The Love Bus...Exciting and new...come aboard...we're expecting you...
I've been riding this thing for three years now, and it still seems like another world: plush vinyl couches along the sides, dark shades on the windows, huge flat-panel television on the back wall framed on either side by columns of bubbling liquid (lit by a rotating color wheel), high-powered receiver/amplifier, subwoofer, DVD player, satellite television receiver, built-in beverage coolers, mirrors on the ceiling (I kid you...not) with integrated fiber-optic light dots sprinkled throughout, faux wood trim, climate control, laser light show, wall-mounts for an array of long-stem glasses... It's as if this baby were designed as a set for a very specific sub-genre of low-budget film.
And, who knows, maybe it was.
But by day it carries me and my associates to work and back. There were three of these busses initially, with departure times separated by a half-hour. Now there are two. Soon (about three weeks from now), we'll be down to one bus, and at that time it will be a more conventional, non-limo, bus.
And that's ok with me. The only good seats on the bus, in my opinion, are the ones that face forward. For some reason the stopping and lurching of the bus while sitting sideways along the walls gives me nausea. So I always sit along the back off to one side of the television screen or the other.
This puts me near the speakers. Three years ago during the honeymoon phase this made it a very loud environment for practicing the guitar, because back then it was novel to watch an in-flight movie. After the shine wore off, it was constant war coverage on the Faux News Network. But I found a way to be oblivious inside my headphones, which I'll describe another day. (Edit: here's that post.)
Today the A/V equipment doesn't get much use. Most people read a book, or the newspaper, or converse. Perhaps this is because those features don't work anymore: Sexy as the bus looks, it has been the most cantankerous machine that I've ever seen. But it has given me up to 10 hours of guitar practice every week, which I may have not had the discipline to do otherwise.
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8 comments:
pretty posh. always wondered what it looked like. Do you think ridership will diminish with a downgraded bus? Or, are the folks riding now fairly committed to a mass transit solution?
Riders have been dropping off gradually. I think everybody is looking forward to a less finicky bus, though. I don't think many of us are keen on the limo bus, as implemented. The air conditioners, for example, always seem to fail on the hot days.
so does your employer run this shuttle, or is it a charter affair, or both?
either way that is good stuff. we (city of fort collins, my employer) run a 'van-go' program that matches people for a shared commute to various locations up and down the frontrange ...
say, a few years ago someone did a study that looked at the possibility of building a regional rail or light rail line between omaha and lincoln (highway 6 corridor ... the tracks are alread there ;)) - you's ever hear of anything like that? just wondering what the status/outcome of the study was.
i'll venture a guess and say it probably recomended the null alternative.
My employer was founded in Lincoln, but about 3 years ago the whole office relocated to Omaha. Knowing that many families would not move to Omaha right away (or ever) they contracted with the limo bus company for mass transit.
But the whole thing is doomed to be transitory ("evanescent" seems to be a hipper word these days): eventually attrition will kill the whole thing, and we'll be left with no sustainable mass transportation between L & O.
Sad.
Every once in a while someone talks about a train, or a monorail. Nothing real; just talk.
Thanks for reading & posting!
been awating an update on "the Podunk commute chronicles" He he I rode up to Omaha in that thing a few times. The owner of Sandy's loved to treat the employees to casino trips. We put the hurt on the AV for sure ;)
My commute via bike is 1.1 miles, kinda a piece of cake compared to yours.
Recent inter-city travel plans...
http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2006/07/25/local/doc44c61e9996211571380686.txt
That a Gallup operation?
beerorkid, I wondered if someone out there would have ridden one of these. A casino run makes sense. Sometimes we see evidence in the morning that the bus hauled a rowdy crowd the night before (like a budweiser twist-off cap missed by the cleaning crew) but I was never sure what the target market was.
Thanks for the link, sci-fi. It's nice to know mass transit is being discussed. Yup, this carries me to Gallup. The views expressed on this blog do not represent the views of my employer. Just thought I'd give a disclaimer now that I've been outed. :-)
I had a buddy that got stuck in that situation and commuted. It just about killed him doing that everyday.
Good ol' Froschy.
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