That was the first thought that came to mind as I stood next to the recently installed Triangle Transit bus stop adjacent to the Columns at Wakefield apartment complex Tuesday at 10 a.m. Then I checked the schedule; the bus doesn’t leave downtown Wake Forest until 9:55, so I was in the clear.
A few minutes later, it pulled up. I got on and a woman got off. Here it was only Day Two of the bus’ existence and already people were using it for errands.
I took the bus home early Monday evening, getting on at Jones Avenue downtown, thinking I’d be the only one riding. But there were several folks aboard, testing it out for the first time. One of those was Carla Wells, heading home with her son Carlton from a shopping trip to Wal-Mart. Wells is extremely pleased with the new service.
“It’ll help me a lot because I don’t drive,” Wells told me. “Getting places, I had to bum rides and I had to depend on other people when it’s convenient for them, so this is really great for me.”
In fact, everyone I spoke to had similar sentiments about the Wake Forest Loop bus and the Express bus to Raleigh, which began running routes Monday.
Getting on at the Wake Forest Library on East Holding Avenue were Claire and Clayton Ramsey.
They moved to Wake Forest about a year ago, in part because of the convenience to Raleigh, only to realize there was no transit leg to this town from Raleigh.
The Ramseys got on the bus to see what it was like, and used it to make stops at their bank on Durham Road at Capital Boulevard, the post office and the library.
“It goes everywhere we need to go,” Claire said. “I planned to spend my summer walking everywhere, and then I broke my toe.”
Also riding was Laurie Barrett and husband and wife Velma Boyd and Mitch Lawson.
Boyd, a former town commissioner, is a physical education teacher at Wake Forest Elementary School on South Main Street. The school is about a block and a half’s walk from the park-and-ride stop where the Wake Forest Loop bus meets the Raleigh Express bus at timed intervals.
“I wanted to see the route and how convenient it would be for me to get to work,” Boyd said. She lives on Ligon Mill Road near a South Main Street stop.
“I’d rather catch the bus,” she said, describing how, living in Durham during her college years, she took the bus everywhere. “I’d much rather leave the driving to someone else.”
Lawson is a member of the Wake Forest Human Relations Council. Getting some type of public town transportation was a big issue at the council’s community leadership summit two years ago, Lawson said.
“I’m just pleased,” he said.
Barrett, too, was pleased, but for different reasons — she’s the director of bus operations for Triangle Transit.
“I was surprised to see so many people on it,” she said when reached by phone later.
She might have been equally surprised Tuesday. After getting on at about 10:10 a.m., I was alone with morning driver Carolyn Williams and Wake Forest resident Saye Zengbecaa, a rising freshman at WF-R who boarded the bus at the high school just to see what the ride would be like.
“I think I’ll be using it pretty much every day of the week,” the teenager said.
Except on weekends. For the time being, both routes are weekday-only.
Zengbecaa said the eventual fare to ride the bus — it’s free at least through December — doesn’t faze him.
“Most people, I think, could go along with that. They could save up right now and probably buy a year’s pass,” he said, pointing to the grocery stores and restaurants accessible along the route.
“Golden Corral — there’s a bus stop right there,” he said, referring to the Wal-Mart stop. “Even teenagers can go out if they don’t have a car. My sister — she goes to work at McDonald’s and now she could apply [to work at] Target.”
At the Target stop, the bus picked up Johnny Williams, who was on his way back home near a South Main Street stop.
“I came here to put in a job application,” he said.
“I would have had to walk. It’s hard to get a ride,” he added, echoing the lament of many residents who hounded town officials over the years about the lack of public transportation.
If he gets the job, Williams said it would be much easier to get to work even if he was scheduled for Saturday or Sunday.
“I could make arrangements for that,” he said. “Nobody really works on weekends, so I could get a ride.”
Aside from the park-and-ride, the stops at Kroger, Lowes Foods and the CVS are on specific scheduled departure times, so if the bus is early, it will stop and wait.
We were early to Lowes, so there was time to run into the Cruizers convenience store and get back on the bus. There, I had time to note the multitude of bus schedules available, except for the Wake Forest Loop itself; they were out. I observed signs declaring no smoking, no drinking, no food and no profanity was allowed and there is no bell to ring — the shuttle-sized bus is small enough it’s sufficient to just say “Stop the bus.”
There was also a little time to speak to the driver, who has been with Triangle Transit for six years.
“I love this area. I love the atmosphere (of) a new route,” she said. “I love the passengers. Some passengers yesterday said they’ve been waiting 10 years for this — they’re very, very excited.”
The bus got under way, turned down Stadium Drive, passing the high school and the seminary, then turned in to stop at the CVS, where the Byron family (Jim, Maggie, Max and Melanie) dashed to get on just before it pulled away.
Jim said he’s learned about the bus from the radio.
“I heard it on NPR,” he said, adding he just wanted to see what it was like and work in a trip to the grocery store while he was at it.
The Byrons, who live off North Wingate, could have boarded closer to home, at the seminary. But the bus stops were installed so ubiquitously, almost nobody noticed.
Soon the bus was almost full. A crowd of friends got on at one of the Juniper Avenue stops, as did Jermaine Johnson, who boarded with son Jermaine Jr.
“We’re just checking it out and seeing how it is,” he said. “It’s convenient; you save gas and everything.”
One of the first to ride the loop was Wake Forest Mayor Vivian Jones, who got on at 9 a.m. Monday.
“I rode the whole route and we picked up nine people,” she said. “Some were going places and some just wanted to ride. One woman and her daughter were going over to Staples.”
Likewise, the Express Route had riders on its first morning as well, Jones added, reporting on a conversation with Eric Landfried, a Triangle Transit official who rode the bus from Raleigh and back.
“Thirteen people were on that bus going to Raleigh,” Jones said. “All were Wake Forest residents going to Raleigh to work. That’s pretty fantastic for the first day.
“It was a very exciting day.”