Try to be a man of the people, try to keep hope alive, but I’ve got fuel to burn, and roads to drive
Well, I’ve thought myself pretty high-and-mighty for my public transport experiment. Fantasies about selling my car and all that. Bus to the light rail, light rail to Metrolink/Amtrak, Metrolink/Amtrak to the bus, then unwind the procedure on the way home.
What have I seen? Sick people. Lots and lots and lots of sick people, with active respiratory (and otherwise) infections. Nurses still in their bodily-fluid-stained scrubs riding next to me. A crazy lady with a metal bowl on her head who kept attaching and detaching a bandage and screaming at the conductor. I’ve endured this, in addition to increasing my commute from 45 minutes to 2.5 hours. I’ve rejoiced that I can now read, or work, or sleep on the way, and savored what it has done to increase my patience.
Today, I slept. And some motherfucker stole my backpack.
My laptop is busted, so this is the first time I haven’t had it on me, which would increase the loss by about $1500. Fortunately (fortunately?) my loss was only $920, in electronics and luggage and tools, including my trusty calculator that I actually considered a dear friend.
Let me let this sink in. He stole my motherfucking backpack. How empty did the train have to be for this to transpire? Could I be dead now? Could he have held me at knifepoint or gunpoint and asked for my wallet, phone, and keys as well? Absolutely he could have.
Jenn tells me that my bag could just have easily been stolen out of the back of my car. But my sample size is leading me to an opposite conclusion. I’ve been driving to work for over a dozen years. Nothing has ever been stolen. I’ve been taking public transportation for a week. And I cannot afford to replace $920 worth of stuff right now.
Yes, I’m privileged. Yes, I’m wealthy. Yes, I’m pretty spoiled. I make a good living in a plush job in a nice office. I drive a luxury car. I have options. I tried to take the train to reduce my environmental impact. But is it worth it? What do you think?
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November 25th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Jenn’s half right. It easily *could* have been stolen out of your car if you had parked it anywhere but a hidden parking lot in T.O. for the last 12 years. Skewed data.
I’m so sorry, though. I don’t think I’d have ever been comfortable enough to sleep on public transportation.
November 26th, 2007 at 10:29 am
I’ve been riding public transportation in the Los Angeles area for about a decade now, and it’s always been a strange mixture of Beverly Hills and Mogadishu. Yeah, the things that you’ve seen happen regularly, but the chaos of so many clearly incompatible human beings sharing a cramped mobile area is not without its charms. Having said that, you are in a public space, and so the same ground rules that you’d use to survive in any other public space apply to mass transit. There’s never a time when REMAIN ALERT isn’t a good rule for operating outside of your home.
My bus experiences (collected over the years):
I.) My then-girlfriend’s purse was accidentally left on the bus, and the crazy homeless man sitting behind us took off with it. We contacted the police, and they tracked him down and got the purse back, but not before he gobbled up her birth control pills. We all took a moment to reflect on whether or not the estrogen would give him “bitch tits”, and if so, how that would serve him in jail.
II.) At 3 AM, the bus takes a hard turn, and the man sleeping at the front of the bus falls out of his seat and badly splits his scalp on the seat across from him. Dazed and disoriented, he walks up and down the aisle, bleeding profusely on everything whilst attempting to figure out what has happened. The bus driver’s response to this situation is to simply kick the man off the bus, without any sort of assistance or documentation. Fortunately, the two other passengers (I was one of the two) on the bus manage to eventually convince the driver to drop the man off at an emergency room. Moments later, as the bus was pulling away, we saw him exit the ER, still bleeding, and walk down the street.
III.) BUS DEBATES! The spirit of the Forum lives! There are few pleasures more guilty than the joy that I take in listening to the loud, angry claims of two equally obnoxious and misinformed individuals, especially if issues of race are in question. Featuring thrills, spills, chills and LAFFS! Rabid Zionist vs Holocaust Denier! Black Guy Who Thinks That It’s Racist That He’s Being Charged the Same Fare as Everyone Else vs White Guy Who Believes That Racism No Longer Exists! Korean Jesus Freak vs The Entire World! I paid a full $1.25 fare for my seat, but I only used the EDGE!
All of this wackiness aside, I honestly believe that using public transportation is safer than driving, and it’s certainly more cost effective and environmentally responsible (in the case of the distances that I have to travel, anyway). I can’t really say whether or not it’s right for you (it’s certainly NOT right for everyone, as many of my smaller female friends have had some EXCEPTIONALLY CREEPY experiences on a regular basis riding public transit), but it suits my needs quite sufficiently.
November 26th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Remember that summer (1995?) when we switched from riding the bus to the Santa Anita Mall to walking all the way there, a distance of about three miles? Do you remember what precipitated it? A knife fight (which, I suppose, could be called a form of debate) between two women on the bus.
[inside joke] Well, it was the knife fight, and the fact that my Doc Martens were made for walkin’. [/inside joke]
November 26th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
I had totally forgotten about that. Also, a quick note on that walk: Although I regularly walk distances several times greater than the distances that we walked that summer, it should be kept in mind that these are San Gabriel Valley in the Summer distances. Each trip to the mall and back was like a gawddamn Batan Death March.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
Is 65 years too soon for that joke? God, maybe. Yikes. Maybe I’m oversensitive.
It will be noted that on the Bataan Death March you were more likely to have your throat cut if you were walking, not riding. Somewhat the inverse in the knife fight case…
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:40 pm
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