Mourning the Red Line

We had an awkward relationship of push and pull.

There was a point in time where I hated it so much, I preferred to walk 5 miles home. There was puke, a wiry more-man-looking transvestite, many drunks and a guy I swore was about to hijack the bus. There were loud teenagers, people playing their cell phone rings over and over again to simulate a song, teenagers playing dice on the floor, broken air conditioners, broken-down engines, handwritten signs, surly drivers and the overwhelming number of surprisingly nice ones.

And then there were the guys: the guy who stared directly at me for miles, the guy who brought a loud radio on board (and the driver who never told him to turn it off), the guy who borrowed someone's cell phone to tell someone he promised he was going to buy a whole PILE of pills if they'd just give him one tonight, and the many, many guys who have asked me what I'm reading, if I'm a student and what my tattoos mean.

10 years ago it was the bus I had to take. 4 years ago it was the bus I refused to take (after the previously-mentioned almost-hijacking). 3 years ago it was the bus I realized was the only real option to take to do almost everything I needed to do.

Over the past 4 years it has been detoured through every aspect of the major construction of the light rail line. The Red Line rumbled over rough streets sometimes sending every rider airborne. It navigated down narrow lanes that Honda Civics had trouble inching through. Bus riders waited at bus stops in the middle of the summertime that sometimes consisted of nothing more than a pile of dirt.

It seemed that the Red Line was the everyman's bus. You could take it to or from jail or to the airport. I've seen pilots, students, ex-cons, prostitutes, nurses, lawyers, homeless, drunk, sober, fat, skinny, parents with screaming kids and parents whose kids always said please and thank you. I would look at the single moms wrangling their 2 or more children and see me, my sister and my mom riding the bus in Reading, PA. I like to assume that I was the well-behaved kid who never said a word. Sometimes the best came out in people when then told the driver to wait for someone running for the bus or the worst when a healthy 20-yr old wouldn't get up for a limping elderly person or pregnant woman.

But now...poof! The Red Line is gone—never to be ridden again. The light rail has replaced it's heart and 2 other bus lines have picked up its head and it's tail. As much as I dreaded the potential smell and experience that might occur on every ride, I'm looking back on it like I just graduated from some university. After a quiet morning ride on the antiseptic and bright light rail, I craved the darker moodiness of the Red Line rumbling down Washington Street towards 16th. The bright interior lights of the Metro make it almost impossible to watch the desert sunrise and without a detour to the airport, there's no point where everyone looks up as we take the bridge over the freight rail yard or Salt River.

All of the ickiness about the Red Line ended up being what ultimately has endeared itself to me. Something like an unappealing body part that you eventually get used to and then realize that it kind of defines you. Referring to myself as having "bus hands" just doesn't seem to be the same without the Red Line. It seems I invented that term because of the Red Line and the number of times I've seen people cough and sneeze into their hands and then grab the exact same pole I need to touch.

Germy, icky, run-down, loud, close, smelly, warm, cold, obnoxious, generous, kind, rude, annoying, frustrating and genuine.

Bye bye Red Line.