Public Transit "Experiment" Results...

I've been meaning to update with the results of our bus "experiment". It went well, but, of course, wasn't perfect. We will probably continue to use public transportation on occasion, but for the most part, it won't work for us on a regular basis.
We did have a wonderful time using the buses. We met all sorts of people, from all sorts of backgrounds. Elderly, disabled, people going to work, college students, and other families. Everyone we came across was friendly--even those that tried their best not to notice Lyddie smiling and saying "hi", finally gave in and accepted her gift. The buses were very clean, and pretty much on time.

Our local public transit won't work for us to use on a regular basis for multiple reasons. The primary reason is that it serves only the city. Aliana's piano lessons and our homeschool co-op are both outside city limits in neighboring counties. While church is on the busline, the buses don't run on Sunday, and Wednesday night church lets out too late to ride the bus back home. Piano, co-op, and church are our primary outings.

We will likely continue using the bus occasionally. During the summer, we will go to the park more frequently, and will likely utilize the bus for that. We will also ride for light shopping trips and library visits. All but 1 of our dr.s are on the bus line, so we can do those appointments also. Most surprisingly, both of the menfolk who were the MOST opposed to ever riding the bus, have both expressed interest in using it for regular transportation to work!

I think our experiment went pretty well. We learned about public transportation. We now know how to get where we need to go. Mostly, we had fun, and we enjoyed each other while learning something new.

Experiment....

Because I'm always up for a challenge (and don't seem to have enough of them with 5 children?), April has been declared "Public Transportation for a Month" Month.

The girls and I will be using the Metro System when we go to DC in June, and it got me thinking about out own local transportation...

*What if we use the busses for a month?
*Will it be cost effective for myself and 4 children to do our regular errands on the bus instead of driving?
*Who will we meet along the way?
*What lessons will we learn?

Certainly we will meet new and interesting people and have new experiences that would not have had if we had stayed in the comfort zone of our mini van.

We don't live in a large metropolis so pouring over incomplete schedules and non-funcioning websites has been quite the challenge as it is.

*Looking at the local bus system, I'm not finding all of the bus stops on the maps--I'm not sure where, from our home, the closest bus stop would be. When I find the closest bus stop, will that be the most time efficient to get to where I need to go?

*The website has all the niceties and interactive maps... but it doesn't function

*We took a field trip to the bus office yesterday. We picked up all of the paper schedules, but, I definitely think there are routes missing.  We DID, however meet a very nice lady that explained the fares to us, maybe she'll be equally helpful with figuring out these schedules.

*Already we are learning valuable lessons in efficiency, and I'm sure we have many more to learn.