It feels like it's 90 degrees at 6 p.m. as I sit on a bench staring at a mess of
Votran route sheets in my lap and considering the 11 miles to get home.
The guy sitting next to me listening to funk music so loud I can hear it through his headphones begins to kick at cigarette butts on the asphalt and suddenly stands up, thrashing wildly at the pile of soda cans and other garbage that surrounds our bench.
I know how he feels. My public transportation experiment began with the best of intentions, but after five hours of bus transfers, being clammy with sweat, walking and worrying, I can pretend to deliberate, but I know what I'll do.
I reach for the phone.
*****
I really wanted this to work. My car is 14 years old. Traffic is lousy. And I'm not only the victim of a pay cut, but I also don't want to shell out more money to Middle Eastern oil sheiks.
So in some ways, I viewed Dump the Pump Day as a key to freedom and a way to live efficiently. It would give me a rare opportunity to save gas money and let the car rest from the usual 42-mile, 90-minute round trip. The national event in June embodied almost all those reasons and considering I had done it in other cities, I figured it would be easy.
I was wrong.
For starters, it took me three hours and four buses to get from my New Smyrna Beach house to The Daytona Beach News-Journal office -- the same length of time it would take to drive to south Georgia. I found the bus stops conveniently located and considering the morning sun hadn't yet met its full potential, I arrived to work feeling only a little sweaty, but in awe of the people who have to make the journey every day.
Of course not everyone has a commute as bad as mine. Annie Ferrante, 50, made it sound like riding the bus is a breeze.
At the time we met, the Port Orange beauty consultant was in her second week of riding the No. 12 and was still charmed by the challenge of riding it to work in Daytona Beach. It takes her about 45 minutes-- probably about twice as long as a car ride.
"I really don't mind it," she said. "They do the driving and it's nice and cool. The folks are friendly and I'm a reader, so somewhere along the way I'll be reading a book."
Strangely enough, riding the bus with a bunch of random people is Ferrante's alone time. And not so surprisingly, her friends ragged on her about the decision.
"Before I got on the bus, some friends would say, 'Oh, no, you're going to hate it,'" she said. "But I love it. It's my solitude."
It helps that Ferrante's home and work are near stops along the bus line. It's not so easy for Michael Valentino, a lanky 23-year-old from Edgewater who rides the bus for more than three hours in search of temporary work in Daytona Beach. When he misses the last bus of the day, he tries to stay at a family member's house.
"It's a pain in the (rear)," he said, as we rode in the chilly No. 7 on our way to the Transfer Plaza in Daytona Beach. His car was damaged beyond repair during the record flooding in May. "I gotta take like three buses. If I ride it a week, it's going to come out more expensive than if I put in gas."
Valentino wonders why our transit system can't be more like New York City, where he used to live and could catch a ride every 15 minutes.
But the Volusia-Flagler area just isn't set up for a system that could balance the convenience of commuters with a realistic budget, said Liz Suchsland, Votran's assist general manager of operations and maintenance. "It's just not comparable to New York or Washington, D.C. where things are in close proximity to each other."
Votran's operating budget of $20.5 million generated 3.4 million boardings last year. The bus system provides the type of service that mostly caters to the "transit-dependent," Suchsland said, such as the elderly, students, the disabled and those who are unable to drive or can't afford a vehicle.
"Certainly somebody living beachside in New Smyrna, who wants to get into the core Daytona area using the transit system has limited options," she said.
Like a three-hour commute.
"For a traditional work schedule it would be somewhat of a challenge," Suchsland added.
No kidding.
*****
My challenge was trying to get out of the office before 2:30 p.m.
Barely working half a shift, I rushed out of the newsroom about an hour later and arrived at the Dunlawton Square strip mall in Port Orange too late to catch the last transfer to New Smyrna Beach. I stared at all the schedules and routes in disbelief, checking and re-checking the times to see if I was reading it wrong.
Maybe the guy with the funky music missed his bus too? Trying not to upset him further, I remained motionless as he took his trash-kicking episode to another bench.
Sitting alone, I felt defeated as I reached for my cell phone to ask for a ride home.
A friend answered on the third ring as I daydreamed about a cold shower.
"Can you come get me?" I said. "I give up."
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Photo by David Massey