news-record.com

GREENSBORO - Stung by escalating gas prices? Check out Greensboro Transit Authority's "dump the pump" Web site.

Just punch in the length of your daily car commute and costs such as how much you pay to park and, voila, the calculator reveals what you'll save each year by taking the bus to work.

It says, for example, that I could bank an extra $423 if gasoline averages $3.75 a gallon for the next 12 months.

Yippee, park the car and hop onboard. Right?

Think again. Like a lot of things the government tells you, there's more to the story.

The fact is, GTA and the rest of the Triad's transit network aren't always a good fit for local commuters. That's particularly true for city residents who don't live close to a bus route, especially in Greensboro's heavily populated northwestern sector, where bus service is thin to nonexistent.

The network is a hodgepodge of four major players: GTA, the Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation and municipal systems in High Point and Winston-Salem. They provide services that overlap, but they run on different schedules, charge different fares and don't always work together in the best interests of taxpayers or commuters.

The system seems to work better for residents of outlying areas who use regional PART buses from a distant park-and-ride lot than it does for Greensboro or High Point commuters trying to get around or between communities.

Case in point: It can take a commuter more than two hours on five buses to get from the High Point side of Greensboro to southern High Point - a trip of 20 minutes, tops, in a car.

After a month of "dumping the pump," I'm convinced: For thousands of suburban residents with midrange commutes, the Triad's transit system still has a long way to go before it matures into a reliable, common-sense alternative to the car.

Putting transit to the test

The idea: See how public transit might work for an average commuter who normally drives to work alone (like me), considering both cost and convenience.

So I began catching the No. 8 Battleground Avenue bus each morning, riding my bike to a stop on Westover Terrace about 1.5 miles from home and then stowing the bike on the rack on the front of the bus.

During the day, I took other routes and sampled bus service in different places. I hopped aboard the city system to connect with PART buses and with the HiTran system in High Point.

Occasionally, I rode PART's morning commuter express out to the regional hub near the airport. I took its intercity buses to High Point and Winston-Salem. I boarded commuter buses at dawn and GTA's red-eye service just before midnight.

By car, my commute is about five miles. It takes 10 to 20 minutes, depending on whether I stop for a carry-out cup of coffee. (I usually do.)

With errands and other side trips during the work day, my car slurps down about five gallons of unleaded regular a week, setting me back $18 to $20. By contrast, I could get an 11-ride GTA pass for $11 for a savings of about $8 weekly.

That's not even considering wear and tear on my car or depreciation. And although it doesn't cost me anything to park at work, that would be another major savings that a bus commute could net some residents.

Beating the clock (not!)

No question, public transit beats the car commute handily in terms of dollars and cents. But there's a lot more to commuting than money. Factors such as time, convenience and efficiency are a big deal, too.

And in my little experiment, the Triad's transit network lost on all three counts, with time being the biggie.

GTA buses ran late too often, meaning that I could not rely on them to get me where I needed to go on time.

After the No. 8 bus arrived late on three mornings, I switched to the No. 7 route that goes through Friendly Center about the same time (and was, it turned out, a little closer to my home in the Green Valley neighborhood).

I rode my bike 1.4 miles to the bus stop on Grand View Avenue, leaving home about 8:20 a.m. - 20 minutes earlier than commuting by car.

That bus promises to reach the downtown terminal at 8:53 a.m., giving me enough time to retrieve my bike from the rack and pedal to work two blocks away by 9 a.m.

Some mornings it worked. Others, I hit the J. Douglas Galyon Depot late, pulling into the terminal as far off schedule as 9:02 on one occasion.

Some GTA riders told me they were relatively happy with its service. But others saw room for improvement. Among them, buses running late and long waits between missed connections emerged as issues.

"I don't think the people who design these routes ever ride them, or they would do something different," said Tim Kelly, 54, who commutes every day from his home in southwest Greensboro to The Depot.

From there, Kelly takes a PART bus to the regional hub near N.C. 68 and Interstate 40, then catches a shuttle to his job nearby.

Once every few weeks, GTA makes him late for work by reaching The Depot after PART's 6 a.m. express has left, he said.

On-time performance proved worse in the evening, when GTA doubles the size of its routes and starts running even the busiest buses through the center-city terminal once an hour instead of every 30 minutes.

"My Friday evening is over. I had something else I wanted to do, but forget about it now," GTA commuter Sheldon Faison said one night after his bus arrived so late that the other bus he needed to catch had already left. "I should already be where I'm going by now, but instead I have to wait here almost a whole other hour."

Odyssey from High Point

Pity the unfortunate soul who needs to combine rides aboard GTA, PART and HiTran to reach work.

Restaurant worker Kimberly Ailstock learned how difficult that can be after losing her driver's license to a traffic violation. On days she can't get a ride from family or friends, she catches her first bus in southern High Point at 2:30 p.m. in hopes of reaching the restaurant on West Wendover Avenue by 5 p.m.

The HiTran bus takes her to High Point's municipal terminal on Broad Avenue, where she catches a PART bus to the regional hub, where she boards a second PART bus to The Depot in downtown Greensboro, where she catches a GTA bus out West Wendover to a transfer point near Edwardia Drive, where she snags a "connector bus" to a shopping center near her workplace.

Five buses, three transit systems and an odyssey that averages two hours and 15 minutes. Even keeping the different fare structures straight is a task, she said: $1 to ride HiTran, $2 for PART and $1.20 aboard GTA.

All that for a trip she could make in 15 to 20 minutes by car.

Would Ailstock consider taking the bus occasionally once she gets her license back?

"No way," she said. "It's not convenient, and it's not very comfortable, not versus riding a car."

All the 'what ifs'

It's a fact: Most buses deliver a jarring ride on hard, plastic seats. The buses lurch and, at times, come to abrupt and screeching stops.

It might sound picky. But the physical battering gets old on a daily basis, especially when my car offers a comparatively cushy ride.

Traveling by public transit through Triad cities means giving up other creature comforts, too. You can't eat or drink onboard. You can't play music too loud. And there are no seatbelts, so good luck if there's a crash.

Moreover, you give up all the freedom of movement that comes with car keys.

You no longer determine when you're picked up, how long you stand waiting, whether there's a shelter at your stop or just a sign post, how long before you reach your destination or what route you take.

And what if a crisis develops at home - a kid gets sick at school or you need something from the hardware store on the way home?

What's amazing is that despite these constraints, so many buses run chock full. The Depot bursts at the seams with passengers scurrying between buses at rush hour every weekday. Some GTA buses teem with passengers throughout the day, then run standing-room-only as late as 9:30 Friday night.

Unlike me, many of these riders have no choice. They can't decide, "Yuck, it's raining today. I'll take the car."

You see them standing beneath umbrellas on such days, waiting in the muck at bus stops with no shelters next to major streets with no sidewalks. What does it say that their numbers seem to be growing?

Maybe mass transit is finally coming of age here. Or maybe a new era is dawning, one in which household finances are so tight that only a select few can afford the solo drive to work anymore.

If that's what it is, the average Joe figures to lose scads of free time unless something happens to make the Triad's overall transit network more convenient.

For me, time trumped all else as the deal breaker. After getting to work late a few times, I had to abandon the No. 7 bus that came through Friendly Center at about the same time as I'd leave home in my car.

Instead, I caught the other No. 7 bus that runs a half-hour earlier, meaning I needed to leave home at 7:50 each morning - about 50 minutes earlier than if I'd taken my car.

And on the other end of the day, it took at least 30 minutes longer to get home depending on how late the bus was running.

Losing 80 minutes of free time each day zapped all those good vibes I should have felt by doing my civic best to fight global warming, cleanse the air and reduce traffic congestion.

Dump the car and the bus

What's more, my bicycle alone turned out to be a far more efficient and timely way of getting to work than the bus and bike together.

I hit upon a nifty bike route that skirts the northern perimeter of Friendly Center, a route both speedy and largely sheltered from traffic. It put me on the Lake Daniel Greenway for much of the trip, then followed several side streets into downtown.

Best of all, it gobbled up only 25 minutes or so, meaning I didn't have to leave home much earlier than when going by car. And I avoided the expense of both car and bus travel, a potential savings of $900 a year if GTA's Web site is accurate.

Meanwhile, cycling gave me a little extra exercise, plenty of fresh air and a different view of the city.

My two cents on public transit in the Triad comes down to this: Try PART and any of the city systems if you commute 10 to 15 miles or more, especially if you work near the airport or another area that PART serves by express route.

In town, the city systems might work if you live relatively close to a bus stop, say within a half mile, and the bus goes near your workplace.

Choose biking or carpooling if you're an urbanite who faces more than a comfortable stroll in any part of the commute, especially if the trip includes a time-consuming transfer to a second or, god forbid, third bus.

Some day, public transit could be the answer for a great majority of Triad residents, including commuters like me. But not before local leaders get way more serious about providing better vehicles, routes that are more direct and, above all, buses that run on schedule.

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or taft.wireback@news-record.com