Hey, remember this? My first foray into the frightening and confusing world of public bus transportation. My energy must have petered out by the end of the post, though, because it wasn’t really resolved that easily at all. I was still very confused for a long time, even after we moved here. In fact, I was afraid to take the bus for several weeks, and even then it took months before I was really getting out there and riding different lines.
These days, though, I’m a bus pro. Trimet.org is interminably helpful – well, actually, maybe it isn’t. Sometimes it gives me bus routes that are really not the fastest because they assume that I walk at a snail’s pace. But it’s good enough.
Riding the bus is a completely different beast than riding the subway, though. First of all, it’s WAY slower, because of the traffic and all of the stops. Sometimes the stops are two blocks apart! Second of all, you can only fit so many people on a bus, and it is very susceptible to the weather (meaning… it is HOT if the A/C is broken and some of the windows don’t open). Third of all, you are always within eyesight and earshot of the driver, and sometimes the drivers are very… involved in the goings-on of their passengers.
For example. A few days ago I was on a VERY crowded and stinky bus (it was close to 90 degrees out and it seems that there are a lot of stinky people in Portland) when suddenly it did not pull away from a stop like it was supposed to. I was sitting the back, almost delirious from the heat and stench, so I wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on, but suddenly I noticed that everyone was staring at one guy who was standing by the back door, huddled away from their eyes.
The bus driver was yelling, ‘Did you steal something! I saw you steal that tape! Give it back!’
The guy just stood, motionless.
‘You did!’ the bus driver continued. ‘Give it back! I’m not moving this bus until you give it back!’
This went on for a few minutes, and then suddenly the guy just busted out the back door and bolted.
‘Somebody chase him!!’ the driver screamed. ‘Please, somebody!’
And so a guy who had been standing next to the thief ran out of the bus, too. Everyone (except me, I guess… I was still in shock) craned their necks to watch the action, and for some reason the crowd decided that Hero #1 needed backup, so another guy ran out to help. About 30 seconds later, Hero #1 and Hero #2 got back on the bus with the stolen loot, and everyone cheered and applauded.
Seriously.
I was amused. And I thought about how nice some of the bus drivers I’ve met have been – they routinely help people on and off the bus, stop short or wait for latecomers (SOMETIMES… or SOMETIMES THEY JUST DRIVE AWAY), and offer to let passengers off before the intersection if they’re at a stoplight. They like to make conversation with passengers, and sometimes make funny announcements. It’s a nice, personable atmosphere, which I never really felt in NYC, even during the rare occasions I rode the bus.
I think I’ve started to forget the kind of awe I felt when we first arrived here – the awe that people were just so nice. Maybe it’s because I work with some pretty bitter people, and encounter some equally bitter parents at school… or maybe it’s because I don’t get out enough. Who knows. But this funny and somewhat random incident on the hot, stinky bus reminded me of the fact that there are nice people here. Maybe I just haven’t been paying attention.
June 7, 2009 at 5:52 pm
in my experience, i think most bus drivers are a special kind of crazy, just like a lot of the passengers that ride city transit … maybe they have to be to deal with the job … ?
June 11, 2009 at 5:30 am
I drove school bus for a few years when the boys were little, but that’s a whole different ball game… although I would get a bus load of stinky kids too, along with runny noses…ewwwwwww.