The bus.

I know what you're thinking.

Jerome Bettis. Think again.

I can't believe the buses that I have taken in the years I have been a Pittsburgher, since 1957, are marked for elimination.

Elimination. That's like wipe out, annihilate, kill, void, destroy. Gone.

It doesn't seem possible a city can survive with the current plan of just wiping out certain routes. The hardships for so many, not me in particular, can't be measured.

Cutbacks make sense. Eliminating one or more stops on a route, especially when they are within a block or two of each other, and walkable, makes sense.

I have used bus service throughout my working life in Pittsburgh. It started with streetcars and a favorite driver named Ralph.

He came to my mother's funeral, this trolley-car operator whose last name I never knew. Some bus drivers call me by name. It's nice.

All the buses, and there are quite a few, on my route are in the elimination column.

I've climbed aboard in wind, rain, snow and sunshine for 50 years. I have depended on it. Obviously so did others sharing standing-room-only.

My babysitter depended on it, often having to connect with two buses before arriving at my home each day at 8 a.m. for almost 12 years.

We often had just enough time to wave to each other as she arrived and I left to catch my own bus to work Downtown.

It was hectic, but it was doable.

They want to do away with doable. And more than that, necessity. What are people going to do?

The heart of the matter is people. Eliminating buses means eliminating people.

Is that considered progress?

I have never minded the jostling, the standing, the heat, the cold, the smells, or even the rubbish some people leave behind.

Well, maybe the dirty diaper. But once in 50 years, that's not bad. Mostly it has been pleasant and convenient.

I've complained, naturally. A driver doesn't stop. A bus never comes, or comes way early. That too was infrequent in 50 years, and hardly worth mentioning.

I know you from the 77C, right? And a conversation begins.

I have always found it to be a great way to know real people, to observe and learn from good and bad conduct, although quite honestly I have never had a truly bad experience on a bus in all these years.

I've had maybe two or three drivers I reported to their bosses: one for incredible rudeness to older citizens who boarded his bus (before I became one of those senior citizens) and two for rides which to me seemed dangerous due to speed. My claim was proven to be right.

Drivers aside, the familiarity we build with regular riders on the same routes day after day is a bonus which gives us a sense of belonging to a community -- whether it's the workforce headed for Downtown stores and offices, or the students and professors at the universities.

We connect on the buses. That's beyond using them to get us to our place of work or play.

Cut back. Charge more. It's understandable. In my profession, which has eliminated more newspapers than I can count in the past 50 years, a few bus stops disappearing, while inconvenient, is not unreasonable.

It is unthinkable that a city trying to lure tourists and keep people living here happily is even contemplating hanging them all out to dry -- due, I might add, to previous mismanagement and bad decisions.

For some years I have said seniors should kick in their share -- full fee or partial -- but something. Most of us would be willing.

We need to get where we are going, and pay for it. Without bus service many people will lose their jobs.

But more is lost if total eliminations come to pass.

There has to be a better game plan. Maybe this is about The Bus after all.

He was a winner. I'm not sure we'll be as lucky.