Archive Page 2
This transfer is no good
Long, long ago, before the buses had electronic fare boxes, drivers issued paper transfers and had to check them visually when they were presented. Also, long, long ago MTC, as it was called then, didn’t have its own police force. It hired off-duty police from various departments.
Sleeps with the buses
About 7 years ago, I rode the entire route from downtown St. Paul to its layover back them near the Uptown Rainbow. I was really pregnant at the time, and few people will give up their seats for a pregnant woman. Strangely, this packed bus, with people standing in the aisle had one open seat- [...]
Here to straighten you out
Back in the days of Snelling Garage, I was in the drivers’ room when two of Metro Transit’s police came in and started using the phone. I listened for a bit and got curious enough to ask questions when they were done. It seems two youths of about fourteen years of age were riding the [...]
He is a bank robber
Yesterday the following message was sent to all Metro Transit busses at about 3PM: If a person boards your bus covered with red dye report it to Control. He is a bank robber. No mention of wether he had a gun or any other weaponry.
Suburban bus raid
Police raided my suburbian bus one morning. I used to ride the 766 in from Noble Park and Ride in Brooklyn Park. Everyday I would notice the same upper-middle class bus riders. One morning there was a man in the back corner of the stretch bus that I had never seen before.
More than an unfamiliar face
I use to take the #9 bus to work. Each morning the bus had only about 25 passengers, all the same faces, getting off each morning at their stops, paper in hand, and clutching empty coffee cups. On one Friday morning, there was an unfamiliar face. I walked half way through the bus, and took [...]
Who needs soap operas?
I get to ride in with the “guests” staying at the Ramsey County Correctional Facility to Downtown St Paul every morning, cuz I live about one mile up the route from the jail. I ride home with ‘em in the afternoons too, four days a week. I eavesdrop on all kinds of stories about carousing, [...]
Plastic Ice Cream Pail
I did 11 years on the Number 5 bus, so it’s difficult to know where to begin. When the young man punched me in the face? When the drunk puked on my shoes? Time blurs some of the drama those unpleasant experiences.
