More from Mr. Singer:

Today was a blissful zero; I didn’t even leave my house. This afforded me the time to watch an old movie (the original Terminator–Bus Nerd’s idea) and this old-school video. If you don’t want to play it, here’s what you need to know:

Sach: “Yusef won’t you tell me where the honeys is at?”
Yusef: “They on bus stops … “

Sadly, the bus chick pick-up artist is one of the few who is aware (and taking advantage) of this phenomenon. Fellas: Don’t let him win due to lack of competition.

On Wednesday, Streetsblog linked to this article by Richard Jackson, author of Urban Sprawl and Public Health. Some excerpts:

The message of the book is simple: our car-dependent suburban environment is killing us. Planners, most notably the New Urbanists, have been saying this for decades, but Jackson’s got the statistics. And the charts. And the tables. In his book and in lectures nationwide, Jackson demonstrates–technically, like a doctor–how sprawl is at least partially responsible for a full range of American diseases, from asthma to diabetes, from hypertension to depression. The reason that we spend one dollar out of six on health care is very preventable, and yet we claim some of the worst health statistics in the developed world.

You say, “The modern America of obesity, inactivity, depression, and loss of community has not ‘happened’ to us. We legislated, subsidized, and planned it this way.” When did you first start to make the connection between the design of our national landscape and the health of our citizens?
In July 1999 the head of the CDC invited his dozen directors to the central office to work on a paper about the ten leading diseases of the twenty-first century. I’m driving over there, and as always I’m thinking about pesticides, herbicides, cancer, and birth-defect clusters–you name it. I’m late, stuck in traffic on Buford Highway, voted one of the ten worst streets in North America. It’s a seven-lane road surrounded by garden apartments, mainly for poor immigrants, with no sidewalks and two miles between traffic lights. It’s 95 degrees out, 95 percent humidity. I see a woman on the right shoulder, struggling along, and she reminds me of my mother. She’s in her seventies, with reddish hair and bent over with osteoporosis. She has a shopping bag in each hand and is really struggling.

I lived in Houston, Texas for eight years. I loved many things about the H, but its build environment was not one of them. Consistently one of the fattest cities in the country, it is also (not coincidentally) one of the most sprawling and car-centric. (Of course, the amazing food might also be a contributing factor. What I wouldn’t give for a taste of boudin right about now. But I digress.) Sidewalks are rare, roads are wide, and strip malls abound. It’s hard to get anywhere in Houston (grocery store, drug store, library, park, cafe–shoot, even the bus stop) walking, and those brave enough to attempt it are often forced into ditches at the side of the road.

On the other hand, it’s 85 degrees there today.

David Whitley, a sportswriter at the Orlando Sentinel has had enough of the “thrown under a bus” (as in, “He didn’t want to take the blame for the loss, so he threw his teammates under the bus.”) cliché. Whitley would like everyone–not just athletes–to give it a rest, already.

The Bus-Throw is slang for unfair criticism, usually for personal gain. As far as descriptions go, it certainly makes the point.

“Considering buses weigh 25,000 pounds, we do not recommend anyone be thrown under one,” said Bill Fay, communications specialist for Lynx.

The phrase offers an outstanding visual. And like cliches, it was clever the first two dozen times you heard it.

But eventually all cliches stop taking them one game at a time so they circle the wagons and throw out the record books and feel like kissing your sister so much that even John Madden stops using them.

Besides, Whitley wants to know, why is the bus so unfairly targeted?

Why not throw people under a car or a steamroller or John Daly? There were 77 deaths nationwide from bus accidents in 2004, the most recent year on record. That pales in comparison to the number of people run over by cars, motorcycles, bicycles and runaway shopping carts.

It appears, at least to this bus chick, that the hardworking (and underappreciated) form of transportation has somehow managed to get thrown under itself.

The folks at Boystowners share a story about a successful bus mack (which, it seems, has resulted in some good, old fashioned bus luh):

We’ve all heard stories about the CTA, the cramped morning commutes, late buses/trains and obnoxious riders. Have you ever heard of falling in love?

It happened for two lucky Boystown residents (they’re now in Wicker Park) on the No. 146-Inner Drive/Michigan Express from downtown to Belmont…

Their advice for finding love on the CTA:

One: Be open to meeting people on the “L” or bus. If you’re not, you could miss out on a new friend or a possible love match.

Two: If you do find love, even if it’s at a bus stop, hold on to it

They always say you’ll find love where you least expect it. We better remember to do our hair the next time we ride the bus.

Don’t make me say I told you so.