Public transportation is a public service—like libraries and municipal water—and riding the bus shouldn’t feel any more degrading than checking out a book or drinking from the tap. Too often, it is. There are so many small things that make riding the bus unpleasant—things that are unnecessary, that don’t really save any money or make the service and more useful—things that would get fixed if people with power took riders’ time, comfort, and convenience seriously.

Centro doesn’t value its riders’ time. The system is designed to be able to get a person from anywhere in the urbanized area to anywhere else, but it’s not designed to do that within any set period of time. Buses are routinely late and for no good reason. Operators watch riders while they pay the fare instead of pulling away from the curb once a rider gets on board, buses don’t go fast enough between stops, bunched buses rumble along as a pair. All of those little delays could just go away if Centro’s culture prioritized speed, but it doesn’t, and that’s because Centro does not prioritize riders’ time. The schedule might say that you can get to your sister’s house by 2:00 so that she can leave the kids with you and get to her meeting at 2:30 on time, but the schedule’s no guarantee. The schedule might tell you to drop what you’re doing and get to the bus stop at 7:47, but you could end up waiting there until 7:59 and that’s just how it goes.

And if a bus is going to be 12 minutes late, Centro should let you know. They have the technology to know where every bus is on its run and to predict how far away it is from any point. In other cities, the transit authority uses that technology to display real-time arrival info at the bus stop so that riders know when to expect their ride. This makes the waiting less stressful because you know that a bus really is coming, and you know when to expect it. Putting real-time arrival displays at bus stops wouldn’t do a thing to make the buses show up sooner, but it would make waiting at the stop less stressful for riders, so Centro should do it.

And while you’re waiting, you should at least be comfortable. Why are so many bus stops such unpleasant places to spend time? So many are just a sign in the ground with no protection from the sun or rain, nowhere to sit, and no easy place to stand when there’s snow on the ground (and forget rolling up to most of Centro’s ‘handicap accessible’ stops in a wheelchair). If the bus is the best way for you to get where you’re going, then this is just one of the things you have to deal with, but you shouldn’t have to, and Centro should care enough to do something about it.

Centro can get away with ignoring this stuff because none of it is likely to change the material considerations that make public transportation a practical or impractical means of getting around town for any particular person, so none of it is likely to make someone change their decision about whether or not to ride the bus. But that really shouldn’t matter because these are the kinds of things that make a person feel respected or not, and no one deserves to be disrespected just because they’re riding the bus.