Hooray for Guilford County, NC!

[mwooldri]

I'm basically posting this after experiencing my first day of rural public transit here in Guilford County (where Greensboro, NC is) and although I doubt the people that run that service will probably read it here, I wanted to share my experience with you.

I had a car wreck last week. Now my wife and I both work and we have a 5 year old son. During the school holidays my father-in-law looks after him so I can get some sleep - I work late evenings/early mornings and my wife works regular day shift. Normally I'd drive him over to my FIL's but with no car that was no longer possible - plus I still needed to get to work. Our initial solution was to a) stay with my father-in-law instead of at our home so he could still watch our son (I get some sleep!), and b) my wife take the car to work in the day when she worked and come back and I take the car to work for my late evening/early morning shift. However that proved to be impossible, because with only a week's notice, my wife's shift changed - she now started 4 hours later, and since the arrangement meant that as soon as she got home I would need to leave, it would either mean that I would have to change my shift at work, or arrange for some alternative way to get into work. It is the latter option that I chose, after learning something very interesting indeed.

Most people in the Greensboro area think that public transit is run by the Greensboro Transit Authority and they operate a handful of fixed bus routes and have some access buses for people who are differently abled. And most people think that's it. However Guilford County, I found out, operates a transit system for people who live outwith Greensboro, High Point and Jamestown (their cities operate transit). It's not like a fixed bus service but it's quite affordable. You have to register with them before you can ride the system and tell them what your transit needs are. For me, I needed employment access. Guilford County operates a 24/7 service where once you're registered with them you tell them what time you need to be at work and what time you leave. There's a 40 minute window (+/- 20 minutes from "departure" and "arrival" times) that you have to factor in. You have to book your trips in advance, at least one full business day between trips (so for travel on Monday you have to book by Thursday, they say you can leave it till noon Friday) and instead of paying the driver, you get billed for the trips you take - $1.60 per trip. Also in case you don't get picked up by your pick up time, the transit system gives out the number for its dispatch center so you can call if you're missed.

I registered with them on Friday and managed to get my first trip booked in on for today. Despite the +/- 20 minute window on both times the vans picked me up on time right outside my driveway and right to the drop-off point at work and back again. It's supposed to be a shared ride service but on each occasion there were no other passengers needing pickup or drop off on my route so I had a straight trip to and from work - I got to work a whole hour earlier than they said I'd get there by... and also was home earlier than they said I'd be. It was a pleasant experience, something that I'm actually looking forward to doing tomorrow. Our "proper" home is also outside Greensboro city limits, but we have a Greensboro postal address, so if the county transit system people will allow me to use their services once I get my car back on the road and get back to our proper home I might think about using their services as my regular means to get to and from work. I hate driving, before I moved to the States I never had to drive (UK public transport's not all that bad actually) and only drove because we lived outwith Greensboro, NC, supposedly with no public transit.

Overall my hats off to Guilford County for providing the service... thank you very much!

Mark.