BUS STORY # 289 (Other Voices)

I remember when I first discovered there were other public transportation story tellers out in the blogosphere. My daughter sent me a link to The Subway Chronicles. Not only is Jacquelin Cangro an astute observer and talented writer, but her site featured an annual collection of wonderfully literate subway stories written by others, a new one posted each month.

Sadly, The Subway Chronicles is no more. Happily, Jacquelin’s blog, up to its final post in May, 2009, remains accessible. The monthly stories, however, are no longer available. (There is a book now with the same title featuring 27 of those entries.) 

I don’t remember how I found Bus Chick. When I first discovered Carla Saulter, I learned that if I happened to be in Seattle on any given Saturday night, I might catch her “running for the number 27 in heels and a backless dress.”

Times have changed. Bus Chick married Bus Nerd (yes, they met on the bus) and is now the mother of Chicklet and Busling. And (yes, again) the whole family is still riding, and Bus Chick is still writing. 

Over time, one bus blog led to the discovery of another, until I had a daisy chain of links which I began listing to the right of my bus stories. Also over time, many of these blogs have come and gone. Some blogs were active for only a few posts, then languished like abandoned New Year’s resolutions. Some bloggers announced the end of their blogs (see Today on the Lightrail from Houston for an interesting explanation). Others simply quit posting. Some took their blogs off the web.

Today on the Lightrail

The ones that are still accessible I’ve grouped under the heading “Gone But Not Forgotten.” I use this rule of thumb: no posts for six months means the blog is inactive. My current worry is for the riders-written Bus Tales from Minneapolis-St. Paul. Stories seem to have dried up starting about a year ago, and there has been one lonely post since August, 2011. I confess I’m reluctant to apply my “rule of thumb” to this website.

It shouldn’t be any surprise that, taken together, these blogs present a wide variety of voices, styles, experiences, interests, viewpoints and concerns. Most of them have been the source for a “This Week’s Featured Link” at least once. What does surprise me is I’m still discovering bus blogs out there that are not new. Just a few months ago, I stumbled across a Maryland blog, Another One Rides The Bus, that Nancy Luse has been posting to at least weekly since early 2008.

My latest discovery came from a lovely story featured in Muni Diaries which linked me to its source, Fog City Notes. Rachel has been “spying on [San Francisco], but nicely,” mostly from the bus, since mid-2004! She may well be the longest running bus blogger on the web.

Other such serendipitous discoveries include Bus Stories: Observations on Life In Transit (from Seattle since March, 2009) and Today’s Bus Story (from Louisville, Kentucky), the latter out there since 2010 and only discovered here within the last year. 

How is it that, despite my regular and persistent ransacking of Google for weekly featured links, it has taken me so long to find these blogs? And how many more of them are out there waiting to be found? I’m hoping some of you will point me to some of those sites I haven’t found yet. And I’m hoping that all of you -- especially you bus riders -- will check out some of these other links for yourselves. There are a lot of good stories out there.