Riding the buses

Tuesday I had to be at Sardis church for breakfast and planned to get the only bus that comes out this part of town, and stops near the church, to head into 'downtown' Asheville.  In the end someone drove me in via an errand at the bank (we went in but they have drive thru banking facilities here!)

I pottered around the downtown, it felt abandoned by day to day shoppers - great for arty types and quirky restaurants but lacking the things that would draw locals in regularly, so understand when my lift giver had said she hadn't been in the town centre for several years.

I found my way to the bus station and with my bus so long to wait for another plan emerged, and that led to several bus changes and riding the bus the long way out in the opposite direction (rather than a long wait out in the sun) before actually reaching the place where the locals shop at a retail park.

Buses are levellers - we wait together at the stop and we have to share the same space on the journey - no  hiding away in our own tin cans.  The services here are very limited but do serve some of the more vulnerable communities, as I rode the buses around a full lap the pattern of ethnicity of those riding with me changed. As did the view of the housing, the areas we travelled through.

There is something important in being able to explore a community with eyes open to the world around us, something that concentrating on driving I wouldn't have been able to take in. What do we need to take time to notice in our own communities, but familiarity or busyness distract us from? It might not need a bus ride, but maybe we need to take eyes off the road we are travelling and onto the people we travel amongst.

Oh and though Asheville routes are few enough and infrequent, their buses do have a cyclists dream - a fold down frame on the front that can hold up to 3 bikes...