Pluses of buses
You talk to a wider range of people. You up your promptness quotient. You escape road rage (there are still plenty of stupid actions to be seen, but you’re riding invulnerable in a virtual tank). You can read, while waiting and while riding. Capital Metro has a great feature to help plan those routes that are unfamiliar. Enter departure and destination addresses, and the trip-planner page returns bus routes and schedules. A minus is that, contrary to popular belief, even the most frequently scheduled lines are pretty much standing-room-only during the periods when most people need them most. On those, during rush hour it’s often best to walk a few blocks “upstream” to have a better chance of getting a seat. A bus acquaintance and I have been sharing the November Vanity Fair, torn in half to save weight. My half today had the big country-music feature, employing one of the top three favorite Texas photo backdrops: not bluebonnets, not the Capitol, but the Alamo, with Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Cindy Cashdollar, Stephen Bruton, and Joe Ely among those posed in front of it.
Hmm, I never have to stand for more than one stop on the 3, although I occasionally do on the tiny little busses they use for the 30.. Perhaps I’m not going during the peak times of day, though.
Certainly it’s the rare bus that isn’t busy during peak hours. I’d think that the Ben White leg of 30/328 would be quite busy. I always think of 3 Manchaca as not quite so busy as South Congress/Lamar, Oltorf crosstown, Riverside, and, the busiest one of all, Dove Springs. That’s the one that passes people by without picking them up most often. But it always depends on where (usually how close to downtown) and at what hour, in my experience.