Moving around using public transportation

My car broke down one week ago and since then, I’ve been using public transportation.

I grew up in Mexico City and I’m used to public transportation. Actually, I would rather use the bus, the subway or a collective cab (pesero) than drive my car on the always congested avenues of the big city. 

Public transportation is very efficient in Mexico City. Your have a lot of routes and  different alternatives, so you can move around easily. Probably the main problem is that most of the time the buses or the subway are crowded and you can’t find a seat. That would be a hassle if you go from Indios Verdes to Tlalpan, or the equivalent of going from Downton El Paso to Ysleta.

But here in El Paso, using the public transportation system has been a really tiring and frustrating experience.

On Tuesday, for example, I spent almost 40 minutes waiting for a bus under the blazing sun on Mesa Street.  There was not a tree, nor even a small shadow in which you can find protection from the furious ultraviolet radiation. I walked several blocks trying to find a nice spot to read while waiting for the bus, but of course, I never found it.

Another day, I waited 20 minutes for a bus that would take me to El Paso Community College’s Valle Verde campus. A journey that would usually only take 15 minutes from Downtown, it took more than 40 minutes.  In total, the trip from home (in the west side) to the Santa Fe terminal and from there to Valle Verde, took me two hours.

Not long ago, before my car broke, I had decided that I would use the bus at least one day per week. That day, while I was waiting for the bus, a guy started talking to me and as the conversation went on, I told him that I was riding the bus because I wanted to be eco-friendly.

“Are you nuts?” That was his answer. He start laughing at me and repeating all the time that I was nuts. He said that only poor and crazy people ride the bus in the city.

I felt saddened by his answer, but at the same time, I realized that in a way, I was nuts. I was going to waste a lot of time this way and I went back to using my car.

This week, another person told me something interesting about public transportation.   After talking about the time and inconveniences of riding the bus, he said that the public transportation system in El Paso is bad for one simple reason:  “The people who ride the bus are the poorest,” he said. “They don’t vote, so why should politicians care about them?”

And he had a point. Usually the people who ride the bus in most American cities are the poorest (with the exception of larger cities such as New York, Washington, Chicago or others where public transportation is the only way to get around). But it is sad that in a city like El Paso, nobody has even thought about the need for some shade for the people who have to wait a long time for the bus.

I’m assuming that working in a more efficient public transportation system requires more budget and other considerations that have been already analyzed by the city authorities. Probably there’s not an easy solution for it, but it would be good to think, once in a while, in all these people –many of them old folks– who have not any other way of moving around than the buses.

In the meantime, I'm getting a nice cap, an umbrella, a good sun-block lotion and a good amount of patience to wait for the buses this coming week.

Comments

[Aud]

I moved here from a city that had a very efficient bus system that I would often use. Everyone used the bus, there was no stigma like El Paso has. You'd see the working poor next to a group of lawyers with their briefcases headed downtown, or interns and nurses headed to the medical centers. People actually talked to each other, too.

When I moved into an apartment off Mesa St and worked about 4 miles away on Mesa St., I thought I would take public transit often. I soon found out that the buses even on a simple route like this are undependable and unprofessional.

No bus runs on schedule and the drivers would jokingly mock me when I'd comment on it. "You need to get on El Paso time!" was a regular reply. Buses often broke down. Once, I asked a driver why he was driving 27 mph in a 50 mph speed zone and he said they couldn't drive over 30 mph.

I was late to work so many times that first month I had to stop riding the bus, and I sympathize with the poor people who have to rely on and be screwed by Sun Metro regularly.

[Lea]

Prior to my recent move to El Paso I spent some time researching the public transportation options. I have lived in places like Portland OR and Minneapolis MN, and I was used to efficient public transportation. Sure poor people ride the buses and trains in those cities, right along with CEOs, doctors, and lawyers. When public transportation is clean, efficient, well maintained ALL types of people will use it.

The Sun Metro website is poorly designed and difficult to use. Once I found the information I needed (routes, schedules, maps)the news was grim. The buses did not run often there were many areas of the city it was not possible to get to in a reasonable time. I have always used public transportation, in fact, at age 38 I have never bothered to get a driving license, but with this move to El Paso I have had to face the reality that my car-less days were over.

Good public transportation is one of the things that makes a good city great, and makes all cities more livable.

[Guy Faux]

I can't believe this city doesn't have a reliable means of public transportation. I'd been so used to it living in other cities and once I got to El Paso, I found I couldn't rely on it. When I was a teenager, I tried to use the bus to get everywhere. I quickly found that walking was the better alternative. Waiting 30 minutes for a bus? That's unheard of but not in this city.

I've seen all of the work that Sun Metro is doing around town with the new bus stations and it's nice to see. Hopefully, after these nice new stations are built, they'll get an influx of buses that don't break down constantly and dependable run times. Please?

[Mike M.]

My job keeps me traveling around the country (and other countries) constantly and I too can attest to how inefficient El Paso's public transport system is. It's my understanding that Sun Metro spends much more on its operations than other systems of similar size in the U.S. Yet we still have no meaningful improvement in service. Busses are few far and between, bus stops often are nothing more than a sign and a slab of concrete with no shelter and drivers are, well let's just say less than professional. Consistency in Customer Service is no where to be found. New busses? Yes but nice paint jobs on busses do nothing for the users of the system. It's slapping lipstick on a pig.

I fail to subscribe to the notion that El Paso is simply "on El Paso time" and on another wavelength. When we will finally grow up as a city? We need to do better.

[Johnny]

I often see busses running nearly empty here on the East side, I wonder how much it would cost to get smaller busses like they use at the El Paso Airport but run them more frequently, maybe double the drivers. Not sure if the system could support that.

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I've been to El Paso before, and I also had a couple of awful experiences there with the buses. Those incidents actually made me realize how much I should value my car, since it's the best way to get to wherever I want to go. As soon as I came home, I had car maintenance people check my car, and from then on, they gave me service reminders regularly. But I still hope that they beef up the city's public transportation system, so that it would also be appealing to other citizens.