Diana McCaulay, Contributor
WALKING to a bus stop in Seattle, there is a moment of anxiety when you can see the stop, but you're still too far away to run for it if the bus arrives early. I walk as quickly as possible for that last little distance, counting the utility poles, because I know when I get to the last one, I'm within running distance and won't miss the bus that morning. The bus drivers will wait for you if you're not too far away. On the bus, you'll often hear someone call out, "There's a runner!" and the driver will wait until some panting person hurls themselves through the door, gasping grateful thanks.
The buses in Seattle are not like the buses in Geneva; timed to the nearest ten seconds. In Seattle, there is about a five-minute leeway in their scheduling. It's not that easy to be precise about the timing; you don't want to miss the bus, so you're inclined to get there a minute or two before the ETD. On the other hand, you certainly don't want to be hanging around in the rain and cold a minute longer than is strictly necessary.
Traffic can make the buses very late. On days when there's a football game the traffic is impossible. Seattleites have this quaint custom of not entering intersections unless the exit is clear (imagine!), so you can sit immobile at a traffic light through multiple light changes. I have abandoned the bus in such circumstances and walked home.
First encounter
My first encounter with the football game phenomenon was while running one afternoon. This was in the dim and distant past when there was still daylight after 4.30 p.m. I noticed there were more people than usual on the trail, all carrying cushions and wearing bright purple clothes. As I ran, the crowd thickened. It appeared I was witnessing some synchronised mass migration of Seattleites, all decked out in alarm colouration. Soon there was nowhere for me to run and people were glaring at me. "Where are you all going?" I asked a woman who looked less hostile than the others. "Football!" she said, "Duh!" Who says West Indians are the only people to neglect all other activities in favour of a sport?
Many of the buses are the long, articulated ones, and a great many are driven by middle-aged women. This impressed me; these women wouldn't have come of age in an era where driving heavy vehicles was a career option for women. Whenever I'm alone in a bus with such a driver, I talk to them at traffic lights, finding out the circumstances of their lives. They tell of traumatic divorces and pressing bills and the necessity for earning a living. One night I watched a small, slight woman in her mid-fifties fling the behemoth of a vehicle round corners. "I so admire you for driving this thing," I said, "I could never do it."
"You've made my day," the woman said. "It's my first day on the job."
I saw another trainee bus driver take a corner wide one day. Another bus was coming in the opposite direction and had to stop. The offending driver leapt off the bus and apologised to the other driver and they parted with expressions of mutual esteem. And I've often seen bus drivers get off the bus to help commuters struggling with packages.
Sometimes the buses fall off the electric cables and the drivers have to hook them back up. Traffic waits; no-one blows their horns. Small, middle-aged women hook their buses to the cables and go about their business.
The buses are equipped with wheelchair hoists and there's a space in the bus where wheelchairs go, once the seats are folded away. When there's a person in a wheelchair at a bus stop, someone on the bus calls out, "Wheelchair coming on!" The bus driver puts down the hoist, the passengers fold away the seats and get out of the way. The driver wheels the disabled person to the appropriate spot and buckles him or her in. The bus drivers know all the people in wheelchairs and warm pleasantries are exchanged.
I'm actually writing this in Jamaica; I'm (joyfully) home for Christmas. So I'm back in my car and I feel as if I've lost my legs. The world is entirely different when you're on foot, it's considerably larger and you need more time to do everything. But I feel kind of lonely in my car, insulated from the blessed warmth of December in the tropics. An encounter with the Kingston bus system could be in my future. Think the buses will have wheelchair hoists?
