Back in the middle decades of the 20th century you could go just about anywhere in the United States by bus. Each small town had a bus station. Buses ran from town to town often several times a day. Bus travel was often cheaper than driving your car. Indeed, many people felt that they didn't need a car, because bus travel was so convenient.

Shortly after World War II, I could travel by bus from Blacky, Kentucky to Hazard, a distance of about 60 miles. The trip took almost two hours because the roads were crooked and narrow and the bus stopped at every little town. The cost was about 75 cents one way.

In the same area there were trains that carried passengers. They stopped at almost as many towns as the buses did but they were faster. The Blacky - Hazard run was just over an hour and cost $1.15 one way. Usually the distance between towns was less by rail because there were fewer curves and the tracks often took a short cut through a tunnel. The old steam driven trains were often much faster than they looked.

You could even ride the train to Lexington where you could catch another train to anywhere in the country.

That area of Kentucky was not the most technologically advanced part of the country. It was sometimes referred to as a "poverty pocket." More affluent areas may have had even better public transportation.

In 1939 we lived in Nashville. For 5 cents you could get on a streetcar, a.k.a. "trolley," and go anywhere in the city. When we returned to Nashville in 1951 the streetcars were gone, replaced by modern buses. The cost had gone from 5 to 10 cents and some routes out to the far reaches of the county were 20 cents. It was a very efficient system. Nashville is laid out like the spokes of a wheel with downtown at the hub. We lived just off one of the spokes, which was named Belmont Blvd. Most of my friends lived on West End Avenue, so I would drop a dime in the box, ask for a transfer and go downtown. I usually got off at Broadway near the old L&N station. There I would catch a bus bound for West End Avenue, or any of the other spokes. No dime needed. I just gave the driver the transfer. The trip home was another dime.

If I wanted to go to Murfreesboro, 32 miles away in another county, I could stay on the city bus until it passed the Greyhound station downtown. I could get off there and for 75 cents I could ride to Murfreesboro in about 45 minutes.

From 1948 until 1951, when I was in my teens, we lived in Fort Pierce, Florida. The train and the bus connected all of the towns all up and down the coast, making it easy to get around.

But most of these train and bus routes are gone. There is no rail or bus service at all where I live. The nearest Amtrak station is hours away by car. Nashville still has a good city bus system as do other larger cities, but in small town America, you usually have only two choices, drive or walk.

I guess that's progress.
Howard