D.O.P.-T.

[weofodthignen]

Last night I missed the bus and waited 20 minutes in the cold for the express. There was no one else there, and no one was waiting at the stop I would have got off at, though the next slow bus had not yet appeared. This is not just the holidays. Once upon a time, I used to take the bus from the next stop, since I live sort of an equal distance from the two. It's at a more important intersection, and a lot better lighted; I've had to stop expresses at the express stop by stepping into the road and holding up my bus pass like a New Yorker hailing a taxi, and drivers have told me they "always forget about that stop." The other bus stop used to have half a dozen of us waiting every night; some appeared to be restaurant workers or cleaners, and generally came dashing up just before the bus was due. Then the buses started sailing past us, or simply not coming. After hoofing it back to the express stop a few times at high speed to have a second chance at getting to work, I simply switched stops. The number of people at the better lighted stop dwindled away; now both kinds of buses usually skip the stop. There have sometimes been one or two people at the express stop, but since the weather turned cold, there's usually just me. Gaggles of Indian teenagers used to get on at a particular stop and get off at the same stop I did (the main stop for a large area of housing); not for a few years now. There used to be usually someone waiting at that stop, and one or two on the other side; rarely now. The VTA is destroying its ridership.