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livOn Thursday a colleague invited a couple of us to dinner in a part of town I haven't been to before. I misunderstood the travel website and the map I looked up and ended up catching a bus in the wrong direction. I only realized my mistake when the bus arrived at the terminus in Hanley. Unluckily, it turned out that the bus didn't immediately turn round and go back, but set off on a different route. So I had to wait in the bus station for 45 minutes for the bus going back in the direction I'd intended.
Hanley bus station is honestly not the greatest place to be alone after dark; I immersed myself in Dickens and tried not to notice the similarities between his descriptions and my surroundings. Anyway, the bus duly showed up, and in fact it was the same physical vehicle I'd arrived on, with the same driver. I explained to him that I'd made a mistake and was actually trying to go to a particular suburb. He proceeded to spend the whole journey to my real destination loudly berating me for being so stupid that I got on at the wrong bus stop, and telling me that I should have asked him for advice at the start of the journey and avoided going out of my way. I think he was trying to be friendly, just going about it in a slightly abrasive way. I just kept apologizing and trying to avoid sounding irritated at his retroactive advice; after all, I had made an error.
The whole conversation (well, him shouting at me and me apologizing from the back of the bus) was a bit farcical. I think my accent grew more and more southern English RP the more times I had to repeat my apology, while his grew more and more intense Potteries dialect. My accent climbs the social scale when I'm nervous, and it's unavoidable that my accent in general is much more prestigious than the local one. Plus I have loads of training at projecting my voice and speaking clearly, while the bus driver was both mumbling and shouting, having no real idea how to make himself heard over the engine noise while speaking to a passenger sitting a few seats behind. I think his repeatedly calling me stupid was a sort of defence against my implicitly pulling rank, though that wasn't my intention, it's just that I happen to have the accent and speech patterns I have.
On Friday the bus home is always slow because it's mega-rush hour. You usually end up waiting at the bus stop while 2 or 3 stuffed full buses go past, and then you get stuck in traffic. On top of this expected delay, the bus sat around in Newcastle for 20 minutes for no obvious reason, and then the bus driver, distracted, took a wrong turn and had to go round in a loop to get back to his intended route. In this case the bus driver was clearly "in the wrong", though he'd made a completely understandable and not dangerous mistake. The bus was full of students who were quick to castigate him; they're teenagers who are just finding their feet in the world and learning how to get good service by projecting authority. They're also people who (like me) expect to go through life receiving service and having their burgeoning authority respected. As on the previous day, the bus driver was getting stressed and becoming increasingly unintelligible, which in this case was particularly unhelpful as he was trying to give us information about how he would get us to our destinations.
In the end the worst consequence to me was that my commute took about 85 minutes instead of the usual 40. But it also made me think about how it comes about that "people like me" don't generally take buses; people take buses because they can't afford private cars. I love public transport, and it's partly a matter of principle that I've resisted learning to drive. In these instances, I would have wanted the bus drivers to behave differently (not calling me stupid / driving along the correct route), but I also didn't want to throw my weight around. The expected middle-class response I suppose is to write to the bus company and complain, but the consequences of that on the bus drivers would be out of proportion to their original missteps. But if lots of people who took buses (other than that one route between the university and the smart area of town, which not coincidentally has newer shinier vehicles and a more frequent, reliable service than pretty much anywhere else) were the sort of people who expect decent service, then public transport would not suck anywhere near as much as it does.
Hanley bus station is honestly not the greatest place to be alone after dark; I immersed myself in Dickens and tried not to notice the similarities between his descriptions and my surroundings. Anyway, the bus duly showed up, and in fact it was the same physical vehicle I'd arrived on, with the same driver. I explained to him that I'd made a mistake and was actually trying to go to a particular suburb. He proceeded to spend the whole journey to my real destination loudly berating me for being so stupid that I got on at the wrong bus stop, and telling me that I should have asked him for advice at the start of the journey and avoided going out of my way. I think he was trying to be friendly, just going about it in a slightly abrasive way. I just kept apologizing and trying to avoid sounding irritated at his retroactive advice; after all, I had made an error.
The whole conversation (well, him shouting at me and me apologizing from the back of the bus) was a bit farcical. I think my accent grew more and more southern English RP the more times I had to repeat my apology, while his grew more and more intense Potteries dialect. My accent climbs the social scale when I'm nervous, and it's unavoidable that my accent in general is much more prestigious than the local one. Plus I have loads of training at projecting my voice and speaking clearly, while the bus driver was both mumbling and shouting, having no real idea how to make himself heard over the engine noise while speaking to a passenger sitting a few seats behind. I think his repeatedly calling me stupid was a sort of defence against my implicitly pulling rank, though that wasn't my intention, it's just that I happen to have the accent and speech patterns I have.
On Friday the bus home is always slow because it's mega-rush hour. You usually end up waiting at the bus stop while 2 or 3 stuffed full buses go past, and then you get stuck in traffic. On top of this expected delay, the bus sat around in Newcastle for 20 minutes for no obvious reason, and then the bus driver, distracted, took a wrong turn and had to go round in a loop to get back to his intended route. In this case the bus driver was clearly "in the wrong", though he'd made a completely understandable and not dangerous mistake. The bus was full of students who were quick to castigate him; they're teenagers who are just finding their feet in the world and learning how to get good service by projecting authority. They're also people who (like me) expect to go through life receiving service and having their burgeoning authority respected. As on the previous day, the bus driver was getting stressed and becoming increasingly unintelligible, which in this case was particularly unhelpful as he was trying to give us information about how he would get us to our destinations.
In the end the worst consequence to me was that my commute took about 85 minutes instead of the usual 40. But it also made me think about how it comes about that "people like me" don't generally take buses; people take buses because they can't afford private cars. I love public transport, and it's partly a matter of principle that I've resisted learning to drive. In these instances, I would have wanted the bus drivers to behave differently (not calling me stupid / driving along the correct route), but I also didn't want to throw my weight around. The expected middle-class response I suppose is to write to the bus company and complain, but the consequences of that on the bus drivers would be out of proportion to their original missteps. But if lots of people who took buses (other than that one route between the university and the smart area of town, which not coincidentally has newer shinier vehicles and a more frequent, reliable service than pretty much anywhere else) were the sort of people who expect decent service, then public transport would not suck anywhere near as much as it does.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-19 11:02 am (UTC)Yes. I don't love it, actually; I do believe in it on a fundamental level, though, and use it frequently.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-19 11:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-19 11:45 am (UTC)Quite. *g*
This. Everything you say there.
Even in this country, where depending on the place the options are in fact available and perfectly serviceable, not all people chose public transport.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-22 02:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-22 05:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-19 04:05 pm (UTC)The cost of insuring young drivers has risen a lot recently, so I wonder if that will have a longer-term effect in reducing the number of drivers? Neither Tony nor my brother J have learned to drive, making me the sole driver in the household, and while we continue to live and work where we do there is no incentive to change this.
Pregnancy has put me off driving: I'm too tired too much of the time to manage long-distance and soon I'll be too big to sit comfortably. If the new baby is like its sibling, it will be easier to manage on trains than in cars.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-19 05:48 pm (UTC)It's interesting that you found it easier to manage a baby on trains than in the car; I had basically assumed that parents of young children were one of the demographics that really need to drive.
Complaining powers is a good way to look at it. There was a great post I think in
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-19 06:08 pm (UTC)It depends how much you feel you need to carry with you, really. But I had a clingy breastfed baby who hated not being held - and because I'm the driver, would cry inconsolably in cars if I was driving and not holding him. On trains, I could hold him, feed him, change him (if there was a half-decent changing facility), take him into vestibules if he was noisy, all on demand. It was a lot easier all round.
We got pretty good at travelling minimally: nappy bag, sling, buggy-if-needed, plus a daysack for the adults (and a wheely suitcase between us if overnighting). The worst bit is lugging a car seat on a train because the 'last mile' is going to be a car at the other end, and the people you're visiting don't have a child seat.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-20 06:55 pm (UTC)I'm impressed with the travelling light thing! Given that you're not wrangling vast amounts of luggage as well as baby, I can totally see that the train would be a better option over any serious distance.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-20 10:11 am (UTC)I lovelovelove trains, I'd really much rather sit on a train than in a car. I have much less love for buses though; in part because of the often very bad driving, but in part just because I get motion sick in them (less than in cars though).
I have to actively remind myself that few people can afford to live as close to their work as I do, and that as such not needing motorised transport at all is a big privilege.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-20 07:03 pm (UTC)I agree trains are lovely; it's really nice to be able to move around, and to have your bag accessible for the journey, and to go across the country fast and efficiently. The problem is that trains are stupid expensive; I have really a lot of disposable income, probably more than at least 90% of the country, and I'm spending nearly all of it on train fares. And that's with booking in advance and travelling at low-demand times.
I don't hate buses either, though the Cambridge situation is pretty dire for a city of that size, I know. Basically I'm used to the thing where you build in an extra 20 minutes to your journey to allow for buses being late or early, and the thing where you have to plan ahead if you want to travel in the evening. I still think that's better than one person per car per five mile journey!
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-20 08:25 pm (UTC)In Cambridge I'd estimate that taking the bus takes the same time as walking (once one factors in waiting for the bus and so forth); and for the most part I'd rather walk (Cambridge is very small though, so more walkable than many places). Although if I have heavy luggage I might take the bus.
I shall have to look up Jane Jacobs.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-21 10:42 am (UTC)I don't take the bus because it saves time over walking; in many cases it doesn't. I take the bus because I'm not always willing to walk in bad weather, or through dodgy areas when there aren't many people around, or to work which involves walking alongside a huge A road up a very steep hill. Also lots of people can't walk more than a couple of miles anyway. The calculus is particularly bad in Cambridge because it's highly walkable and the buses are worse than average. If I were all super-awesome, fit, confident in traffic, indifferent to weather etc I would probably end up cycling, which definitely is quicker and probably cheaper than the bus. I just think that people who aren't super-awesome ought to be able to get to the shops and their place of work, without having to create loads of pollution and use up limited resources.
Jacobs is cool; it's quite a feat to write a readable, fun non-fiction book about town planning, but she managed it!
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-21 11:12 am (UTC)I think we do also need to promote walking and cycling for those people who can walk and cycle (which I think is more than those who currently do; but clearly less than everyone); including things like improving the traffic so that it is less scary (in Cambridge I think that means retraining half the bus drivers...) and providing education in dealing with things like "cycling in scary traffic" and perhaps even things like "coping with being out in bad weather".
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-22 05:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-22 10:45 pm (UTC)A course may help you gain confidence in the Fight Against Traffic, it's definitely a skill that has to be learned quite separate from "how to make a bike go".
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-20 02:14 pm (UTC)I may have told you how surprised I was, at 16, to see a sign on the Washington Metro "last train leaves this station at xx:yy," because I was so used to a 24-hour system. (There may be a last C train, but there will be some train serving the station unless they're doing maintenance: the system as a whole closes only for very rare weather disasters and strikes.)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-20 07:08 pm (UTC)