA's web site to make sure I had the correct information on how to get home.

Once again the Plan Your Trip application gave me a vague idea about how to get where I wanted. But if I entered different departure times I got drastically different routes, one sending me all the way to the FCCJ Kent Campus before returning me back out to the beach.

So, I figured if I could get to the Downtown FCCJ Station (part of the confusion I think stems form the two FCCJ names and general vagueness of station names in general). Like maybe this downtown station should be called Central Hub or something. Because if you can get there, you can pretty much get anywhere.



So, I ended up catching the R5 at a little before 6PM, paying $0.75, and riding down to the "Central Hub." Now I've driven by this place countless times at night and have honestly been a little sketched out. When I got there it was a little confusing as to which R1 bus was going out to the beach and which would try again to take me to the dreaded FCCJ Kent Campus. Luckily above each bay there is a screen that lists the times buses will depart. One said "R1 FCCJ Kent" and another "R1 Regency/South." Regency was the correct direction so I decided to go with that.



As I sat waiting for the bus (supposed to depart at 6:30PM), I noticed there was a really good police presence at the station, and most people seemed to be pretty relaxed. I was a little paranoid, but I think it stemmed mostly from my uncertainty with the situation.

While I was there I also bought a "Weekly" bus pass. This was $10 for the week. I felt it was a good investment since this is a weeklong experiment and would avoid this annoying change-counting I've had to do all day.



R1 showed up and just to make sure I asked the driver if this bus was going out to the beach. My assumption was confirmed and I hopped on. On the ride over the Matthews it seems I wasn't the only one having trouble with figuring out the bus system. A man riding in the front was apparently given the wrong information on which bus to take to get to Atlantic and University and ended up on our route. The bus-riding regulars and the bus driver helped him figure out which bus he needed to be on and how to get there once we got to the Regency Mall.

I must agree that the little route maps are vague at best about where the stops and times are. No where did I find a map of the entire bus system either like those I've seen in big cities like London or Washington D.C.. But I think I've pretty much figured out my route in one day of bumbling around.

I had a nice little ride listening to Ricky Gervais's recent Thanksgiving podcast and arrive back in Atlantic Beach exactly one hour after I left work.

Time for some dinner. See you all tomorrow morning!

To Work - 11.27

Well, it began today. My little urban adventure. And the first ride was not without it's excitement.



With my iPod charged, my travel coffee tumbler filled, and adventure in my bones, I set out from my house this morning at 7:50AM. I walked about two blocks and plopped down on the bench at Seminole and Atlantic to await the arrival of the R1 bus to downtown, which was destined to arrive at 8:02AM. I came around the bend a little late at 8:07AM. I stood up, raised my hand and hopped on when the bus stopped.



Knowing in advance it was going to cost $1.35 I fed the bill and change into the machine and was presented with a little "Zone 2" paper ticket. This would apparently get me from the beaches into town.

The ride was rather uneventful. I couldn't see a whole lot through Ketith Pearson's ad on the outside of the bus, everything looked a little fuzzy, like I'd accidentally whiskeyed up my coffee that morning. There were two people riding the bus who were obviously professional types. Both were in button-downs and slacks and one had a Palm Pilot.

The seats on the bus didn't measure up to my leather car seats but overall I wasn't uncomfortable. I didn't mind the stop and go of the bus either, since that's usually what I'd be doing in my car anyways. Despite being pretty tired still from a 13-hour ride in thanksgiving traffic from the day before I decided a nap would be definitely possible but probably not wise for my first bus ride. So, I broke out my "Learn German in 30 Days" book. I've got a German girlfriend and have been making a slightly concerned effort to learn to speak in her native tongue.

So, after wrestling through some highly confusing German verb tenses and conjugations we pulled up to the downtown bus hub, the big one between Union and State Street. The busses stop here for a little while all the passengers make transfers and whatnot.

Just to double check I walked up to the front of the bus and grabbed the little route map that they have posted there. In looking at the R1/FCCJ-Kent map I began to doubt the accuracy of my search on JTA's route planner application. This online application implied, after I entered my starting location and desired end, that I could just stay on the R1. But, the diagram on the back of the map suggested we would be going on 95S and then down Roosevelt. Which, if you're unfamiliar with this side of town, doesn't so much get me to Riverside Ave.

So, a bit nervous I do the un-male thing and ask. Sometimes, guys, you just should ask for directions. The bus driver informed me, "No, this bus does not go to riverside. You have to take the W1. I think that's it right over there," pointing across the bus platform. Well, thank God, I asked.

I zipped over to the aforementioned W1 and keeping up a sure thing, asked this bus driver "Does this bus go to Riverside?" With a nod of his head he confirmed it did, and I fed another 75 cents into the machine. Luckily, I'd grabbed a handful of change this morning just in case of such a dilemma. Now my ride costs $2.10. We'll have to add all this up at the end of the week and see if it makes a difference.

This bus was a little cushier than the last with more comfortable seats and better window visibility. So, that was nice. Curiously enough, as a side note, these buses smell the same as buses in Europe. Must be a packaged bus-scent like that generic plastic "new car smell."

The W1 did take me to the Riverside and I pressed the black strip to request a stop after passing the Cummer Museum. And with a "Thank You" to the bus driver I stepped off at 9:07AM, relaxed and on time.

Not too bad for a first time. With anything there’s a little fumbling and figuring out. Being a web designer and developer, I am a little disappointed in the inaccuracy of the JTA's Ride Finder Application. But, as usual, human nature and compassion proved the most reliable resource.



Ok, time to get to work. See you in the PM.

The Short Version

I am riding the Jacksonville Bus from home (Atlantic Beach) to work (Riverside) for the week of Nov. 27th to Dec. 1st as an experiment to see if public transportation is a viable option for working professionals. I will write a blog post about my experiences in each leg of my journey, twice a day, once to and once from.