Transportation Journal - May 5

I've been keeping a personal transportation journal:

Morning Commute

• Walked 1/10 mi to bus stop. If bus isn't right there when I arrive, I continue walking north on 11th until it reaches me. I figure I can get at least a little more exercise in!
• Take bus north on 11th Street approximately 25 blocks.
  
• Exit bus and walk 3/10 of a mile of so to office building.
• Often stop for coffee or breakfast along the way.
  
• Observations:
• Customer flow - I've contemplated why some days the bus is jammed full with people and other days there's barely anyone on it. Fridays seem to be the slowest day - imaginably because people might be taking a long weekend.
  
• Busy and Chaotic - The bus on this Monday had lots of patrons and many children. Some were yelling, other were standing in aisle seeing if they could stand without holding on. A handful of people were chatting, and the overall sense on the bus was a bit of chaos.
  
• Sensory Overload - Mass transportation in Center City is like sensory overload. You see crazy things, listen to loud conversations on the bus, smell someone's massive application of perfume (or the funny smelling homeless person who caught the bus), see people and cars darting around, etc. At times I find that it can often be too much.
  

Evening Commute

• Depending upon what I have that night I'll either take the bus or subway. I debated this evening whether or not to take the subway, even though I didn't have class I needed to pick up my dry cleaning and it would kind of be on the way home. I would rather ride above ground though - especially on nice days - so I elected to ride the bus.
  
• Luckily as I was getting close to 12th Street, the bus was stopping - in an effort to take a picture of the train tracks near Temple's campus, I ended up seeing the bus and having to run to catch it ... hence the action shot below!

OBSERVATIONS/COMMENTS:

• Variety of options for transportation in Center City. On my bus route along I encounter several including bus, train and surface trolley.
  
• The grid system of Center City increases the ease of navigation. A woman from out of town stopped the bus driver and asked if the bus would go to Children's Hospital. He told her to walk to Walnut and take a bus West, getting off around 34th. Based on those directions, even though she was from out of town, she felt confident that she knew where to go.
• Diverse constituency using mass transportation. As I travel throughout the various areas of the city on my morning commute there is a wide variety of individuals - young/old, male/female, various nationalities - taking advantage of Septa. However, it's interesting to note that they generally are traveling within a certain area and not extending too far beyond that.