Taking a Fort Worth Bus to the Tandy Hills

Today a bus riding aficionado talked me into riding Fort Worth mass transit, in the form of a natural gas-powered bus, for the first time. The destination was Tandy Hills Park to do my usual Saturday mountain hike. The distance, about 4 miles.

The bus arrived right on schedule, the #21 bus, pulled up right at 11;52 am. The bus aficionado gave me his pass to swipe through the ticket machine while he bought another ticket for $1.75. He thought it was a round trip ticket. This turned out to be erroneous, we later learned.

I have been on mass transit buses previously in other locales, that being Seattle and my old home zone of the Skagit Valley. In the Skagit Valley they were called SKAT buses, due to it being Skagit Area Transit. Bus rides in the Skagit Valley were free, back then, paid for by a slight increase to the sales tax.

In Seattle the buses are HUGE, long articulated things, meaning the bus is so long, two halves are connected by an accordion like thing so it can go around corners. The Fort Worth bus was quite small and noisy. I loved how the bus zoomed along, like some sort of ride in a theme park. At the most there were 8 passengers on the bus with me today. My last time on a Seattle bus, last summer, zipping through the Seattle bus tunnel, it was standing room only.

On the way to the Tandy Hills the bus stop exit point was not were I was told it would be. This resulted in about a half mile walk on city streets to get to the park. We hiked around for about an hour, then hurried back to Oakland Street to catch a return bus. Got to the bus stop ahead of when the bus should get there.

15 minutes went by. No bus. Called the bus center. After about 5 minutes on the phone we were told the bus was late and had just left the transit station. That meant it should reach where I was standing in about 5 minutes, which it did.

Getting back on the bus I swiped my pass. Then the bus aficionado swiped his and was told it was a one-way ticket, that he'd need to buy another ticket or a transfer pass for 75 cents. The bus aficionado somehow thought that $1.75 got him a roundtrip ticket to go 4 miles each way. When it actually cost $3.00 for a roundtrip ticket. This seemed a bit expensive to me, all things considered. I think I paid 50 cents the last time I took a Seattle bus from the north end to downtown, with Seattle buses being free in the downtown zone. When the bus aficionado bought the $1.75 ticket the driver asked if he wanted a transfer pass, to which the bus aficionado, not knowing what a transfer pass was, said no. With a transfer pass, apparently one could do the 4 mile round trip on one ticket. It all seemed way too confusing to me.

So, the bus aficionado asked me if I had 2 bucks. All I had was 2 ten dollar bills. After way too much brouhaha the super smiling sweet lady bus driver said she'd pay for it. And then we were on our way. A short distance later a lady got off the bus with a huge number of bags filled with groceries. The super sweet always smiling lady bus driver helped the lady get her bags off the bus, helping her get mobile on the sidewalk.

Early on in today's bus ride adventure I was thinking I'm liking this. I always do the driving, it was nice to be able to look around. And the ride was fun. But, by the end of the bus ride adventure it seemed like something I would likely not soon repeat. Even though the bus drivers were very nice.

But, it was a good hike around the Tandy Hills. I saw another illusive Celestial and the sky has now returned to total blue from that unfortunate wildfire haze we had going on a couple days ago.

Ride a Seattle bus with me through the Seattle bus tunnel last summer in the YouTube video below (note all the buses in the tunnel, all as crowded as the one I was on, unlike today's bus ride)....