Daily Tar Heel staff writer Chloe Ladd rode Chapel Hill Transit’s D route. She writes about her adventure in this edition of What’s All the Bus About.
South Campus dwellers may be familiar with the D bus as a last resort to get to class when they’re running late in the morning, while students who live off-campus might rely on the route to get home at the end of the day.
According to some Chapel Hill and Carrboro residents, the D route is an essential part of their daily commutes.
On weekday afternoons, the bus is packed with students, mothers holding infants in their arms and gray-haired individuals clutching briefcases alike.
It drops passengers off at destinations ranging from Franklin Street to Chapel Hill’s Planned Parenthood clinic.
For residents looking to pick up groceries, the D stops at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods Market, as well as one of the town’s Food Lion locations. The D route also stops at many residential neighborhoods and apartment complexes throughout the town.
Whole Foods employee James Eure takes the D bus to get to and from work. He said he doesn’t like to drive his car every day because of the cost as well as the negative impact it has.
“I’m really grateful to have a bus system like this,” he said. “Frankly, it can’t get much better than free.”
The bus is also an important resource for Chapel Hill and Carrboro families.
Chapel Hill resident Trina Williams takes the bus to pick her son up from preschool in Carrboro.
“It gets me downtown quicker than the F,” she said.
Carrboro resident Elizabeth Dicker said she relies on the D bus when she lends her car to her son for the day.
“The D bus is great,” Dicker said. “I love that it doesn’t cost anything.”
Eure said he agrees that a free bus route that connects many distant corners of the town is vital.
“For middle or lower class people like myself, I honestly wouldn’t want it any other way,” he said. “I can’t imagine not having a system like this, because that’s really how our economy thrives.”
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