Bus sob stories -
I just finished reading about a situation in New York City where a bus driver was fatally stabbed by a passenger because the bus driver refused to give him a bus transfer pass since the assailant’s MetroCard was invalid. Transit officials said that 74 New York City bus drivers had been assaulted from January through September (October -November numbers weren’t in yet), yet those numbers are significantly reduced from the pre-1969 crime rate. In 1969 they started putting exact-change boxes on the buses. That way the bus driver didn’t have to carry extra cash on the bus to give as change to passengers. Robberies of bus drivers went down significantly after that. The passengers were inconvenienced by always having to have the exact change when they got on the bus but most of the passengers are usually the same people who ride the bus every day so they learned to be prepared.
The bigger inconvenience was to the tourists like me. Before having a child, and when my health was better, I would sometimes follow Tom on his business travels. Once I was going to meet up with him in NYC and I decided to take the bus from JFK airport. I was looking out for the bus with the “Time Square” or “Manhattan” sign on it. It was difficult to find the destinations on the buses because they had so much advertisements plastered all over them (they cleaned up that act later). Also, they were from different companies so they didn’t all have the destinations written in the same areas. I must have seen a “Time Square” advertisement on a bus that I stopped because when I asked the driver if he was going to Time Square he glared at me and growled, “Read the Sign”. I tried to “read” through all of the ads on the bus but I was so stressed that I asked again, “Well, where are you going to?” He answered again, “Read the sign”. I frantically looked at the bus again (it was not easy from the door of the bus). Finally a nice lady on board smiled sympathetically and said, “We’re going to Long Island”. I thanked her and backed away. Okay, THEN I saw the Long Island sign. Oh, hey, here comes my bus now, yay! I hailed it down and hopped happily on. I don’t remember the amount of the fare now but it was less than a dollar. I gave the driver a dollar and he said I needed exact change. I said, “You can keep the change. I don’t have enough coins”. He was impatient and told me that they don’t take bills and to get off. Just then a nice girl jumped up and paid the driver the exact change for me. I sincerely thanked her and we started talking. She was from Houston in town to visit her on-a-business-trip-boyfriend.
That wasn’t the end of my bus saga. A few days later Tom and I went to the express bus terminal to catch a bus to Boston to see a friend. We had tarried too long in Central Park so we raced back on foot to the hotel and picked up our bags and literally raced again to the bus terminal. It would have made a good commercial for our rolling luggage which came out in great condition considering the walloping they took on the city streets and sidewalk. We made it in time to get tickets for the time that we wanted. We waited for the bus at the back of the line. The bus arrived. The passengers boarded. An attendant told Tom and me that the tickets had been oversold and we didn’t have seats. We would have to wait for the next bus which would arrive in 20 minutes. He said we could wait there (next to the bus stop, not inside the waiting area) since we would be the first to board. We waited. The next bus arrived. A new attendant came and scolded us for being in the area during a bus arrival. It was too dangerous and against regulations. We should get inside the waiting area. We went inside and the line had formed. We placed ourselves at the front of the line and then all heck broke loose. People yelled at us just like in the movies. We looked for help to the attendants but they weren’t about to argue with the crowd so we meekly went to the back of the line. We didn’t get seats on that bus either. We exchanged our tickets and were first in line for the next bus. We finally got our seats and met up with our patient friend in Boston.
Well, I tend to complain mightily of Korean cultural here but I have to say that crime here is quite low compared to the U.S. and most other countries and their transportation services are of high quality. I’ve always been shown respect by the workers and passengers. There are still plenty of annoying things here but I’ll count my blessings when I can. Just because Thanksgiving is over doesn’t mean we need to stop being thankful.
