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!