The Triumphs and Defeats of Public Transport: My 4 Highs & 4 Lows
I love taking transit. I truly am one of those people who collect transit maps in every city they go to and I just have to try every form of public transportation available. Coming from a town with no need for such services, seeing a metro really gets a girl excited!
Convenience and environmental benefits aren’t the only things I appreciate about transit. There’s more to being packed in a bus with what feels like hundreds of people during rush hour than crying babies and delayed service times. I think there’s nothing that brings together a group of people more than a shared, lived experience and there is community in commuting alongside strangers. There is community in waving to a crying baby, or rolling your eyes and seeing several others do the same. There is community in waiting with whoever else is outside in freezing weather and feeling the joint relief when a bus crawls to a stop in front of all of you. It is those mundane interactions that I miss out on when I’m alone in a car. So, courtesy of my notes app, here are:
4 Things I Like About Public Transportation:
1. No signal down under!
Now I know this is a deal breaker for many. Everybody wants a little scroll break after a gruelling lecture or study sesh. University Station offers little to no help with that. Maybe this is cope, but I like to convince myself I look forward to fifteen minutes of awful cell service and the inability to check my phone for a text back. There is no time I love to read more than when I’m snug in the left hand side of an LRT car with my left foot propped up on the walls of the train. I love the observational opportunity my lack of cell service gives me as well. With everyone too focused on their own phones and books, it gives me the best opportunity to stare at strangers with curious eyes as much as I want! From looking at people’s outfits and watching everyone’s reactions to one another, transit provides me the entertainment needed to get through a commute.
2. The occasional conversation!
A conversation or a slight smile from a stranger is enough to have me enjoy a 30 minute bus ride and be glad I tapped my Arc Card that day.
3. Romanticizing the experience!
Am I heartbroken? No. Am I in an edit? No. Am I a girl moving to The Big Apple, heart racing and trying to contain the smile on my face as I approach the entrance to my new job at some hot-shot magazine company? Also no. But with my headphones on and gaze permanently locked to the window of a train, anything is possible. There’s something thrilling when I try to wipe the grin off my face as my imagination runs rampant and it is validating seeing others do the same little look away to hide their own smiles.
4. I can afford it!
I can’t afford a car.
Transit is not always feet-kicking and giggle worthy and it definitely has its faults and downsides. I am nothing if not thorough so I pulled another list from my notes app.
4 Things I Dislike About Public Transportation:
1. Inaccessibility and inconvenience
Now I know I said I love having no service in the LRT tunnels, but I’m not the only person using public transport. Once you see the inaccessibility of transit, it’s everywhere. It’s in the limited amount of benches and seating available at transit stations, the inconvenient frequency of buses and trains that go by, and the likely chance the escalators and elevators are out of service. Sure, some stops are not as frequented by the public as others, but one person who waits for the bus deserves a heat shelter as much as the next. Although seemingly unrealistic to accommodate, it’s frustrating to see.
2. Sitting down in a full train car when you only have one stop to go.
Self explanatory and really only applies when I am taking a trip more than 3 stops away. I am completely aware nobody owes me their seat but I’ve had enough and it’s time I, or rather, others take a stand!
3. Perceptions of unhoused people in public spaces.
Transit stations are public spaces meant to be used by everybody from all walks of life yet unhoused populations using trains and buses are always criminalized. Whether being kicked out of heat shelters for sleeping, or given weird looks for using transit in the first place, homeless people in public spaces are regarded with unease and are stigmatized because they appear ‘out of place’. I’ll cut it short because I could go on.
4. People who act as if they have a ticking bomb strapped to their bodies that will go off if they wait for passengers to get off the train before they enter.
Enough said!
Written by Media Committee Member Izzy S.