the "change"

It's as if someone dropped the concept of public transportation on the city of Phoenix for the first time.

The other morning after doing all of my post-boarding adjustments (iPod on, book out, jacket unzippered, bag in place, etc) I looked up to notice a change in scenery. Suddenly, the train was filled with 20-30 somethings, well-dressed white people. I'm not sure where they all came from, or where they were before but here they were right in front of me. 

Now I'm glad anytime anyone decides to take public transit over the sometimes complicated venture of driving, navigating and parking a car but I couldn't help feeling slightly annoyed at why all these people were here invading my nice cozy territory and where exactly they all came FROM.

For the months and even years leading up to the opening of the light rail, I often heard people telling me that they couldn't wait until the light rail started because then they could take it to X. Sometimes I'd point out to said person that the place they wanted to go was already readily available to them by bus line Y. Usually there would be an awkward moment where the person would look stunned, surprised, or comically curious. I knew it was all an act, though, because the truth was that riding the bus didn't really enter into their vocabulary because there was that certain stigma attached to it. There was also the rare person (maybe just one) who out and out said that they didn't want to ride the bus because it was, you know, the BUS and there were BUS PEOPLE on it.

I've thought about why I don't feel offended by this. Even though I take the bus voluntarily now—having a car and having the money to fill the tank—it used to not be voluntary for most of my life. My mom never drove (and still doesn't have a drivers license) so walking and riding the bus was crucial to transporting ourselves anywhere. Even after I broke my arm walking to school in Sinking Spring, PA, we had to take 2 buses to get to the hospital in downtown Reading. I never had a parent (meaning my dad) willing or interested in driving me anywhere so the only option was walking, biking or the bus. I guess for some people this would seem hugely unfair and ridiculous but I didn't have much time to think about that because it was just my life.

And, even after getting my driver's license at age 21, I didn't have a car until I was 22 and then shared it with my boyfriend. I still had to ride my 1984 Schwinn, walk and ride the bus to get around.

So doesn't all of this history make me a bus person? And what's so bad about me? I shower regularly, read my book quietly, follow the bus rules, give up seats to elderly, pregnant and disabled people and am a generally responsible, considerate person. Does that make me not a bus person? Where has this stereotype come from and how does it apply to the entire population of bus riders? What picture is conjured when they (or you) think of a "bus person"?

I know what these people are referring to, though. I know, and have first-hand knowledge of all the nightmare stories about some experience of someone's friend of a friend who once rode the bus to a certain location and witnessed something horrifying and scarring that will forever detain them from taking public transit. I know, but don't understand, the general public's fear of being in close proximity to a transient, ex-con or "urban youth". But do they think that the light rail will exclude these people? I'm not sure I understand what makes a bus moving on rails more acceptable to face these things than being on a bus with wheels.

Some might say it's the time or the distance or inconvenience of riding the buses. But from what I could see, most of the new guard of riders were taking it mostly up Central Avenue and getting off before it left downtown. Before the light rail there were 3 buses that ran EACH every 15 minutes, making them run even more frequently than the light rail. The travel time up Central is also basically the same—about 10 to 15 minutes.

Most likely I'm guessing it's the concept of safety-in-numbers. When other young, white professionals know that other young, white professionals are also going to be riding public transit, it suddenly becomes acceptable within their realm of options. But then I say to myself, aren't I a young white professional? It just makes me feel, yet again, that I have never and maybe will never, feel as though I'm a part of the group that I possibly could be labeled as being a part of. Maybe it's having grown up in public housing, or having uninvolved, unconcerned and apathetic parents who had no concern to take me anywhere. Maybe it's having been forced to be resourceful and do what most people have to do to get to work, get to school or, you know, get to the emergency room.

Generally, I think I'm pretty happy about my ability to not be intimidated by things that I know nothing about. There's always a way to figure out how to do something or how to get somewhere. And there's that great sense of liberty when I know I don't have to do something only when everyone else decides they're going to do it too (who the hell has time for that?).

I'm glad that these people have decided to open their horizons and I think, in a few weeks, I might actually start believing that I think that. But for now I'm going to harbor just a slight amount of resentment and annoyance that most of these people couldn't have figured this system out months or years ago—unclogging and un-polluting the streets when it wasn't a group decision to do so.