St. Petersburg Transit Chief Gives Up Car For a Month-Long Listening Tour on Buses

[Lurrell] Alston told Miller he'd ridden PSTA buses for years. Miller wrote feverishly in his notebook as Alston spat out complaints and suggestions. Some were little things that Miller promised to consider. The buses needed buttons instead of a pull cord to request stops, Alston said. They needed more straps for standing riders.

But they also needed broader, more frequent services, Alston said. He complained that he spent as many hours waiting on the buses as he did riding them.

Before his experiment, Miller had ridden the bus four or five times a year. But now, as he recounted experiences from his first two weeks, he could sympathize with the riders' frustrations.

He missed part of his son's baseball game in Seminole because the buses couldn't get him there efficiently. He learned to carry an umbrella -- which he snagged from the PSTA lost and found -- after he got stuck in a storm walking from the bus stop. He was trapped under the awning at the Starbucks at 900 Fourth St. N, waiting for his wife to take him the rest of the way home. He even started waking up hours earlier to get to work on time.

But for him, it's temporary. Sure, he plans to ride the buses more often, even after the month is up. But most riders don't have the luxury of choosing between a bus and a car. They depend on PSTA and suffer its flaws every day.