Tales of Adventure In Transit--Why I Want to Ride Buses

I complain to my neighbor Caterina that my car is stuck in the snow, that I am bored and can’t go anywhere. Trudging through the snow lugging her violin case, she suggests I take the bus to go someplace. She herself was walking to the bus stop to catch the J2 towards Bethesda to get to work. Caterina plays violin to people under hospice care.

Her suggestion is not crazy. We are not in the middle of nowhere. We live in Chevy Chase, a block from East-West Highway, two miles from either the Bethesda and Silver Spring Metro stops.

Caterina, who thinks taking the bus is fun, moved with her husband and two children from Italy to Maryland seven years ago. They initially didn’t buy a car because they thought it would more interesting to learn about the area by riding public transit.

Driving to Starbucks on Sunday mornings, I often see the family at the bus stop heading to the museums, the kids swinging around the pole with the parents laughing along, as if they were all in line for a ride at Disney World.

Caterina’s suggestion took me by surprise. I didn't always love my car.

Growing up in Buenos Aires, we took the subway (“subte”) everywhere. On the ride home from school, wearing my white uniform and clutching on to my lunchbox, I observed my surroundings. I marveled at the mechanical puppies doing tricks that a man walking up and down the aisle was selling. I also wondered about the life of the little boy dressed in tattered clothes, who, alone, was handing out photos of Jesus in hopes of finding buyers.

We moved to Boston when I was 12 and rode the T to get around. The trolley provided a refuge from the bitter cold (Argentina winters were milder) and a window into American life. I was fascinated by how casually people dressed for work, and easily they laughed. I hoped I would be just as happy living here someday. I also noticed the absence of military police, a reminder that I lived in a democracy.

During college, I often visited my parents in Queens. Riding the N train back from Manhattan on New Year’s Eve, stuck between stations, the clock struck twelve. Someone shouted, “Happy New Year,” and we all stood up, shook hands and hugged. Strangers sharing a moment.

Years later I moved to Washington DC. I told my fiancé that we needed to find an apartment near public transportation. From our fourth floor balcony at the Blairs in Silver Spring, we could see the subway tracks.

Then we got married, moved to the suburbs and bought a car. And when the children were born, the odometer rolled over. We drove to school. We drove to play dates. We drove to Cosco. I joined the throngs of frustrated drivers, fuming behind the wheel, shouting at reckless drivers and yelling at kids in the backseat.

Now the kids are gone. We got rid of the mini-van and bought a Hyundai.

What would happen if we got rid of our car? Could I get used to riding public transit again? Would I like it?

I ask Caterina what she enjoys about riding transit.

She says she likes saying hello to people who smile at her and striking up conversations. One day she started talking to a man who pointed to her violin case and asked her what instrument she played. Turned out he was also a musician and had a recording studio in his house! “He lived near us so we met a few times to play together,” she said.

She also tells me she likes sitting up front so she could help older people with walkers get up the steps and hold the carriage of women carrying babies.

Does she like the bus drivers, I ask.

She chuckled and tells me about her experience lugging a sofa chair she bought a Montgomery Mall to the bus stop. "The bus driver helped me," she says. “He opened seat for the wheelchair person that was not being used, I pushed the chair in there. We rode like that."

I imagine them calculating dimensions to position the chair, as other passengers looked on, bemused.

I asked my friend Sarah who lives in Kensington the same question. She rides her fold-up bike to the Marc train station in Kensington, gets off at Union Station and rides her bike to work.

"Ecologically,” she says, “it makes no sense for everyone to drive their own vehicle. Plus, it's much cheaper, you are much less frazzled than when you drive and you don't have to deal with traffic so you can do other things like read a book or look at your email.”

Most of the train riders are regulars and many talk to each other about work, politics. On Friday afternoons, some passengers break out the wine and beer and pass the drinks around to celebrate the end of the week. Riders get up from their seat and mill around the train chatting.

Hearing stories Caterina and Sara shared struck a chord with me and I felt nostalgic.

Last week, a friend asked me to go to the National Gallery with her and suggested we take Metro. I said I’d drive.

I may change my mind and tell her to meet me at the Silver Spring Metro station.

Marcela Kogan is a freelance writer living in Chevy Chase, Md.