Guest Writer: Ian M.

So I’ve been lazy and haven’t been to the gym in a while. Instead of riding one of the 14th street buses I’ve been taking the subway to Chinatown in the mornings. Today I finally decided to go back to the gym.

One thing about the bus (and one of the reasons that this blog is so intriguing) is that you observe things and have theories while you are riding that you forget as soon as you arrive at your destination. Kind of like having a crazy dream that you can’t remember at all by lunchtime.

Anyhoo, my observation was this: If you’ve ever taken one of the 14th street southbound buses between 6-6:30am you notice that the patrons congregate near the entrance, much to the dismay of everyone trying to board. Even when the driver yells “please move to the back,” the bus population remains unevenly disseminated.


The reason for this is people who never properly learned to use public transportation. On the subway it is Midwestern tourists/suburban office workers, and on my bus it is rural Central American laborers. Neither were raised to be conscious of space and the flow of human traffic in enclosed areas. For us city kids these people are at best comically buffoonish, but more often frustratingly inefficient.


What I noticed on the bus this morning though is that it’s much easier and satisfying to resent ipod-clad yuppies during rush hour than sleep-deprived immigrants before dawn. Even though they are guilty of the same crime, the guy with paint on his boots and calluses on his hands does not merit the same derision as the guy with the ugly tie and the Washington Express. Is it because we bus riders admire an honest day of hard work that we accept from immigrants of Guatemalan pueblos what we do not from those of American cul-de-sacs? Had it been Cosi-eating lanyard folks refusing to stand behind the second door, the bus would have risen against them in a collective fury. Do we hold white-collar workers to a higher standard than their blue-collar counterparts?



Perhaps the bus is a more soothing environment in general. There are no ominous voices, no broken escalators, no signs counting down the minutes until the arrival of the next train. If the bus is late, you just accept it. If the bus is crowded, you just accept it. If people crowd up near the driver, you just accept it. There is no standing on the right, walking on the left. You are on the bus. God, I’ve missed the bus.


-Ian