Columnist Susan Snyder: Some days we wade for the bus

Thursday, July 14, 2005 | 8:20 a.m.

Those looking for extra water in the Las Vegas Valley should check the seats of a CAT bus.

OK, OK. Cheap shot, but only depending on the audience. Those riding Citizens Area Transit Route 111 one morning last month would giggle.

I don't ride the bus as a spy. Some days it simply is the better choice for the drive to work. Choices are fabulous. I tune into the iPod and tune out the traffic mess outside.

The trip from Summerlin to Green Valley means walking about a mile to catch Route 204 at Fort Apache Road and Sahara Avenue and heading east across the valley. At McLeod Drive, I hop aboard Route 111, which heads south and turns toward Green Valley Parkway.

From Sahara to Tropicana, commuters pack the 111 shoulder-to-shoulder. Those who board at Sahara might or might not get a seat. Those who embark farther along are lucky to get a standing position that redefines personal space. Some mornings it seems the fares of those riding the 111 could support half the system.

The morning of June 23 was no different, except that four seats remained empty because they were full of water. We're not talking merely damp or squishy, but puddles. A sparrow could have bathed in them.

Each acceleration or stop brought a new torrent from somewhere under the light fixture, which ran down the sides, past a high schooler's poem that spoke of a mermaid and the sea, down the window and into the seats.

"Looks like this one's is falling apart," one rider laughed to her seatmate as both were sprinkled by stray drops splashing off the seat ahead.

Oh, for pity's sake. I switched off the music and began thinking of the calls to make upon arrival at the office. Someone needed to find out why this happens, and it might as well be someone paid to do it.

Ingrid Reisman, the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada spokeswoman who probably is going to stop answering my calls one of these days, said CAT buses typically are used for 12 years or 500,000 miles.

"But a lot of times we drive them for more than 500,000 miles because we are a 24-hour service," Reisman said. "A lot of times we rebuild buses and drive them more."

Drivers inspect their buses each day before hitting the road, Reisman said. If anything seems amiss, they take a different bus. But it's not likely a driver would have noticed the problem with the Route 111 bus June 23.

It was early and still cool that morning, but it was humid. And that, RTC maintenance officials said, is the reason a river ran through Route 111.

On very humid days, condensation from a bus's air-conditioning unit collects in a receiver, which is supposed to drain to the outside. Sometimes those drains are clogged and the water overflows inside the bus. But the bus has to be in operation a while before the overflow, so it wouldn't show up on the driver's pre-route check.

Reisman is quick, and rightly so, to point out that puddled seats are not a typical occurrence. Overall maintenance records are good -- amazing, even, for a 24-hour service.

That big picture is blurred, however, when the only available seat on your bus is full of water. Might be different if a few of those touching shoulders in the aisle wore the suits of decision-makers.