(Charlie Brewer Flickr Photostream/Creative Commons)

In an environmentally-inspired word association game involving the City of Los Angeles, the first words that come to mind most likely range from cars to traffic to smog to Brad Pitt (what?) to fumes and back to cars again. After five years of living here in the City of Angels, and following the most frustrating experience of my life getting from Point A to Point B, I decided to take the Big Blue Bus to Santa Monica last week.

To all seasoned bus-riders: I know this sounds silly…but it was a big deal for me. Given that I did not grow up in a metropolitan setting and haven’t taken a bus since middle school, I had a bit of prep to do beforehand: I mapped out the routes days ahead of time, set aside the exact change needed for the toll, and solicited a seasoned bus-riding co-worker to walk me to the bus stop (and no, he did not hold my hand…or my lunchbox).

And I can’t tell you how pleasant of an experience it was. I had time enough to get through an entire New Yorker magazine, to reorganize my purse, eat dinner, and even had a few leftover moments of unadulterated do-nothing time. I didn’t even know what to do with my hands, so I sat on them! It was bliss.

That said, I thought it was interesting that my newfound friend—Big and Blue and Bus-y—should wind up in the news twice in the same week. Apparently, the Big Blue Bus was both hit up and slapped down in one fell swoop, announcing both its acceptance of federal stimulus funds, totaling just under $13 million, to infuse back into the bus system’s economic ether, along with a fat $21,000 fine for failing to meet diesel emissions testing and maintenance standards.

What? You’d think one would cancel out the other. I’m wondering if the fine will be paid with stimulus dollars? I feel like it’s a legitimate concern, one that calls for our attention, whereas two weeks ago, this just would’ve been white noise to me. I think I had to actually take the first few steps onto Big Blue before I started caring about the news that whirled around it. More than anything, I’m starting to understand just how vast the unseen network of manufacturers and contracts and companies and employees that are affected by bus patronage, which makes the stimulus money a boon, but one to be monitored. It’s our responsibility, Team-Citizenry.

Hopefully we’ll all abandon our cars someday soon…at least every now and then.

takepart and ride along this spring as The City of Burbank unveils the first plug-in fuel cell bus to hopefully change the approach to this bus-business forever.