Another tale of riding the buses

On an unusually-uncrowded F bus, I noticed an old Asian man in the bus's sideways seat pull his face-mask down, for access to his nose. For his entire ride he dug deep inside, and several times wiped whatever he'd mined onto the handrail beside him.

A few blocks after he stepped off, a pretty white girl sat in the same seat, with her hand gripping the same spot on the same handrail.

That's one of the things I like about public transit. It's something we all share, not just the ride but the space, and everything in it.

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Nobody wants a bum to have a moment's comfort, so bus stops rarely have benches. If there is a bench it'll be designed for discomfort — made of metal, barely wide enough for a child's ass.

Idiots say the cliché, "We can't have nice things," and blame the lack of benches on the bums. Bums aren't the problem, idiots. The problem is the Republicans, nickel-and-diming and never taxing the rich and always hating the bums, making sure that anything to help the poor is underfunded, hard to get, and meager if you can somehow qualify.

You want fewer bums? Elect fewer Republicans.

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Because of public transit's well-earned reputation for bums and crazies, and greatly exaggerated rumors of violence, most people don't even consider riding the bus. To counteract that, transit agencies should have better security, and some amenities to make waiting for the bus feel less like waiting for death.

But they don't, because the agencies aren't run by people who care about transit. They're run by dullards, same as any other bureaucracy.

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For example, at either of the two big transit centers where I frequently wait for a bus, since we can't have benches (see above), they've thoughtfully erected diagonally-slanted butt-bars for leaning against. They're like the one in this picture, only with more litter on the ground.

Not as nice as sitting down, but it's gotta be better than standing, right?

Wrong. At Metro's bus stations, the butt-bars face the wrong way — away from oncoming buses. Lean on a butt-bar, buses approach from behind you, and you'll miss your bus. So nobody leans on the butt-bars.

There's no reason the butt-bars couldn't have been aligned so you could see buses while you're leaning. Why did Metro waste the money buying and installing butt-bars aligned the wrong way? Because the people in charge are dullards, and they never ride the bus.

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Metro Transit has a form on their website for comments and complaints, so I asked about the misaligned butt-bars. In July, and again in November. No response yet, and no response expected.

1/22/2023