Can I get there from here?

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“Can this bus get me down around the Harbor?”

That seemed to be the question of the day for bus drivers at stops throughout Baltimore on Friday, as passengers scratched their heads and planned their morning commutes.

The Charm City Circulator — the city’s (usually reliable) free bus service — was the transportation of choice for many people who said they were wary of driving during the much-anticipated Grand Prix races. But riding the bus wasn’t hassle-free.

The circulator normally arrives every 10 minutes, and is rarely late — you could set your watch by it, one rider said. But Friday morning, the wait was three or four times that long.

“We waited for 41 minutes,” said Amber Reisi, who boarded with me at Fort Avenue in Federal Hill at about 9:30 a.m.

Even so, Reisi and others on the bus generally accepted the inconvenience — after all, they’d heard warnings for weeks about imminent traffic disruptions. I waited with a large handful of other passengers, none of whom seemed at all surprised.

Riders are advised to “expect major delays” on the Purple, Orange and Green routes, lines that are heavily populated even without the extra commuters.

Officials also put out the disclaimer that NextBus, the circulator’s online service to track when the next bus will arrive, will be inaccurate the entire weekend.

The circulators also didn’t follow normal routes Friday, and won’t throughout the weekend. Maryland Transit Administration, on the other hand, seemed to be running on schedule. While I waited for the Purple circulator, two MTA buses rolled through my stop.

“It’s crazy out there,” said a rider named Erica, who declined to give her last name. “You don’t know where to catch the bus. Everything is detouring. All the buses turned into shuttle buses, just taking people the only ways they can.”

Despite the altered routes and impossible-to-predict arrival times, many people said waiting on the corner with their fellow downtown-bound neighbors was a more appealing option than sitting behind their own steering wheels.

Their collective sigh of relief was practically audible as a purple-striped bus finally appeared in the distance. Once inside, the blast of AC was a refreshing change after standing in unrelenting direct sunlight.

Many riders said they understood how important the race is to Baltimore, so they’re happy to share their city for the weekend. What’s good for Baltimore, they said, is good for them.

“It sucks, but it’s just for a few days,” Reisi said. “You just have to go along with it. I’ve seen bus routes cancelled altogether, so this isn’t that bad.”

As the bus ride stretched on for a laughable length of time, passengers loosened up and accepted the situation. And once our rerouted course took us past Oriole Park at Camden Yards, where parking lots were packed with Grand Prix trucks and hospitality tents, riders seemed content to chatter about the race and press their faces against the window as cars zoomed by.

The we’re-all-in-this-together mindset became contagious.

“We’re all just chillin’ now,” said Shy Lofton, who had been riding for well over an hour. “It’s an inconvenience, but it’s exciting too.”

So, what’s a Baltimoron to do? Take a chance on bus delays, or on traffic congestion and detours? Whether mass transit or driving is the smarter choice depends on several factors: where you’re going, the time of day, your navigational abilities and maybe sheer luck.

Several people working in the heart of the Inner Harbor said they walked to the office Friday or took the circulator as close as it could get.

As for those who defied the warnings of trafficpocalypse and hopped behind the wheel, results were mixed.

Some said driving wasn’t exactly the death sentence they feared it would be. Many offices closed or relocated for the day; others gave employees liberal leave. Despite some inevitable congestion, there were considerably less cars on the road than I expected.

Many people said traffic wasn’t too unbearable – they simply took alternate routes to avoid the busiest streets, and arrived to work on time.

Others weren’t so lucky. Some people, especially those coming from counties north of the city, said their commutes took twice as long. Others complained that officials directing traffic seemed confused, their GPS system was useless and parking was anything but a guarantee.

I’ve read in national news media that maybe, if we’re lucky, this race could “put the charm back in Charm City.”

Well, the economic benefits remain to be seen, but if the race was cause for a diverse group of harried commuters to spend an hour laughing and taking pictures together in the back of a bus, that’s about as charming as it gets. And that’s good enough for me.

To see an interactive map of the Grand Prix, including all road closures, click here.