One of the pleasures I’ve had since resuming bus ridership a couple of weeks ago is seeing the buses so full.
Last winter, I took the bus to work every day. Usually, there were no more than five people on the bus at any one time, including me and the driver. On the ride home, the bus was often half-full. (Or was it half-empty?) There were always seats available.
But for the last two weeks, I haven’t boarded the bus to work with fewer than twelve other passengers on board. The buses (at least some models) have 32 seats, and I find they are usually half-full from downtown to UAF. And on the way home? Crowded, crowded, crowded! If I take an early bus, it’s perhaps only half-full. But if I leave at five o’clock, nearly every seat is taken, and sometimes there’s standing room only.
This morning, for the first time, I saw a man on the bus who looked very well dressed — that is to say, he looked “high class”. Okay, it was hard to tell for sure under his black wool trench coat, but it was a nice trench coat. Both his graying hair and his white beard were neatly kept. He carried a briefcase. He got off at the Butrovich building, so I took him for a UA Statewide administrator, though he could have been heading for the G.I., too. Him I was especially glad to see.
Why am I so delighted to sit on crowded buses among higher-class passengers? Truth be told, it’s not because of the pollution that my fellow would-be drivers aren’t causing — although that’s something to celebrate, too. And it’s certainly not because I anticipate better conversation out of the well-to-do. I’m happy because the bus is starting to be more of a social leveler, bringing together a wider variety of ages, races, educations, and incomes. And that’s important.
How many people of another social class, or race, or educational level are you likely to meet while at work? Probably few. How many in your home, barring your own parents or children? Very few. And how many while driving alone in your car? Absolutely none! For much of our days, most of have no chance to rub elbows with people who seem unlike us, because we lack space in which this can happen. Our stratification and our isolation dim our understanding and dull our sympathies.
I recall, growing up in Anchorage, some ordinance involving expanded bus service came up before the municipal assembly (I think), and Mayor Tom Fink, speaking against it, said, “Everybody I know drives a car.” Well, wonderful. That really spoke more to his own social class and his own isolation from others, than it did to the actual state of affairs.
If the privileged leaders of our community — if our City Council and Borough Assembly members, our captains of industry, our professors, the members of our Chamber of Commerce — got to ride the bus every day, and to rub elbows with their fellow citizens of all classes, no such ignorant statement could escape their lips without consequence. And I expect it would be much harder for us all to hold on to our prejudices.
Kudos! As a once daily rider of the Fairbanks public transit system – this is encouraging news!
[...] blog’s creator, Paul Adasiak, recently wrote an interesting post on increased bus use in his Alaskan city. He’s pleased that more people are riding because it means [...]
“The habitual passenger must adopt a new set of beliefs and expectations if he is to feel secure in the strange world where both liaisons and loneliness are products of conveyance. To “gather” for him means to be brought together by vehicles. He comes to believe that political power grows out of the capacity of a transportation system, and in its absence is the result of access to the television screen. He takes freedom of movement to be the same as one’s claim on propulsion. He believes that the level of democratic process correlates to the power of transportation and communications systems. He has lost faith in the political power of the feet and of the tongue. As a result, what he wants is not more liberty as a citizen but better service as a client. He does not insist on his freedom to move and to speak to people but on his claim to be shipped and to be informed by media. He wants a better product rather than freedom from servitude to it. It is vital that he come to see that the acceleration he demands is self-defeating, and that it must result in a further decline of equity, leisure, and autonomy. ”
Ivan Illich “Energy and Equity” 1974
The borough is contemplating another bus route, between Ester and the university. Given the population increases here in the last decade, a bus line would likely be well-used, particularly in the winter. However, that would depend on the timing of the route, too: last time they tried this, the bus came at odd times, and so no one rode it. Alaska is very vehicle-dependent; reducing the number of vehicles and increasing the options for public transportation is an excellent thing, in my opinion.
I lived in Seattle for six years, and the bus system they’ve got there is GREAT. Buses every ten minutes, going everywhere within the city. All kinds of people on the bus. I almost always felt safe, even at night and even in isolated routes–the bus driver was there. And it was often a fun environment. If I wanted to tune out, I could, if I wanted to socialize, that was pretty easy, too. It gave me a time of day when I could read, or think, and not have to DO something else. I read the Name of the Rose going to and from work.
in seattle last summer i rode a bus into downtown from nearby my brother’s place in south everett for a business meeting. coming back in the early evening, i was amazed at what an easy and pleasant experience it was. the driver effortlessly, expertly threaded her way through downtown for a few blocks, then zoom! onto the freeway, in a transit lane the whole way, 20 miles north in less than 30 minutes, and i just had to cross the street and walk up a little hill back to the house.