E.W., a man who went by his initials for the obvious reason that he hated his first name and found his middle name a poor substitute, hopelessly checked his watch again. He was sure that the “Transit 511 Online Muni Schedule” showed the number 21 Hayes buses running eight minutes apart. Even if you assumed today to be a widely unknown holiday but one yet recognized by the city’s transit authority, it would be hard to explain a thirty minute wait. Well, hard unless you rode this particular bus line regularly. Clearly, the official frequency schedule was less a hard and fast objective and more a foggy average of sorts. Using a pen and paper to jot down the total number of buses in a day, dropping out the extremes, the “out of service” units and counting buses clumped together as individual vehicles (even if the near-empty ones failed to stop for passengers), one could just about calculate a mean somewhere near the published frequency—if you tried hard enough.
Certainly, other cities with complicated transit systems had managed to plan and schedule for the moving of riders from one place to another in a reasonably predictable pattern. Since he knew nothing about the inner workings of a metropolitan bus and rail system, E.W. was given to his own musings on how it might all work. Perhaps a man or woman (or committee) would suggest a certain number of buses be allotted to a route, maybe going so far as to favor the heavier traveled times with more buses and cutting back somewhat on the less heavily traveled times. Once the frequency was agreed upon and the decision to treat 3:00 AM ever so slightly less favorably than 8:00 AM, the task might be as simple as placing buses on the streets. Perhaps convincing the drivers to leave the various start/end points at pre-specified times instead of “at will” or based upon an indecipherable random formula. Recognizing that driving a bus in San Francisco might require some down time, the schedule should include a reasonable break at either end. (If drivers actually need thirty minutes to clear their thoughts, scheduling twenty would seem more whim than wisdom.)
True, seven buses had passed in the opposite direction, heading “outbound” and would presumably make their way back. However, as refreshingly assuring as their presence was, their current destination and the end stop of the line was about two miles away and they would not likely be seen for another forty minutes—at minimum. No, it was on some yet unknown bus and driver that E.W. and his employer were relying—joined together in some sort of silly, unpredictable work schedule made all the more serendipitous by the whisper of a bus transit plan. The seven empty buses heading up the hill, could be headed toward any number of matching buses heading in just the opposite and much more desirable direction. Perhaps these “inbound” buses were just over the crest, hiding for just the moment until their sparking power poles rise into view. It couldn’t hurt to step into the street for another look. Optimism aside, at some point there would have to be a payoff. At some point in time, when E.W. stepped from the curb, he would see that next bus a mere eight stops up the street. But for now, his freshly lit cigarette seemed safe from the gutter.
Certainly, other cities with complicated transit systems had managed to plan and schedule for the moving of riders from one place to another in a reasonably predictable pattern. Since he knew nothing about the inner workings of a metropolitan bus and rail system, E.W. was given to his own musings on how it might all work. Perhaps a man or woman (or committee) would suggest a certain number of buses be allotted to a route, maybe going so far as to favor the heavier traveled times with more buses and cutting back somewhat on the less heavily traveled times. Once the frequency was agreed upon and the decision to treat 3:00 AM ever so slightly less favorably than 8:00 AM, the task might be as simple as placing buses on the streets. Perhaps convincing the drivers to leave the various start/end points at pre-specified times instead of “at will” or based upon an indecipherable random formula. Recognizing that driving a bus in San Francisco might require some down time, the schedule should include a reasonable break at either end. (If drivers actually need thirty minutes to clear their thoughts, scheduling twenty would seem more whim than wisdom.)
True, seven buses had passed in the opposite direction, heading “outbound” and would presumably make their way back. However, as refreshingly assuring as their presence was, their current destination and the end stop of the line was about two miles away and they would not likely be seen for another forty minutes—at minimum. No, it was on some yet unknown bus and driver that E.W. and his employer were relying—joined together in some sort of silly, unpredictable work schedule made all the more serendipitous by the whisper of a bus transit plan. The seven empty buses heading up the hill, could be headed toward any number of matching buses heading in just the opposite and much more desirable direction. Perhaps these “inbound” buses were just over the crest, hiding for just the moment until their sparking power poles rise into view. It couldn’t hurt to step into the street for another look. Optimism aside, at some point there would have to be a payoff. At some point in time, when E.W. stepped from the curb, he would see that next bus a mere eight stops up the street. But for now, his freshly lit cigarette seemed safe from the gutter.
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