Last month C-Tran did a major service change which included dismantling the 7th street transit center downtown and opening a new transit center at 99th street. We live almost exactly in the middle of these two locations.
The downtown transit center is now a series of bus stops and Bob has been dropping me off on his way to work and picking me up on his way home. That system has been working fine.
The 99th street transit center is a park and ride but I hadn’t tried it yet since it seemed counter-productive to drive further away from my intended destination. Bob has finals and grading and whatever end of the quarter/year stuff college instructors have to do and could not pick me up this week so I decided to give the park and ride a try.
Turns out: it’s fabulous. It only takes about 10 minutes from the house. Super easy access in and out. I don’t have to get on the freeway or deal with any gnarly intersections. And the best part is that the bus is every 10 minutes in the morning AND in the evening.
This is the giant drawback about the other bus. In the afternoons it comes only every 25 minutes. At rush hour even.
Yesterday by luck, I was able to board my bus as I stepped out of the office. There were no freeway snafus and I made it door to door in 40 minutes. Unheard of. Another good thing about the park and ride is that my way home takes me by Target and Safeway, perfect for quick errands.