By Vik Kirsch Guelph Mercury
GUELPH — Their car keys have been as idle as their vehicles, but two city councillors say they’ve enjoyed riding municipal buses for virtually a month.
“I’ve had a great experience,” Leanne Piper said Friday.
“It’s been a great month,” added Phil Allt.
Piper said she’ll continue to make good use of city buses.
“Yup, absolutely,” she vowed.
Allt said he can’t eschew the family automobile entirely, but he won’t rely on it as he has before the May challenge now drawing to a close.
“I’m going to be riding the bus a lot more,” Allt said.
Local anti-poverty activist Sian Matwey issued a municipal challenge recently to ride the buses for a month to see how city decisions impact on others, with Piper and Allt responding.
Piper, who works at the University of Guelph, has taken buses everywhere she needs to go for the time in question and has, overall, been pleased with the experience. She’s not only reached her destinations in comfort, but enjoyed the ride because passengers form a gregarious community.
“The bus is a very social place,” Piper said, conceding it’s a give and take.
“That comes with good and bad.”
The good?
“I’ve been able to get everywhere I needed to go,” the councillor said.
The service has been friendly, passengers welcoming and she’s pleased to see parents interact lovingly with their children. Those at the wheel, she added, play integral roles in this travelling social web of individuals and families.
“Drivers know their passengers.”
On the less positive side, she’s seen some individuals swear, act rudely, and argue with others.
“It happens,” she said, taking it in stride.
There are gaps in service at times that have required her to walk short distances to transfer points.
She’s also had to be cognizant of timing.
“I’ve missed the bus, mostly my own fault,” Piper said.
Taking public transportation means planning ahead and expecting to spend more time reaching destinations. She’s also learned to carry a backpack and make more frequent trips to grocery stores. Twice, she’s been caught in the rain without an umbrella.
She’s pleased to have spent more quality time with a son who’s accompanied her on occasion on the same bus for part of a route, as she heads for the university and he to high school in the vicinity. When they step off the bus, “he goes one way, I go the other.”
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