When do you take a bus?

By now I’m supposed to have met my friend. If my bike hadn’t acted up this morning that is. It started but then I turned it off for a minute to close the gate and after that it didn’t start. Several futile kicks later I decided to take an auto rickshaw. And then I saw a bus come that way and decided to hop on. I’m sitting in the bus as I write this.

I’m thinking of when you take an auto and when you take a bus. In order to understand it let me list out the reasons I took a bus today.

Most importantly the bus takes the same route that an auto would have. This is not true for most routes in Bangalore – for most pairs of points in the city the bus connection takes a convoluted route. For various reasons, the most important of which is that it is infeasible to connect every pair of points in a city by a bus taking the shortest route.

Secondly the bus was empty. Effort enough for me to find a seat comfortably. But it’s been a rather bumpy ride so far

Thirdly the likelihood of the bus getting crowded en route was small. This is again an important consideration since a crowded bus move s slowly.

Fourthly there were few stops on the way – another rather important consideration. The reason a bus is slower than other means is that it stops along the way.

Finally and most importantly the bus will drop me close to my destination so it’s only a short walk.

That said my destination is here now so I’m getting off and closing this post.

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