Bus Rider

"Get up in the morning, get on the bus
Get up in the morning like the rest of us
Places to go, important people to meet
Better not get up or you might lose your seat.

Leave the house at six o'clock to be on time
Leave the wife and kids at home to make a dime
Grab your lunch pail, check for mail in your slot
You won't get your cheque if you don't punch the clock."

- Guess Who - (No, don't guess, it's Guess Who. No, no, it's . . . never mind, go here Bus Rider)

The new Knoxville Area Transit (KAT) Center is nearly complete. On their web page they have a list of opening events as well as a count-down clock to the opening. The first open house will be First Friday in August. Is this exciting news? Well, it depends. If you are a bus rider, I suspect it will make things better somehow, though I'm not clear exactly how that will be true. The center promises to be very nice and more conveniently located than the current temporary quarters.

For my part, I have two hopes and a tentative plan. My hopes are that the ocean (mountain?) of buses that are often parked in front of the city-county building won't be so formidable and that there won't be as many buses speeding past my building ignoring humans and animals in the crosswalks. The former probably won't change because people will still use that bus stop. I'll likely cling to hope regarding the later until I eventually get hit on a crosswalk. My tentative plan is to look at the new routes and see if there might be some useful route that I might use. I've never ridden the bus. I don't work downtown and a bus doesn't go to my work, so that's out. I wish it were otherwise. When I'm in other cities and use their public transportation (most recently the train in St. Louis), I envy the people who can read on the way to work. But maybe there would be other places. Maybe we should all commit to at least one ride and see how it goes?