In my quest to use my position to influence public policy in order to serve my individual needs, I often think about public transportation. The question is thus: why isn’t there a bus whenever or wherever I want one – and how can I make it so?

As the weather has warmed and the sidewalks cleared I have with increasing frequency used the Turnpike ZOOM bus as an alternative to driving myself or bumming a ride from a co-worker for my morning commute between Portland and Biddeford.

It gives me a lot of time to think.

Being a straphanger (or in Maine, very lonely seat sitter) involves a completely different routine from my wait-until-the-very-last-minute-to-jump-in-my-car-and-race-down-the-interstate 20-minute car commute.

With the ZOOM, in order to arrive at my office at 9 a.m. I need to leave my house at 7:20. I walk a few blocks, grab some coffee and a paper, stand on the corner and wait.

In Portland, knowing where to wait is not as easy as it sounds. The bus stops advertise the Portland and South Portland bus routes, but nowhere on the peninsula is there even a hint that a way exists to get between Portland and Biddeford without a car. And once you have figured out where to stand, knowing when to stand there also takes a bit of research. Schedules are not posted nor do the coffee shops open in those early hours carry them.

Before I go further, I know what you’re thinking: who commutes from Portland to Biddeford? Well, I do and I know of others, though how many exactly is not a statistic at my disposal.

As evidence by the relatively large number of people the bus disgorges in Portland coming from Biddeford and Saco, I know there is demand for this service. After I get on a fair number of the seats are still full, but after the bus makes a few more stops in Portland and it’s back on I-295, I’m often the only one left.

The next stop is my stop – the Biddeford Park and Ride. The “park” part seems well used as the lot is chock full of cars. Who their “ride” is, is less clear. When I get off, some time around 8:20 or so, the ZOOM bus leaves empty, save for the driver.

Now here’s the curious part. One would think that there would be a local bus waiting at the Park and Ride – this hub of public transit intended as a place for people to leave their car before traveling on somewhere else – but there’s not.

The drivers always tell me they can call ahead and make sure a bus stops at the Park and Ride (apparently it’s not even a regular stop even though the bus passes by it) but that wouldn’t be for another half-hour, at least.

Every once in awhile I’m informed that there will be a bus inexplicably arriving much sooner – at the Wendy’s a quarter-mile away. I bit once and accepted the offer to be dropped off there. Sure enough a local bus did come almost immediately and I commenced a journey suitable for a Russian novel. The bus left Wendy’s and headed south (Downtown Biddeford and Saco is two miles north) and turned in to the amalgamation of strip malls known as “Shops at Biddeford Crossing.” The bus twisted and turned through the impenetrable maze of roads and parking lots of the retail development before coming to rest in front of the Target store and stopped. For 15 minutes. We sat. No one got on and no one got off.

Finally the bus drove off, only to stop in front of every single store in Biddeford Crossing. Few were even open. No one got on, no one got off. We headed out of Biddeford Crossing headed north (yeah) only to arrive back at the Wendy’s where I got on a half-hour before. Twenty minutes later (including another 10 minute stop in front of a different strip mall) the bus arrived in Downtown Biddeford. It took 50 minutes to travel two miles.

Ever since I have declined the offer for a transfer and instead walk the two miles, which is pleasant and good for me, if a bit dangerous as it is along Route 111, one of the busiest roads in southern Maine (and home to a major hospital), yet the first sign of public transportation usually passes me more than a mile into this walk as it heads in the opposite direction on its way to Wendy’s.

I wonder why more people don’t take advantage of public transportation?