Tuesday evening I commuted home from work on Valley Metro, the Phoenix bus system. Typically I have a book or magazine open, reading some and gauking out the window. The buses are a little loud when up to street speed and not much more quiet even when at idle at a stop light, but one can hear conversations in and around their half of the bus.
In the back half of the bus I sat a row in front of a young high school aged girl. As the Route 24 bus moved south on 24th St there is a section of road just to the West of Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. The road makes wide sweaping S curves before heading straight again under the I-10 overpass.
As the bus entered the S curve we were at about a 40-45mph clip, which is normal for the area. Typically the driver on this route will let off the gas and probably dip just below 40mph to negoitate the S-curve. This evening though, the driver did not slow up a bit, but kept the bus driving in the 45mph range. A little roller coaster effect was felt and the G's on the body were similar to those when the bus comes to a rapid stop at a freshly changed intersection light.
Yes, I wanted the driver to slow down a bit, however I had faith the driver has probably driven this route 6 times already in the day and possibly 30-40 times per week. The young lady behind me was not so confident in the driver's skill. She too wanted him to slow down. She announced to the back half of the bus, "He better slow down." I turned my head around and responded to her with agreement, "I hope he does, at least a little."
Upon her awareness I recognized the concern she felt, apparently she had the green light (pun intended) to unload more of her thoughts on the driving habits of the Metro employee. "I don't want to get hurt. He better slow the 'f-bomb' down... If we get in a wreck I am going to sue this bus, this town, for a million dollars... I'll be rich."
What started as a mutually concerned dialogue between to complete strangers, quickly fell apart into a annoying monologue as I spun back around in my seat and stopped acknowledging she was in the seat behind me. The girl finally stopped talking. Either she got tired of hearing herself complain or maybe she looked around to see no one was paying any attention to her.
The above clip was an observation made. It was not surprising but it was disheartening to hear the first reaction of someone in this situation (age irrelevant), is the programmed, "sue".
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MoreThanCorn,
Welcome to the Valley Metro!!! I have been proud that you have decided to ride the bus (and bike commute, of course!) regularly!!!
It can sometimes be quite the social anthropological study session riding the bus! I grew to love public transportation during my two-year visit in the Czech Republic (where public transportation if fabulous), and I continue to do it here in AZ.
The Phoenix area, and Arizona in particular, really is "car territory" meaning public tranportation isn't nearly as good as it is in other large cities. For most places, a car is the fastest, most efficiant way to go (one reason are traffic sucks here :) As a consequence, you often have a rather motley crew of characters riding the bus, and sometimes the company can be quite entertaining (thank goodness for portable music-listening devices--he he he :)
For my job, I work downtown in Phoenix and have the luxury of riding one of the Express Routes, which basically picks me up at home and drops me off a block from work! The Express crowd is a different crowd, since the riders are all business professionals who work downtown: lawyers and their staff at the private firms, government employees (like myself), etc.
I actually met my current roommate riding the bus! He had just bought a place and I was looking for roomies; next thing we knew I was renting a room from him (in fact MoreThanCorn will soom be occupying another room in the house, too!!).
I am a strong proponent of public transportation. A lot of people want to complain about it, but very few want to do anything about it. When MoreThanCorn started working at his current job, he immediately started either riding his bike or the bus to work! My roomate still does about 3X a week. I do it at least 3X a week, depending on whether or not I ride my bike in, too (MoreThanCorn and I are both cyclists/triathletes).
I once saw a great ad on the back of a bus. It read: "Three quarters of you complain about traffic. Five quarters can make a difference" (in the Greater Phoenix Area, a local bus route costs $1.25).
Have a good day. And if you are not having a good day, and driving home from work, please try not to take it out on that cyclist riding on the side of the road...it could be one of us ;-)
thanks!
Blaine
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