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The VTA had been running their new royal blue articulated buses as expresses, and repainting those used on the normal routes in white with light blue trim; more money-wasting, but it did make it easier to tell which kind of bus it was from a distance, since some of the newer hybrid non-express buses have the same rounded profile. Since the big change in schedules, that distinction only seems to hold for those commuting in the opposite direction to me—to San Jose in the morning and away from it in the evening. Blue express buses go by in the other direction, and then along comes a single-length older white bus in my direction, but it turns out to be an express.
Almost everyone seems to have given up trying to catch the express from where the poor housemate now transports me in the evening. It was never a popular stop, but once we all realized what had happened, others limped up on foot the first few nights. However, I've finally figured out what they think they're doing: those little old buses running empty on the cross street, every five minutes late at night, are a new express service that mostly runs on Stevens Creek Blvd, the parallel main east-west street, terminating at the Berryessa transit center in East San Jose where the pour money into a hole in the ground BART extension project is to have a station any day now, real soon, within someone's lifetime, maybe. (And maybe some people in San Jose want it.) I saw an express bus running on Mathilda Avenue in central Sunnyvale, where all the stops that actually used to be used are now standing desolate, and peered at the online map in extreme magnification.
The shakeup has produced some new steady passengers on the non-express bus, such as the young man who rests his skateboard on his knees and uses it as the table to eat his dinner. Not a bad idea if you haven't been skateboarding through mud.
Almost everyone seems to have given up trying to catch the express from where the poor housemate now transports me in the evening. It was never a popular stop, but once we all realized what had happened, others limped up on foot the first few nights. However, I've finally figured out what they think they're doing: those little old buses running empty on the cross street, every five minutes late at night, are a new express service that mostly runs on Stevens Creek Blvd, the parallel main east-west street, terminating at the Berryessa transit center in East San Jose where the pour money into a hole in the ground BART extension project is to have a station any day now, real soon, within someone's lifetime, maybe. (And maybe some people in San Jose want it.) I saw an express bus running on Mathilda Avenue in central Sunnyvale, where all the stops that actually used to be used are now standing desolate, and peered at the online map in extreme magnification.
The shakeup has produced some new steady passengers on the non-express bus, such as the young man who rests his skateboard on his knees and uses it as the table to eat his dinner. Not a bad idea if you haven't been skateboarding through mud.