Transportation
You Meet the Nicest People
Riding the Public Bus
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IN DOWNTOWN PORTLAND, a mother struggles to get the carryall, the folded stroller and the little girl off the bus, one of the older models with steep stairs in front. The little girl, a small toddler, maybe 14 months, waits tentatively at the top of the steps, her eyes wide with apprehension, then starts to step down. Out comes the driver's hand. "Hang on, honey," he says, leaning over.
His large arm and her tiny one connect. The mom takes the other hand and the bus driver lets go. "Oops," he says gaily as the baby steps off the last step into nothingness, only to be saved by Mama's hand hauling her up and over.
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It reminds me of all the times I have helped a child down the stairs or across a puddle or over a curb with a momentary lift into the air. Of how trusting a child is that Mama's hand will be there. Baby won't fall, won't be allowed to fall.
And I saw it all, remembered it all, on a TriMet bus.
A recent contributor to The Oregonian's letters page put forth a fitting punishment for white-collar crooks - make them live in public housing and ride public transit ("Send simple, clear message," letters, Jan. 13). He might have been right about the public housing. But riding public transit isn't punishment. It's a privilege.
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Certainly there are days you do not want to be making that ride. Days when you overhear parents belittling their children or sit next to someone of questionable personal hygiene. I could live without the regulars on my route who engage in loud, spontaneous, nonsensical outbursts at inappropriate times.
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But for all that, riding the bus is a continual reaffirmation of the wonder and breadth of human experience, in the most positive sense. Every day, you see sweet-natured young women who make way for elderly men with canes. Passengers who offer their fellow riders cheerful advice and the use of unexpired transfers. Bus drivers who yell "Bless you!" when a passenger sneezes three rows back. |
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Not for anything would I miss the crowd of good-spirited high school freshmen who joke easily and non-competitively with one another about their homework, coaxing good-natured smiles from fellow passengers and reminding me that not every teen is spoiled, spiteful or surly. I wouldn't want to miss the attractive older couple, coming home from a concert, chatting like lovebirds with the graceful gestures of people who know each other so well they can finish each other's thoughts.
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Riding the bus is a continual lesson in forgetting stereotypes. I've learned that goodness has little to do with facial hardware or hairstyle, that skateboarders respect one another and are unusually considerate of other passengers, that spiky-haired guys dressed in studded black clothing can be nice boys who take their 10-year-old brothers to have fun at Oaks Park. |
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Americans value risk-takers, whether on the playing field or in business ventures. But, curiously, the risk of human contact is not one we are very comfortable with. It asks too much of our tolerance, pushes too hard on our buttons, breaches our self-imposed boundaries.
All sorts of people ride the bus, often people who are not like me. People with bad teeth, with bad taste in clothes, with bad attitudes.
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I've seen the most extraordinary hair - dreadlocks, ponytails (men's and women's), braids, turbans. Hair streaked purple, green, red and magenta. Crisp short hair, newly washed, on solidly built men just come from the gym. Long yellow-white beards on old men who look like they have survived the sea. Hair with feathers in it. Well-cut hair, never-cut hair. Young people with wisps of hair at various places around their lips and chin.
The bus is ridden by people who smell like tobacco, hold it in every crease of their clothing. It's ridden by young couples who neck discreetly, and hungry people who eat when the driver isn't looking.
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I see people reading Japanese comics and The New Yorker, clever Terry Pratchett fantasies and spy novels, newspapers, library books and paperbacks. I rode with one man who could read himself, his bare arms intricately lined with tattoos of unfamiliar characters. "It's Chinese," he told a curious passenger. "Unifying, brilliant - brilliant - philosophy. I don't speak it, but I read it."
If I didn't ride the bus, I'd miss the young man who passed his own stop by five blocks so that he could help a woman he had never met before carry her groceries home. "It's just the Boy Scout in me," he said modestly as he slung his skateboard on his backpack and shouldered her cat litter.
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I'd miss the waiter who was traveling to see his girlfriend, carrying a lovely birthday offering of Key lime pie wrapped in an intricate, swirling sculpture of tin foil.
You don't get that kind of action driving by yourself on the Banfield.
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A group of faith leaders recently went to Detroit and challenged carmakers with the question: "What would Jesus drive?"
He'd take the bus, of course. Not because public transit saves hydrocarbons or slows global warming, though those are worthy reasons. |
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No, he'd be on the bus because that's where the humanity is. Not much happens in a car in the way of human interaction. None of the kindness or unkindness of strangers has a chance to rub off on you. A bus ride might be crowded, loud and maddening, but it is vital and alive.
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And there are so many stories to hear.
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"There you are," says a man as he reaches over and pulls down a raised seat at the front of the bus so that an elderly woman can sit.
"Thank you," she says, patting her brightly crocheted hat. "I couldn't have walked to the back of the bus."
The man, sitting on his motorized cart, doesn't miss a beat. "Neither," he says, "could I."
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By FRAN GARDNER January 18, 2003
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: A thumb's up Tri-Met testimonial
I love riding the bus and MAX. I spent four years traveling five days a week from southwest Beaverton to the airport and back on the bus and MAX. It took one hour and 45 minutes each way, and I loved every minute of it. During that time I read more than 40 books and untold newspapers.
Fran Gardner's article describing her experiences riding the bus ("You meet the nicest people riding the public bus") is right on. In addition to enjoying the people in all their habits and styles, I always felt good about riding mass transit; It saved me about $7,000 a year in car expenses (according to the Oregon Environmental Council); I caused less air pollution and I freed up space on the roads for those who really had to drive by themselves.
Whether you're rich or poor, riding our transit system is good for our planet and our souls. Do it more often. JOE WALICKI |
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I'd miss the lone man I recently heard, in the bus shelter near my home, playing mournful soughs on his didgeridoo.
