Epenthetic transport
I've been taking a different bus for my near-daily shopping trips this summer, since the usual bus is detoured by street construction and doesn't hit the nearest stop. The alternate route is actually better in most ways: less walking and more riding, gives me a chance to see a wider variety of people in less familiar neighborhoods. Especially the female variety of people. I may stick with this route after the detour is done.

Observed an interesting phenomenon. The Coeur d'Alene Casino runs a private van route into the downtown area, stopping at a few key locations to pick up poor folks who enjoy losing their money to Indians. The Casino van has become an accidental and unsynchronized extension of the Spokane bus system. An older lady got off the Casino van and scurried across the street to the STA stop where I was sitting. While we waited, she explained the system: there isn't an official bus from CDA to Spokane, so she gets from home in CDA to her appointments at the VA hospital by taking a taxi to the Casino, riding the Casino van to the Safeway, then catching the bus to the VA. Complicated but cheaper than owning a car.

Reminds me of some other tacked-on transport arrangements back in the '70s. When I was office manager for a construction company in Okla, I took care of shipping our equipment and materials. UPS and FedEx hadn't developed yet, so the main choices were EFD and Mistletoe Express. EFD began as a route delivering movies to theaters in small towns across Kansas and Missouri; Mistletoe began with a few trucks carrying the Daily Oklahoman paper to cities across Oklahoma. Both had expanded to carry general freight along with their basic mission, but you had to know the details and schedules of each system. You couldn't just call them and expect "anywhere anytime" shipment.
  ¶ 10:06 AM