I Am Waiting For A Bus
There are experiences in our disenchanted common existence that can’t be reconciled with what I can understand given the limited scope of my very charmed personal existence. I’m talking about the kind of experiences that often lead to this very familiar question, “How could this even exist?” I am pondering and writing about this question while waiting for the last leg of my two bus journey from the West End to North Vancouver in rush hour…
The trip is now well behind me, and I can summarize for you the basic plot. I planned my trip via internet and figured the entire trip takes about 38 minutes, transfers and walking included. I don’t want to be late and prefer to be early so I leave to catch the bus about 55 minutes before scheduled arrival. I’m at the bus stop. First bus (#240) is full and won’t take on passengers. Other buses to the North Shore come but I decide to stick with the #240 since it’s the one I know and the next one, according to my smart phone, will be there in 9 minutes. About 22 minutes later the next #240 arrives and I board. The guy standing next to me remarks how crammed this bus is. Seems all right to me but what could I compare it to? While exiting the bus (debussing?), I notice there are two #240 buses in a row right behind it. The second one is almost empty. The third is about half way to its seating capacity. I check my smart phone and see that my next bus (#255) is five minutes away. Another #240 comes through in those five minutes. I check the smart phone and it says the #255 is two minutes away. Then one minute. Check the smart phone a littel alter and it says the bus departed one minute ago. Then two minutes ago. Then it says the next one will be around in 14 minutes. 17 minutes later the #255 comes and I board. (I now know what it feels like to spend 22 minutes of my life standing in front of a suburban Staples. How many people have done this before me and how often? How indomitable those people are. How domitable [should be a word] I feel.) I arrive at the door of my final destination only 10 minutes late which feels remarkable given the ratherish epic flavour of the journey. But this is no consolation when I think that I had taken the due diligence to be 17 minutes early. There was some consolation, however, briefly…
To overstate things: I was Orwell in a Parisian hospital. Siddhartha outside the castle. Chappelle in a questionable limo. I have seen things now. I hear people complain about transit often. Entire Facebook accounts seem to be based on such complaints. But the commuters I saw looked so at peace on and waiting for those buses. Grizzled veterans. What if I was on my way to a job interview? School? Crazy thoughts happen during times such as those. I wanted to help people. I wanted to run for mayor. But that was hours ago. I no longer feel such a strong compulsion to make a difference.
Perhaps you are wondering why I even took a bus in the first place. I actually enjoy transit. It is scenic and stimulating. But now I know what I know. So, no. No more buses for me. At least not on the fearsome and deficient West End to Lynn Valley route.
Jae-Ho
As a fellow aficionado of travel à Swiss, I’m sure you noted the tendency for Swiss trains to be, well, very Swiss about their timetable. Beyond that entire country, travel in large cities (and here I mean London, Paris, Tokyo, and New York) is of an entirely different quality to travel anywhere else.
People here think about transit all the time. Even people who never take it have something to say about it. Everyone has a memory and everyone has an opinion and mostly the former informs the latter, although I’ve heard people espouse on the overground (think: Skytrain) who have never ridden it, because that’s what people in London do.
Almost everyone agrees it could be better, and there’s probably some law that says this is undeniably true, but my overall impression of London transit is it’s a gift sent by the past to us here in the present because the past loves us.
Let’s say I’m at home and I want to get to any other point in the entirety of London. There will be a combination of train, bus, and tube that can get me within a 15 minute walk of that place. Anywhere in London, at almost any time. (And the exceptions are so rare they catch you completely off guard, those after-midnight walks providing ample time for reflection on poor planning.)
We also have https://citymapper.com/