July 3, 2008: Impatience On The Local

Story By Joe Zlomek

"Jesus," the heavyset man swore beneath his breath, as doors in the bus he rode opened for the fourth time in two minutes. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) bus, a Route 104 local running between 69th Street in Philadelphia and Newtown Square PA, 11 miles west, was stopping frequently to let passengers on and off. The heavy guy apparently hated the delay.

"Jesus," he swore again.

Lost time is a problem faced by almost everyone riding a "local." It stops anywhere riders want or need it to stop. It's therefore a slower form of mass transit than SEPTA's two other options, a "limited" or an "express."

A limited makes only selected stops for riders during the course of its route, dropping off and picking up in some locations while by-passing others. An express by-passes all stops for a portion of a route - during its first two miles, for example - and then becomes a local (or, rarely, a limited) for the remainder of the route.

Passengers who know how the transit system works either flag down their desired bus as it approaches a stop, or appear at the stop just a few minutes before their bus is scheduled to arrive. Confusion reigns when two buses traveling the same route, one a local and one an express, arrive simultaneously. That occurs with frustrating regularity.

Equally frustrated are passengers unfamiliar with the system, who wait at a local stop for a bus and expect to be picked up by an express which simply speeds past them. Color them angry; really, really angry.

No one who rode the bus with the increasingly grumpy man knew for sure what made him angry, nor were they likely to ask. Chalk it up to impatience with the local, they all figured. As the bus doors opened and closed and opened and closed, the man became more vocal. He talked aloud to himself. He railed about the slowness to other nearby passengers. He called the bus driver a name or two ... although not so loudly that he could be overheard and subsequently ordered off the vehicle.

Finally, because he reached either his destination or his boiling point, the heavy guy jumped from his seat and pulled the cord that signaled the driver to stop. He lumbered through the aisle, down the bus steps and off to the curb, still spewing invective.

As he left, someone else probably muttered "Jesus!" beneath their breath.