I keep stepping onto Fillmore Street to look toward the bay for the bus. Nothing. Lazlo Peragine, a 54-year-old freight expediter and a more practical man, calls 311. “It’s just unbelievable,” he says getting off his cell phone. “25 minutes.”
That’s how long we’re going to wait for the next bus to take us back to the Mission. It’s plenty of time to gripe, but Peragine says we haven’t seen anything yet. “Just wait until we’re waiting an hour for the owls,” he says referring to another money saving plan the San Francisco Metro Transportation Agency has to lengthen the time between early morning runs from thirty minutes to an hour.
“You go to these meetings where they say they’ve got cutbacks on the burner, but it’s a fait accompli,” he says. “This is a Transit system in crisis.”
The bus arrives at 3:30 p.m. We squeeze on and I remember my ride over from the Mission two hours earlier–a ride with available seats.
But here’s the surprise: what’s striking is the number of seniors on the bus; the elderly women who get on with canes; the not–all-that-much-younger-riders who give up their seats.
When the bus jolts before an elderly woman can sit down, a young man catches her hand and steadies her. It strikes me that in another context, she might be afraid of him. Here she smiles. Grateful.
And as the population continues to age, there will be more seniors needing seats and of course, not enough of them. Cabs too expensive, no other transit options (if they are mobile) and they become isolated if they can’t manage bus trips (waiting & riding standing up).