Where's My Bus: A Holiday Bus Hunt Adventure

Jeff Miller commutes year-round and tracks his miles through Community Transit's Smart Commuter Rewards Program. He was awarded "Smart Commuter of 2nd Quarter," honors last year for his efforts, which included his likeness on one of our Community Transit bus board ads. The following is Jeff's account of trying to track down "his" bus.

I commute by bike year-round, and I track all my miles on Community Transit's website.  As long as I cycle into work, my company, Esterline Controls and Communication Systems, pays me a monthly incentive to reduce congestion.  Cycling 4.5 miles each way to and from work gives me two good cardio workouts a workday, which is great for me physically and mentally—it’s my personal gym on wheels!  Because Esterline provides indoor bicycle parking and showers, my bike commute is very convenient.  And believe it or not, it’s just about as fast to ride my bike to work as it is to drive a car.  Biking just makes sense for me.     

One day, I received an email from Community Transit saying I was eligible for the Commuter of the Quarter because I cycled so many consecutive days.  I filled out the questionnaire and was surprised to hear back that I had won!  Eventually, a friend of ours who regularly rides Community Transit took a cell phone picture of my poster on the side of a bus she’d ridden and emailed it to us.  Aha!  Evidence that the poster had made the bus!  My wife decided it would make a great family Christmas picture if she and the kids posed with me in the background on the bus. 

I kept a watchful eye as I commuted by bike and searched for ‘My Bus’, but never saw it myself. If it weren’t for our friend’s picture, we wouldn’t have believed it was actually out there!  Finally I called Community Transit's Marketing Department during the holidays and asked if they could track my picture down.   I thankfully got a call from Community Transit with a few bus numbers that had my picture. Now, I had to get a route and a safe place for a picture. 

The people at Community Transit were extremely helpful and within a few days, provided us with a route number that the bus was running.  

“OK kids, we are packing up and heading to the Lynnwood Transit Center for a Bus Hunt!” 

 We huddled at bus bay where our route was to arrive and waited.  The drivers were all courteous and kind, but they were wondering why we didn’t get on the bus!  We let them know we were waiting for “Jeff’s bus” and showed them the poster as evidence.  The third bus driver let us know the total route time and figured there were a total of 9 or 10 buses that we may have to wait through to check them all out.  We got through about 5 buses and the kids were getting pretty cold.  We were also running out of daylight for a good quality photo, so we decided to leave.

Just then—right on our way out of the Transit center--our youngest yelled, “Dad! – There you are!” 

Did Jeff find his bus? Did the Millers get their family Christmas picture? Stay tuned and find out!