Keep talking

All those years that people thought I was some sort of masochist for taking the train. "Oh, I couldn't schedule around the train. If I want to go, I just want to go. I don't know how you can put up with it." I'd smile and shake my head and say, "Ah, it's not so bad." And if I'd mention the $2,000 a year I was saving (gas + insurance + parking), they'd understand, but still they'd look at me like I had a screw loose. Now that it's over $3,000, and rising by the minute, I'm looking a little less nutty. Nutty like a fox, baby.

And there are more and more people jumping on my bandwagon. More cars in the public transit parking lot. More people period on the trains, rich and poor. I'm lucky in that I am on the magic train, that is almost never crowded on my way to work in the morning. But coming home, I usually ride the whole way standing up. A small price to pay, and it doesn't do my ever expanding booty any harm either. I pop in my iPod, and jam out all the way home. I'm not complaining too hard.

Cause I'd have to be complaining pretty dang loud to be heard over the Johnny Come Latelies. "Why don't they run more trains. I can't believe it's so crowded. You know this is paid for by taxes. The city should do something. Look at all these people standing. Wah, wah, wah." You know what? I had a seat before you showed up.

Public transit in Dallas is far from perfect. But I can count on my fingers the number of times there's been a real problems in the nearly 8 years I've been riding. The trains are clean. They run pretty close to on time. Yeah, the service isn't as frequent as I'd like. And it would be nice if there were more lines going to different parts of the city. But until now, people haven't really seen the benefit of public transit. It was something for po' folk and greenies. Now people are seeing it's something else. It's a safety net for everybody in times like now, when it's hard to make ends meet, whether you're on your way to a job as a fry cook or a CFO. When it's tough all over, that inconvenient old train looks a lot less inconvenient. If gas prices go down, everybody can go back to their cars if they want to, like nothing ever happened.

But for now, I'm hoping they'll keep on complaining. Maybe a bunch of complaining people will get public transit in Dallas the attention and support it deserves. It would be nice to see the system expanded. You can't really have a great town without great public transportation. But it's a hard sell on the tax base when they don't see how they personally benefit. The silver lining in the current economic dark cloud could be that Dallas sees public transit as what it is - good for all of Dallas.