Transit Reverie

A disabled train at Takoma Park.  A thickening crowd of people fill the platform at Gallery Place where I had just stepped off the Yellow Line for my usual change to Red.  They were a chatty group, attention split between glowing screens and sharing information with their fellow strandees—“My friend’s at Union Station and he’s been waiting for 15 minutes and hasn’t seen a train yet.” A muffled, muddled voice comes over the PA and we all stop, heads tilted as if tipping one ear upward will better clarify the sound.  “What did he say?”  “I have no idea.”  It’s time to consider my options.

I have many options...

I realize that I know more about the bus routes of London than I do my own city of Washington, but fortunately the little device in my pocket is my guide, my Beatrice, from the underworld.  The 42, it turns out, begins its route to Mount Pleasant right above my head at 9^th and G, so with a nod to those around me—“I’m outta here”—I make my way to the surface.

A young guy is smoking a joint in the bus shelter while his friend talks incessantly at him about Ferguson; a third sits slumped on the anti-sitting bench.  They have laid claim to the shelter, so the rest of us workers, homeless, and tourists, bump umbrellas in the cold rain.  The German couple grows impatient and hails a taxi, rolling away in Prius quiet.  I could do that too, I think to myself. Or I could Uber.  Or find a Car2Go.  Bike share is out, but I have so many options, far more than many of those around me.  But I stay and wait. Uber will be pricey, reflecting the micro-dynamics of bad weather, Metro delays, and rush hour; the taxi may or may not take a credit card and I’m cash light; and I’d rather walk home than actually get in a Smart car and drive myself.  So I wait.

such as the 42

The 42 comes right on time, reasonably close to the 2 minutes that NextBus promises.  The homeless woman with the cart is holding up the line, and declining the gentle help of the young blonde.  Sitting by the window in the warm dry bus I watch the wet city roll past me—Zara, Blackfinn, Pret a Manger.  The 42 cuts through the parts of the city that I know best which makes this trip that particularly wonderful combination of familiarity and discovery.  An H&M in the old Filene’s spot? Who knew?  Lucky Bar, still sticky no doubt.  For a moment I feel like I could be in London, watching the yellow glow of restaurants and bars, the neon lights of fast food, the cool LED glow of office lobbies.

I slip into the kind of reverie unique to transit: freed from the task of attending to where I’m going and all the obstacles and perils both major and minor that punctuate my path, I can listen to the buzz of other conversations and watch the spectacle of the city unspool, glistening in the Blade Runner rain.

Although this trip had taken about 15 minutes longer than my usual Red Line + walk, it offers a textured way to experience the city as a living continuum rather than a series of discrete and predictable points.   I should get out at Gallery Place and take the bus more often.