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Bus Chick on why life is more interesting on transit · nondriver

• Carla: brother was at dental school and he was working in the clinic. He told me there was I I worked on this woman's teeth who she said that she she sees you around. I thought how would she know that we're related? Fast forward to what I have a nine month old baby and I'm riding the 27 down the hill and an elderly woman gets on the bus and says, I just saw your uncle at the University of Washington. That was that same woman and recognized us and came and spoke to us. And she has been my friend ever since she must be in her nineties by now. Devin: Welcome to nondriver . Anna: Real stories of navigating our world from people who can't and don't drive. Devin: My name is Devin Silvernail. Anna: And I'm Anna Zivarts Devin: And today we have a great guest, a Seattle guest. We don't have very many actually, but we have Carla Saulter who is a lifelong Seattleite, a writer, a parent, and a non-driver. You may know Car Carla better as BusChick and from Columns in Grist, the Seattle PI, Rest in Peace, Real Change, and the Long Running BusChick blog. Carla grew up on public transportation and enjoys life on the ground, in the city, and enjoys the interactions that come from life outside of the car. Carla has written extensively about raising kids on public transportation and has been heavily involved in Seattle's transportation advocacy for decades. Welcome, Carla. Carla: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk to you guys. Anna: So I was telling a little bit of backstory before we started recording about how I first encountered your work, which is when gosh, it was probably like two thousand six, two thousand seven, maybe. And maybe it wasn't yeah. when I was living in New York City and writing, you know, I also a blog, you know, active on streets blog. And I remember finding Buschick, I think on Twitter, and was just sort of it was this other world because I couldn't at that at that point I was like, I will never have children. and I couldn't imagine living back in Washington State where I'd grown up riding the bus and and your the world you described sort of opened my eyes to this this possibility that now is is you know very, very similar to the life I lead. So really excited to have you join us. Carla: Well first I really wanna say thanks for saying that because that's sort of the reason I I wrote is so that people could sort of get a window into a different way of life. Yeah. So they could see the possibilities. So thanks. I'm so I'm so glad. And I'm so glad that we're here now. Anna: So tell us a little bit more about your your transportation journey. you've been riding buses your whole life, but then you stopped driving. What was that that that story? Carla: Upon reflection, sort of after twenty-three years without a car, and sort of a lifetime of riding transit and different on and off, I have sort of a a sense of that what I would call inflection points or the points in my life where the bus became available to me or was available to me. It's sort of I would say like points in in the which could also be considered points in a person's life where transit is it's a it's like an an open time for them to be become a transit writer or or become introduced to transit. So for me, I rode transit as a young child just, you know, around the city with my grandma. But when I was around eight, my I went to a school across town for sort of a long story why, but I'm one of four kids and my parents didn't have the capacity and as I think back probably not even the money to drive me to and from school every day. So they just asked me, hey, do you want to try taking the bus? and I was thrilled. This was a huge at the time I didn't have any sort of identity as a transit writer, but it was a huge thing for me to be trusted with this independence. And it's sort of it became transit became the this was the the beginning of transit being my way of being on the ground in my city. But I felt really independent, really grown, really responsible. able to to get around without the assistance of adult, that really gave me a lot of confidence and a sense of independence. And so that's sort of that was the start. And then of course that spread to me being able to go other places and you know get around with siblings and things like that. And so that was sort of my early life. When I turned sixteen I learned to drive and whenever I had access to a car I wanted to drive. and then through a series of strange coincid Incidences I should say, I ended up going to college in Houston, Texas. Mostly it was they offered me a lot of money to go down there. So it was affordable. So I went to college in Houston and for most of my time there, and then I ended up teaching high school there. So I lived there for eight years. And for a good portion of that time, I did not have a car, I did not have access to a car, didn't have money for a car, or at least not a reliable car. and so I used transit. And again, transit was available to me. when I wasn't able to drive. that was rough. I mean, Houston at that time, and sort of from the way I lived my life, it was very hard to get around. You know, no sidewalks in a lot of places, very hot, hourly buses, there was no really central part. So that was difficult. But so that was so as soon as I could afford a car, I got one, a reliable car. I got a car. I drove everywhere and it sort of the bus was sort of in the in the rear view. Then I ended up in back in Seattle. I wanted to move home and I had and then I I had a better paying job and I bought a new reliable car instead of a used reliable car and I had arrived. I'm in my you know mid to late twenties. I have a cute little car, little stick shift, and a job and all the things and the the the the bus wasn't really on my radar. but one thing that came up for me was that I noticed how different the city and the region was. There were so many more cars. There was so much pollution. There was sprawl. And I was just always angry. I felt angry a lot. Like, there's too many people here. There's too many cars. There's too much traffic. There's traffic at all times of day. And it somewhere in the back of my mind I was feeling this, but I'm one of the cars. I'm one of the cars out here. And then the other thing, there was I had a vague sense that driving, not a vague sense. I knew that driving a car was bad for the environment. I had heard that. And and I really felt some on some sort of maybe subconscious level, I felt guilt for driving everywhere, but it wasn't enough to sort of animate any of my choices. Then it snowed. And I don't drive in snow, that's not a thing I do. And I had to get to work, so I just went back to my my roots. And again, the bus was available to me. And I happened to have a free bus. Pass from work, which I picked up because I thought, well, I might use it for like going downtown or such things. And so I had a bus pass, and there was the bus. And so I figured out how to get the bus to work, and sort of that was my reminder of how much I loved the bus. And it just sort of snowballed. I started riding the bus more and more. I stopped using my car. also I would say that I I've always had a little bit anxiety about driving because it's very dangerous. and so just being able to to I star I moved so that I could ride the bus more often, so I could be closer to more buses, and then I started not using my car for weeks at a time, lending my car to people and wondering could I live without one? But I never knew anyone, anyone who had a car didn't have a car on purpose. I knew people who didn't have a car or didn't drive for circumstances in their lives. They couldn't afford a car. They whatever, for whatever reason, they were unable to drive. But I'd never met anyone who didn't have a car on purpose. And so I didn't really feel it was so counter-cultural. I didn't really feel like it was possible. And then I met somebody who ended up being my husband, my former husband now, but who I met who we rode the same bus and after many conversations I learned that he didn't have a car and that sort of inspired me to try it. And that was twenty-three years ago. And that's I think where and I know I'm talking too long, so feel free to edit edit any of this out, but that's where my I think my evolution as a transit writer began. Because I think at first I was so excited about how about all the benefits. How much I got rid of my car, right? So I'm saving money I'm walking all the time. I'm outside. I'm I'm connecting with my neighbors. I'm seeing people I haven't seen in 15 years. I'm seeing people that work at the library. I'm just I'm so integrated in my community. It just sort of changed the way I lived so much that I became I would say an evangelist. And also looking at all the benefits to the community. You're not driving, you're not polluting, you're not causing traffic, you're not so I was thinking, this is so great. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna evangelize transit. I want to present this way of life to people. I want to write about this so other people can see how great everyone should ride transit. and even then I knew I knew the challenges. I lived the challenges. But over these many years of so many different life stages and circumstances and challenges, I think I've evolved from that sort of being an evangelist for transit to Being an evangelist or being an advocate for a s a transportation system that actually works for people, right? So that people can ride transit. Not people should ride transit, but we need to make a transportation system that's accessible, that's affordable. So when I think about transit equity, I say, you know, this sh this means that transit riders have the same access to mobility as drivers. That's equity. It's not everybody has. you know, the equitable experience on the bus, but that transit riders are equally priority. Devin: I'm just impressed that you were you grew up in Seattle. You rode the bus in Seattle and you still talk to people on the bus. You know, what I lived in San Francisco for four years and the first time that I got on the bus and I was reading a book on the bus and someone talked to me, I like, What do I do? Carla: See, I when I was a w when I was a child there were a a lot of people talk to me. I I don't know kids are approachable, I don't know. And so I just got used to it. I mean, I I learned, you know, boundaries and all those things. But I think now when I get on especially if you're on sort of a commuter type of ride, it's really depressing to me because everyone's just going like this with their phone and they have headphones in and I it depends on when you ride and sort of what routes you ride. if you get to talk to people. And often we'll talk to people at the bus or we'll at the bus stop or we'll see people that we sort of know and strike up a conversation. So it's not always, you know, you just approach a stranger. It's rarely that, but it can be. Anna: found having a kid with me definitely and on transit you end up in a lot more conversations with people, you know, sometimes because the kid is doing things and you have to engage. and and other times, you know, people just want to engage with you more. And some of that is, you know, good engagement and some of it's not great engagement. But when you had kids, like what did you feel like that changed your experience on transit? And did you feel that pressure to, you know, not use the bus 'cause there's a lot, I feel like a lot of social pressure to both around safety but also just like getting places fast, right? Carla: There's so much there. So I felt really determined 'cause I was a sort of unexpectedly pregnant, also sort of ambivalent about being a parent at first. But there was this sort of stubbornness of I'm not everyone said, it's just so cute that you ride transit everywhere, but once you have kids you're not gonna be able to do it and you know, et cetera, et cetera. And I think so I was very determined that that wasn't going to be my story, but also I think it requires a lot of things that I mean you either have a situation where somebody if someone has really relying on transit because of affordability reasons and maybe they're working a shift job or something like that, it becomes almost impossible to manage all of that when you have, you know, young children and you have all these different drop offs and pickups and stuff. For me, we had arranged our lives so we we were able to live centrally near a lot of transit where we could walk places and all that these were all a ton of privileges, right, that we had. But also sort of the the sort of middle class standards of how someone raises a child in this country, we rejected. I mean you have to. You can't decide I'm gonna live in a big house somewhere out and go to Costco once a week and have my kid in sixty seven different activities and I'm not gonna have a car. You have to you you have to plan a life that allows you to not have a car. But yes, I there and there was a ton of pressure. I can't believe you're gonna bring your baby and wait, there's no car seats and all the germs and there was a lot of pressure and there's a lot of stigma and of course me as a brown person with brown children, there's a lot of of stigma. You know, you you're on the bus with children, there's a lot of assumptions people make about you. That definitely I felt. Yeah. Anna: Yeah. No, I i it definitely it feels like especially in Seattle, there are very, very few parents with young children who are, you know, riding the bus out of choice. Carla: And some part of me feels it just feels so silly because there are so many people who just give anything to just have access to a car because their lives become so challenging. And there's so many I mean I would say for sure I'm balanced. My life has been transformed in a positive way by not driving. And I have lived so many challenges that make me understand what it's what it's like for people or have a better sense of what it's like for people and why we need to really commit to making a transportation system that's that's fair. Anna: Yeah, what do you think? I mean, you you mentioned earlier that it's like it should be a like a a a can ride transit versus a must ride transit, right? What what are those what are those pieces for you that you see if you were could wave a magic wand and make transit work better? Carla: It's almost it's so hard to even have an imagination to picture a world like that because of the the constraints, because the built environment, because the culture, because everything which is it's like swimming upstream times a million, you know, like because everything is set up so that people need to drive and p it's hard to even have an imagination for that. But I mean I could tell you I could like describe my utopian vision, but I think the first things are just having, you know, accessible stops, having access to bathrooms, having sidewalks, having the kind of frequency and the twenty four seven type of you know, I don't know what that word is, not frequency, but just twenty four seven access to to buses, to even to really think about Think about who's riding and how they might be riding, right? You you have like okay, there's a bus stop there, right? That doesn't mean there's access, right? How does somebody and you talk about this a lot in your book, I loved your book, by the way, Anna, but th there's There's so much to thinking about like how does a person get to this bus stop? What happens if there's someone standing with a five year old and a two year old next to this street with like cars whizzing by? Is there seating? Is there lighting? You know, all we have to think through the whole experience from end to end, but also once you get to a place. Are they assuming that everyone's driving there? I mean, I remember during COVID there was like drive through everything, drive through vaccines, drive through this and that, and there is no sort of even thought that someone might not be driving to a Devin: The pharmacy that's in Columbia City, they I remember they were turning away people, who tried to like walk through or bike through the the drive through during that time. It's like, well what can you do? Yeah. And you you look at the buses too. I mean, Seattle being kind of like this hub and spoke kind of network, you have these buses. I mean, it's very tall city geographically, north south. It's like sixteen miles and east west, it's like between two and three. And because of that I think you also lack these crosstown bus routes in a lot of places. Like if you look at South Seattle for example, everything kind of goes north. and I mean that makes it a huge challenge too. I would I would try to maybe give you a little bit of hope and say that there's a lot of space on those streets in Seattle though. So you could Yeah, you you can be creative. I I think it just takes a little bit of a little bit elbow grease, but there's plenty of space out there. Carla: cities there's the there's the will to some degree and there's there's some infrastructure that can be improved for sure, lots of it. I mean if you look at a city like Seattle where I think is the most transit rich and pedestrian friendly city in the state and it's sorely lacking. But I'm talking about for everyone everywhere, not just in major cities, but like what does it look like if you're in a rural community? How can we How can we make that something that is I mean, obviously you're not gonna have frequent transit and all the things that you but what what could we have? How could we have a place where people can walk and bike and it's it's safely? You know, things like that that are not there now. How or w wheel a wheelchair or you know, right now we have just very dangerous, lonely, scary experiences for people. And that's what I'd like to think through, not just how to make cities as, you know. really just transit rich as possible and like tweak every little bit. And not I'm not to say not to say that Seattle doesn't have plenty of room for improvement, but just how can we make a world where driving isn't required? Cause cities right now are just fully unaffordable and that's a big piece of the the puzzle is just having affordable housing where people can get around. Anna: Totally. And I I I don't know, I I've been on this tear lately 'cause I spent time with in-laws in Latvia over the summer where sort of because of the Soviet legacy of really low car ownership, even in rural areas, there's robust sidewalks and robust world transit. And it was it was just so easy to go anywhere, anywhere in the country. Wow. I was like there, you know, have not historically been a wealthy country, you know, but it's a question of priorities and it is totally possible. to have rural communities connected by transit with, you know, sidewalks with lighting, multi use paths with lighting to route the communities so you can get to the bus stops and then ride the bus into the next nearest, you know, city. Carla: Exactly. I'm so glad that you've actually seen an example of this because yes, that's what that's what I I hope for. Yeah. Devin: Like. it's such an interesting thing. I obviously it takes political will and at the state level. I mean if there's plenty of places we can learn. I was recently in spent a lot of time in Shillan County recently and, you know, the bus out there, at least at least in the Wenatchee area, I believe it's all Shillan County, is free, right? and obviously, you know, places like Olympia and there's other places in Washington State where they're offering free public transportation already. This idea that if we can p you know we can kinda pick and choose these policy ideas from other parts of your state and other parts of the world. That's always a really helpful thing. And if we can show that it's not necessarily a partisan issue either, right? I mean where I live now, it's transportation access and mobility like accessibility isn't a partisan issue. It's not like you know you have to be a mega communist leftist to want to have a sidewalk. Carla: So weird. Like especially the current transportation secretary who's just made it so pol like we only invest money where there are people with kids or some weird thing in like minivans. I don't know. It's very odd. Yeah. Yeah, and I think really a a huge area of that needs a lot of help are sort of these suburbs and exurbs like where there's strip malls and highways with the shoulder and Yeah, there's so much work to be done and it it feels daunting but even small tweaks can make such a big difference and when people have those little you know tiny little things like a a trail somewhere, they use Devin: Yeah, I grew up on the interurban, right? So that was a trail that I used all the time as a kid. It was and that's thanks to, you know, that's a King County trail, I believe, right? So that's thanks to the county that we had that that we had that. You know, you've spent a lot of time as an advocate. I think you've been involved in a couple of the different transportation processes in the Puget Sound area. Carla: been on boards and commissions and for a short time I worked for a a transit focused nonprofit for a few years. Devin: Looking at those boards specifically, where do you think I know Anna is doing a lot of work around this right now, trying to get non-drivers to serve on transit boards? Like, where we where can we go from here? You know, you've been able to serve on those boards, but what process like? and you know, what are we still lacking? Like, where can we improve? Carla: From my personal experience, I I I felt like it was a waste of time. I think they want to say they have transit riders who are giving input on something. but transit writers or non-drivers, which I think is more even more important, rarely have any power and they're rarely consulted when it matters. So they're presented with here's our plan for the new whatever the thing is, and then you get to maybe write a letter to someone or give your feedback and then it's taken into account, and maybe you know they make one little tweak to a stop location or something like that. But in general, they don't take input from from non-drivers very seriously, I don't think. And I think Anna, you mentioned in your book that you that you want to get more transit riders on actual transit boards that where they have like voting power. Anna: Yeah, no, and it's been an absolute uphill battle where we passed the legislation that would allow the transit agencies legally to add these voting seats, but we couldn't make it a requirement. We didn't have the votes to do that in the state legislature. And now the agencies are fighting us tooth and nail. We just had this drawn out fight with Kittsap Transit two weeks ago where their board voted to not add these seats, even after, you know, a community advocates there had turned out ten different organizations in support of it and Just it's frustrating. It it is it feels like part of it's just not wanting to share power and then part of it's this like dismissal of people who can't drive, you know, a condescension, I think. like they can't possibly understand math or governance or what it means to represent more than their own opinion. Carla: they're not gonna understand what all goes into this and so they're gonna come with an uninformed opinion. Yeah. Yeah. totally. Yeah. That's really disappointing. Anna: It has been disappointing, no, and it it definitely makes me realize how how far we have to go. 'Cause it's great. It's great we have these transit systems. I am glad, you know, we have people working in these spaces and working at these transit agencies, but the attitude towards people who rely on transit is just it's really gotta shift. Carla: I sometimes I think there should be and maybe this exists and I don't know it, there should be usability engineers for transit agencies and they should all be non-drivers and sort of different with different reasons they don't or can't drive. they should be walking through all the infrastructure or inviting community members to do that. Anna: I mean, I I think we need requirements within agencies and, you know, transit department transportation departments as well around use of these systems, right? Like you should be expected to ride the bus once a week if you work for a transit agency. You should you know you shouldn't be excited to wal expected to walk or bike somewhere once a week if you work for a transportation department, more than just, you know, a recreational walk, like a destination walk. Carla: I like that. It's like the opposite of the job ads that say must have reliable transportation, by which they mean must have car. Anna: Back to your blog and like when you started writing. and that sort of, you know, showing this, this because I think part of it is right, like that that a lot of transit writers are pretty invisible to people in power. And so that like that visibility in the storytelling and you know, some of the experiences that you write about as a way to make visible what it feels like to be, you know, on the bus. When yeah, how did you start writing? When did you start writing? How did your decision to write evolve over time? Carla: I think I had like a personal page that I had to set up for work for some reason. And I was writing I was just sort of writing for my friends and family, sort of stories about the bus. And then the Seahawks were went to the Super Bowl and it was in Detroit. And my husband at the time was well, my fiance at the time was from Detroit. And so we didn't actually go to the Super Bowl, but we went to Detroit during the whole Super Bowl festivities. And the PI was asking for people who wanted to blog about their experience in Detroit. So I said, I'll you know, why not? I'll just do I don't know what made me decide that that would be fun, but I did. And the person who was managing the the PI's blogging or whatever, saw my other writing and asked me, hey, do you want to after that do you hey do you want to write about the bus for the PI? And I I mean it was just like it wasn't like I was employed by the PI, it was just sort of a, you know, unpaid a way to get more clicks for the PI so they wouldn't have to fold. So they had a lot of bloggers. But so I started that. At the same time I had I had been thinking also I really want to tell the stories. I mean for me what's what's the most compelling, what's the most what makes me just love transit to the to the in a way that I will make me it make it very difficult for me to let go of is just the the human side of it. There's something just so human about transit to me and about this concept of all these people from just who knows where they're coming from, who knows where they're going, who knows what kind of day they're having. maybe they're, you know, going to like, I don't know, pick up their wedding dress. Maybe they're going to visit their dying mom in the hospital. Maybe they're just going on a regular day for work. Maybe this is their first day in Seattle. I mean there's just so much going on in this tiny little temporary mobile community that I just find endlessly compelling. And I was talking to people and experiencing things and meeting people and I wanted to share it. I just wanted to share some of that human side of it. and so I had I had pitched real change. Hey, I would like to write this column for you guys. And so this kind of happened at the same time. And that's I just sort of a lot of it was cross-shared, but that's where how I started and that was in Two thousand five? Yeah, two thousand five. And I wrote for a few years for the PI and and real change and then eventually just had my own just put it on my own site. Anna: You know, like it it is a reality that I feel like is so rarely reflected in the media I consume, and the writing, you know, I encounter and just having that yeah, this is what it's like, you know, to be on the seven, to be, you know, encountering people and the beauty and and, you know, sometimes the difficulty in some of those moments. Devin: a lot about riding the bus for the past couple I mean of the past years, but are there some stories or some memories that really stick out to you still from your bus adventures in Seattle? Anything that really feels unforgettable? Carla: I have two that are really unforgettable. And so the first is where my brother I have three siblings, two of them still live here. And one at the time my brother was at dental school he was in dental school at the University of Washington and he was working in the clinic. So you have to sort of work in the clinic to get that's part of the getting the degree. And he told me there was I I worked on this woman's teeth who She said that she she sees you around. He he said, Yeah, my sister lives in your neighborhood. She said, is she expecting? So I was pregnant at the time, but I thought, how would she know that we're related? I mean, we sort of we look similar, but like she picked me out and recognized him and knew who he was talking about when he said my sister lives in your neighborhood. So I forgot all about that moment. And then fast forward to where I have a a child, like a maybe like a nine-month-old baby. And I've got her in a little pack and I'm riding the twenty seven down the hill, and an elderly woman gets on the bus and stops in front of us and says, I just saw your uncle at the University of Washington. And I thought she was talking to someone else, or she thought we were some we were but she that was that same woman who knew I was Joel is his name's sister and recognized us and came and spoke to us. And we I have she has been my friend ever since she must be in her nineties by now. and we see each other all the time. Her name's Miss Ida. Turns out I she talked all about her grandson all the time and how she helped raise him. Turns out her grandson's kids went to my kids' daycare. Like we keep encountering each other in different ways. I keep running into her family members and she's been like integrated into my life ever since that time. So that's one that really sticks to me. Miss Ida is one of my and I see her on the bus or saw her on the bus all the time. She doesn't get out much Another is when my kids were, I would say, maybe three and five or some five and seven or something like that. I was taking the bus home from work. It was a long day. the bus was crowded, I was you know, it was late and I just couldn't wait to get home to my kids. And a woman gets on with a sort of a maybe like a six or seven year old child and two twin babies, and she's like trying to get everything together and, you know, get her kids there and she's just struggling. So she it turns out she's getting off at the same place as I am, so I offer to help her. Like I just walk I walk over and I think, you know, I'll I'll carry your and I don't think they spoke she spoke English very well. That was sort of the impression I got, but I thought, I'll carry some of your bags or something like that, the stroller. And she hands me a baby. Just It was the best, a sweet little cuddly baby, and then each of us took one end of the stroller and sort of this was back before low floor buses and c carried down the stairs of the bus and I will never like I hand we put the babies in the thing and she went away. We barely said a word to each other and I'll never forget that moment. Most of these kinds of moments I forget unless I record them, you know, unless I write them down, I I forget. But this is why my life I I don't know all the ways that the bus has impacted me, but I know my life is just so much richer than it would be if I was just driving to Costco and to soccer practice all the time. Anna: My kid had a really wonderful experience in the bus. He had a rough during the pandemic when things got pretty rough there for a while. He got pepper sprayed on a bus with I wasn't with we was with my husband and it was downtown and there was a fight. And anyway. So he was really traumatized about the bus for a long time to the point where we had to actually take him to therapy because he didn't want to leave the house. Cause he'd be like, Well, are we taking the bus? And we're like, Yep. And he's like, I don't actually want to go get ice cream. Like he just didn't like even think we knew he wanted to do. so It was it was, you know, it was real, it was hard and we're like, we have to work through this. and so sh you know, coming out of this difficulty, we are riding with seven home one night and we get on and I don't know, people like just sort of he he got a lot of attention on the bus when he was little, I think, 'cause there just weren't very many kids on it. And you know, people would sort of fixate on him being a kid and try to interact. And some of that was good and some of it wasn't good and So I'm getting on and and this guy sitting near the front is like, Is this your kid? And I was like, no, this is gonna be a negative interaction. And I was like, Yeah. And he says, Would he like this? And he hands out this bag. He's like, I'm I'm I'm cleaning out my my house and I'm I'm getting rid of all these matchbook cars. Does he want some? And it's this bag of like cars. And my kid is, you know, the age where this is the coolest thing ever. And so it was just this beautiful moment and it Now anytime then after that when he was afraid of riding the bus, I would remind him of the wonderful things that can suddenly and unexpectedly happen. and how we could end up with a whole bag of new toys. Carla: That's so funny that you say that 'cause that same ride I was telling you about the a man offered the older kid and that sort of set of three kids of like a box of toys. She was not sure if she should accept it. You know, and there've been lots of times where but we have a bus my favorite bus driver ever, ever, ever I call him smooth jazz, 'cause he plays he used to drive late at night and he would play music over the like PA system, jazz. but then he started riding a little bit earlier or we'd catch him like early in his route and he would always have candy. for the kids. There have been bus drivers who give out coloring pages, bus drivers who decorate their buses for the holidays, like lots of lots of good experiences for kids. But as you said, I mean I think since the pandemic it's remained rougher than it was. But during those those years it was it was it was hard. And it there are lots of again, there are lots of hard things about it. It but I just I can't I wish I could quit you. That's what I feel like saying to the boss, I can't I can't let it go. I feel and I feel like I would be giving up because what would I be trading? What would I be trading to? A safer life, driving all the time? and what would I be continuing to enable? Devin: You know, it's funny because this conversation though made me just like have this flash memory of a bus driver that I loved. I had for like maybe a year, 2008, 2009, and he every single stop he had like a phrase that he would say. and I can't remember all of them, but I do remember cheerfully, probably like until the day I die, he would say, Third and pine, rain or shine, don't forget your umbrella. And even I would have like the worst day, I mean maybe like worst morning, and that would always cheer me up, right? And yeah, you don't get that when you're in a car. Anna: What, you know, in your work now, in the way you're thinking or or you know, moving through the community, I guess on the bus ride that you take, what gives you hope what what keeps you coming back to the bus and coming back to thinking about, you know, sharing those stories? Carla: gives me hope is, you know, whenever I get really down on the bus or just down on like I I've had we've been through a lot as a family in the last few years and one of the things has been my youngest has had some medical needs that we were going to specialists and doing all the you know, a lot of medical appointments, which again are very difficult when you're riding transit or if someone isn't feeling well. But I what's giving me hope right now is watching my kids sort of blossom out in the world on transit. And my youngest is obsessed with the bus in a good way and very committed to to continuing to live the way I live. But to see my kids say, I have to go like my oldest volunteers at a cat shelter and she's I have to go to my shift and then she just goes and gets on the bus or she goes to gets on the bus to see her friends or she you know, and we see lots of kids their age or their friends on transit too and I just feel good that one of the things that w that that transit advocates advocated for was free transit for young people and I see that impact all the time. and just the other thing is just whenever I start to feel really down, I will have a lovely encounter with someone. Or I'll see someone I haven't seen in a long time. Or I'll just have a chat at the bus stop and just remember why I I keep doing this. I keep I'm committed to this place and for me that means being in the place, being with other people. Anna: Thank you so much, Carla. It's so good to see you here and thinking I'll run into you soon on a bus or around the neighborhood. Thanks for listening to Nondriver. I'm Anna Zivarts. Devin: And I'm Devin Silvernail. If today's conversation resonated with you, please subscribe and share the show with a friend. Anna: You can also leave us a review wherever you listen. It genuinely helps other people find the show. Devin: Nondriver is brought to you by the Nondrivers Alliance. Find more info at nondrivers.org. Anna: And this episode was produced by Devin. Devin: Wanna get in touch? Email us at nondriverpodcast at proton dot me. Anna: We'll see you next week.