The Twenty-Three

The best RTA route in Cleve­land is the 23. This is my third year rid­ing it, and I could set my watch by the morn­ing bus; if I wore a watch. The dri­vers are friend­ly, deft and will put on the brakes if they see some­one hoof­ing it after them, and the bus does­n’t stop every two feet like the 81 [that isn’t a knock on the 81].

For the most part no one talks on the bus. This is the unspo­ken rule on every pub­lic tran­sit sys­tem I’ve been on [NYC, Chica­go], when per­son­al space is con­strict­ed, eye con­tact and speech become inva­sions. Lots of peo­ple rid­ing the bus I’ve been see­ing for three years but hard­ly know them. I’m going to run an exper­i­ment. Instead of being civ­il and unob­stru­sive, I’m going to start being reserved­ly friend­ly to the famil­iar faces. If this goes well, I will increase my friend­li­ness incre­men­tal­ly until the bus is full of joy­ous singing, improp­er danc­ing and sundry gal­li­vant­i­ng. Yeah right. It might end up mak­ing Cleve­land a lit­tle less crab­by though. Worth a shot.