Whenever you take a trip, it is inevitable that on the
bus you will end up sitting next to the 600-pound
man who hasn't seen a shower since Hector was a pup. The bus driver is mean, the crazy woman behind you hasn't stopped talking to herself and your legs are beginning to cramp. Is it any wonder that every sane person on board would rather commute in his or her own car rather than "Going Greyhound?" It seems there are no comfortable alternatives to single-vehicle transportation.
A college student in Spokane tried to get on a bus to see her sister play basketball in Billings. Her bus was scheduled to leave at 6:15 p.m. but was delayed for 10 hours. The poor girl had to spend 26 hours on a trip that should have taken just 14 hours. Needless to say, her feathers were a bit ruffled.
In Kalispell, the only intracity buses available are devoted primarily to taking older folks to the supermarket and back. I couldn't even tell you if there even is a downtown bus, because it is simply more convenient to hop into my Subaru and cruise to the mall alone rather than wait for a bus to come.
Another mass-transit nightmare is the train. Old-timers can reminisce about a time when "you could set your pocket watch by the trains," but now it is common for them to run 18 hours late, like it did the last time my grandma took the train. Besides being behind schedule, the train's toilets froze up and passengers were without water. Grandma hasn't ridden on a train since.
In Europe, the Eurail is an exceptionally fast train that is always on time. In Japan, commuters complain when they miss their train because they will have to wait another three minutes until the next one arrives. America should take a hint from the success of foreign mass transit.
The earth's environment is quickly deteriorating. Contributing to the earth's demise are the millions of cars driven all over the world, spouting out fumes of ozone-destroying carbon monoxide. By sharing vehicles, fumes would be cut down. Why can't there be a carpool or train system for commuters traveling between Whitefish to Kalispell? People would use and feel comfortable it if it was reliable and ran on time.
Mass transit has to become a priority for the sake of the environment. When the quality of mass-transit improves, so will the people riding it. And next time you're on a bus you won't have to sit next to the man who is No. 3 on America's most wanted list.