How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bus

Not 20 minutes after the Amtrak clerk said our train would be at least an hour late -- "probably much more" -- I almost caved. "We could rent a car and drive home," I thought, and maybe even muttered. "Nobody has to know."

I had just hit my breaking point.

My husband, Steve, and I were pushing our two daughters along a searing sidewalk built precariously close to a major road, beer-bottle shards crunching underfoot. We were in Illinois' state capital of Springfield, just 70 miles from our Normal home, and I was on my 20th car-free day.

In the pit of my stomach I could feel the onset of failure.

But we pushed on. We pushed past the track-marked girl sitting two booths from us at McDonald's. We pushed to a shaded grassy hill in view of the capitol building. Eventually we pushed into a hotel for the night, where we imbibed on the floor of the bathroom, our 2-year-old finally asleep in a bed and her baby sister snoozing in a complimentary playpen.

This isn't starting well, you might think. A suburban housewife gives up driving for one month and comes away reporting that it can't be done. How helpful is that?

Yes, the laundry list is long. Food costs are exorbitant, a problem for households with only one steady paycheck. Public transportation often is difficult and confusing. Vacationing is expensive and, as you might have gathered, hellish.

But we did it. Coated in grime, feet aching and exhausted, we made it home without an automobile. And suddenly, this experience seemed a little more like adventure and a little less like failure.

Getting started: "Green A" bus to downtown Bloomington, 8:10 a.m., July 1

My first bus trip rocked.

My older daughter and I headed to the farmers' market for as many vegetables as we could cram in our backpacks. After shopping, I set Carolyn free on the lawn of the city square. Within minutes, she met Dana, also 2, who seemed just as interested as my daughter in climbing a sign marking the downtown landmark.

Dana turned out to belong to Sara Freeman, an assistant professor of theater at Illinois Wesleyan University, a former resident of Madison and Chicago, and part of a one-car household. This is too easy, I thought. My first day and I'm already meeting kindred spirits, automotively speaking.

The thing is, Sara would tell me later, owning just one car isn't that big a deal. She sometimes walks. Her husband rides his bike. They carpool or trade off. They have to be conscious of who has the car when, but it hasn't really been a problem.

Like others who live in the twin cities of Bloomington-Normal, Sara sees the divide. There are people who live in the older neighborhoods, closer to the downtowns, and others living in newer, often swankier homes east of Veteran's Parkway, this city's commercial artery to Wal-Mart and all its big-box buddies. One set thinks, "Ugh, I have to go out to Veteran's." The other thinks, "Thank god I don't have to go downtown."

At the university, there's talk about sustainability, how to reach students and the general public. Sara, who is pregnant with her second child and thinking maybe her family needs another car, said she wishes this area had enough people to make a car-share program work. That way, she said, she wouldn't have to go car shopping -- and I wouldn't get stuck during a day trip to Springfield.

En route: "Pink D" bus to Meijer Super Store, 8:58 a.m., July 10

Ten days into this experiment, I knew one thing for sure -- the stroller is the most hated object in all of bus world. This, for me, was made much more frustrating by my fumbling attempts to steer my extra-long double stroller. To make matters worse, I sometimes require the dreaded wheelchair lift. A friend of mine with two young children said I shouldn't let it bother me: "It's the same as a wheelchair," she said. I suppose that's true. "Having kids is like being handicapped," she added.