The Twenty-​Three

The best RTA route in Cleve­land is the 23. This is my third year rid­ing it, and I could set my watch by the morn­ing bus; if I wore a watch. The dri­vers are friendly, deft and will put on the brakes if they see some­one hoof­ing it after them, and the bus doesn’t stop every two feet like the 81 [that isn’t a knock on the 81].

For the most part no one talks on the bus. This is the unspo­ken rule on every pub­lic tran­sit sys­tem I’ve been on [NYC, Chicago], when per­sonal space is con­stricted, eye con­tact and speech become inva­sions. Lots of peo­ple rid­ing the bus I’ve been see­ing for three years but hardly know them. I’m going to run an exper­i­ment. Instead of being civil and unob­stru­sive, I’m going to start being reservedly friendly to the famil­iar faces. If this goes well, I will increase my friend­li­ness incre­men­tally until the bus is full of joy­ous singing, improper danc­ing and sundry gal­li­vant­ing. Yeah right. It might end up mak­ing Cleve­land a lit­tle less crabby though. Worth a shot.

Comments on this post

  1. amy

    Even­tu­ally you could give every­one a kazoo and start a bus band.

  2. andy

    I like your bus cri­tique in that I’ll know what to expect if this econ­omy melts down a few more notches. I haven’t been on a Cle. bus since I started mak­ing more than $0 a day. Ok actu­ally I’m nuts, rid­ing the bus sounds a bit more easy than ped­al­ing into a 20 mph wind at 15? F.

  3. Adam Harvey

    You can catch the 23 on the cor­ner of West 14th and Kenil­worth. I ride it 5 months a year, when the wind and cold sucks the most. Buy a stack of 5-​ride tick­ets and you can use them for the bus at your con­ve­nience, so if it is nice out and you want to ride your bike, you won’t be los­ing any cash.

  4. Christine

    I actu­ally like being crabby, and I like crabby peo­ple. There­fore, I like rid­ing the bus. (There, I said it.) That said, my dad retired with 30 years’ worth of bus-​friends because he was a friendly, not-​crabby fel­low. Good luck!

  5. Adam Harvey

    The exper­i­ment will have to wait until it gets cold again, since I’m rid­ing my bike to work now. The month in which I did this seemed to go well, though.