You're crazy for taking the bus

You're crazy for taking the bus
Well, i'm crazy, so what's the fuss

- Jonathan Richman

I want to ride DATA, the Durham bus system with the cool name. But commuting to work is out. I'd have to ride to the Duke Medical Center to catch the TTA shuttle to Chapel Hill, then transfer to another shuttle to go back to Hillsborough. My 15 minute commute would be an hour and a half under ideal circumstances. Miss a connection and it's easily two hours.

But what about riding the bus from Duke Park to downtown? I've got a bus stop about 100 yards from my front door down at Avondale Dr.


Let's get a closer look at it.



That's right. The Avondale bus stop is a couple of patches of dirt butt up against one of the busiest thoroughfares in town, with a nice tree to shield your presence from the vision of drivers of oncoming traffic. Not much protection from the elements, either. It was thoughtful of NCDOT to build a sidewalk up from the new I-85 collector/distributor. If only someone had been able to extend the sidewalk for another 30 freakin' feet, at least bus riders wouldn't have to stand in a mud pit whenever it rains.



Of course, proximity to speeding automobiles, lack of shelter from the elements, and a mud pit aren't the only attractions of the Avondale Dr. bus stop.



There's also the wide variety of roadside trash to provide amusement. That's right. There's no trash can provided at the bus stop for people who have to wait as much as 30 minutes between buses. Who knows whose responsibility it is to actually pick the stuff up. I work with Keep Durham Beautiful once a year to do a cleanup, but within a couple of weeks, it looks like this again.

Things aren't much better on the northbound side of Avondale.



Just as unsafe, just as shelterless, and only slightly less trashy. Probably because the rains wash it down the gully to collect a little further down the road. it makes me wonder if proximity to the bus stop is a contributing factor to why this house has been vacant and abandoned for the past 4 years?



Or why this very attractive house just one door up from the bus stop has sat unsold for over 2 months even though the owners have dropped their price by 20%?



No, you don't have to be crazy to ride the bus in Durham. But for me, it's a half hour walk to downtown from my house. I'd rather get the exercise. Maybe when Durham's administrators start taking their responsibilities a little more seriously, we can have a transportation system to be proud of, rather than one that we avoid.

The city is only getting bigger and more populated. The bus system is going to have to serve more and more people as time goes on. If people who don't use the bus are going to be asked to subsidize the system (and that's OK with me. I don't expect a municipal bus system to turn a profit or break even. I do expect it to provide a necessary service.) the least the city can do is put a better face on the system.