| BARRIOZONA |
| Bilingual Community Expression Published by the Hispanic Institute of Social Issues |
| Riding on Bus Route 3 |
| Text and Images by Eduardo Barraza |
| To learn more about Valley Metro System click image |
| * To view the Annual Ridership Report FY 2005 - 2006 click image |
| A routine ride in a few buses of the Transit System in Phoenix opens up a whole dimension where human toil and struggle unfolds. |
barriozona.com
| INTERACTIVE |
The bus approaches a bus stop on
Van Buren Street, near downtown
Phoenix, where an older woman
instinctively reacts to the scheduled
arrival. She waits during the last
few seconds on the sidewalk,
staring at the pavement where the
public transportation vehicle is
about to pull in. A burgundy, heavy
backpack hangs from her back and a
Van Buren Street, near downtown
Phoenix, where an older woman
instinctively reacts to the scheduled
arrival. She waits during the last
few seconds on the sidewalk,
staring at the pavement where the
public transportation vehicle is
about to pull in. A burgundy, heavy
backpack hangs from her back and a
beige purse from her right shoulder. The pair of tennis shoes she wears reveals she’s geared up to face a daily,
routine journey of boarding, alighting and transferring from one bus to another, as well as walking she only knows
how many streets.
Just seconds before the bus arrival, a soft wind waves her long skirt at the same rhythm an American flag
undulates across the street from above. The screeching noise of the brakes interrupts the monotony with the
colorful, imposing arrival of the bus. The bus operator promptly welcomes the lady in with a synchronized
movement that opens the bus doors. A computerized voice is heard announcing to bus passengers about to alight
what routes they can transfer to from that intersection. Once in the bus, the woman and two other passengers
that hopped in the bus along with her, join about a dozen other individuals who quietly seat dispersed on the bus
seats.
Thousands of bus riders commute every day on this Valley Metro System’s route —Route 3— alone. According to
the System’s Ridership Report* an average of 8 thousand boardings in a single weekday are reported solely for
this route, that stretches from 67th Avenue to the Phoenix Zoo, via Van Buren Street. Statistics show that almost
60 million of system-wise boardings were recorded during the fiscal year 2005-2006. Evidently, the figures reveal
the great amount of individuals who use this type of public transportation to get around in most of the fourth
largest county of the nation, Maricopa County.
But navigating through the system and throughout the Phoenix Metro area is not an easy feat. Walking distances,
sometimes long waits, as well as crowded buses during peak hours —where the greatest movement of passengers
occurs— are among other factors that can make a trip using this type of public transportation quite a challenge.
Leave aside the soon-to-arrive hottest summer temperatures, which turn even the most straightforward trip into a
sweaty and breathtaking affair. For these reasons, riding a Valley Metro bus talks about the struggle and toil
thousands of men and women face everyday in order to move from one place to another.
But make no mistake. Riding a bus isn’t as bad of an experience as some people may think. Public transportation by
bus offers numerous benefits to people as well as cities themselves. In fact, thanks to the Valley Metro bus system,
it is possible for many individuals that wouldn’t be able get around otherwise, go from one place to another. Take
for instance two persons with a disability, a man and a woman, who are sitting on their own wheelchairs in this
bus ride. Occupying the space next to the back door of the bus, they sure seem to enjoy the accessibility of the
vehicle, which is equipped with a “wheelchair lift device” that raises and lowers a platform that makes possible for
wheelchair users to board and alight the bus. So public transportation plays a vital role in many people’s lives
despite the inherent hardships being a bus rider brings.
Thus, every day, and in metropolitan areas such as Phoenix’, before the sunrise and after the sunset, the
incessant traffic of people who lack their own transportation or that use the bus for their own convenience, creates
a peculiar culture of human movement. Upon the asphalt strip as an artery, the heartbeat of a crowd infuses a
sentiment of search in cities who attempt to awake to a daily challenge of staying vibrant and productive. Their
workforce, industrious and booming, searches within itself to be able to be transported rapidly and effectively
through streets and avenues, which regardless of their width or narrowness, get tight when confronted with the
piling up of traffic of vehicles that increases with the continuous advent of new inhabitants.
Let us imagine a city, not of private automobiles, but of a predominant public transportation, under a sky without
pollution and where the air is air and carpooling isn’t indispensable. More buses, and less cars; extinct traffic
congestions and an abundance of pedestrians walking upon sidewalks packed with people who exchanged opaque
and bald car tires, for shoes of shinny and attractive appearance. Less obesity, perhaps, better blood circulation,
and bodies in shape that encouraged themselves even to despise claustrophobic elevators, and to prefer the
concrete or metal of the staircase that is tiring, but drop the extra pounds all the way to the first floor. And in a
harmonious motion, the gross of the population traveling, sitting or standing, in buses where road rage is history
and new friendships germinate by sharing the bus book.
However, at least for now, public transportation slips away through routes where the private car is boss and the
bus is just an assistant. The Phoenix metropolitan area, in this way, becomes suffocated in the contamination of
the vehicular selfishness, where hundreds of thousands of cars with as many other hundreds of thousands of
lonely drivers inside of them, narrow the shared option of the democratic experience of traveling in a bus,
surrounded by strangers, who are people, after all. A bus; we could ponder it as a means of humble and
unpretentious transportation that is there only to take us to our destination, and at the rhythm of the “music” of a
programmed voice that guides through routes and buses so we do not err our direction.
On the way to work, school bound, coming back home; going to the market, the daycare facility or to the site of
reunion; Valley Metro buses carry people almost incessantly. Individuals engrossed in their own thoughts, men and
women with work uniforms and I.D. badges, entire families with children who enjoy the simplicity of happiness.
People with disabilities who, lacking help, rely on themselves at the pace of the wheels of their chairs that limit
them, but traveling in buses empower them. Homeless people who carry heavy backpacks and refuge from cold or
hot weather on a trip they long could be interminable. Strangers who act like childhood friends under the bus
shelters installed on the sidewalks, that provide seats and protection from the elements. There, friendships
emerge and dissipate within the “dwell time,” that is, the scheduled time a bus discharges and takes on
passengers at a bus stop, sometimes a few seconds. And lastly, the people who ride bikes where buses don’t run,
and whose bikes ride on the bike rack located on the front of the bus. All, equally —passengers of a
temporary stay— by means of a bus pass, coins or a transfer slip, travel inside a bus that is comparable to life, in
which we all board at one point and alight at another, at the end of our destination.
While the majority of the bus riders remain quiet, the ride is noisy. The sound of the bus engine, the air brakes, as
well as the incessant programmed voice that announces stops and routes as an automatic service for passengers,
compose almost the entirety of sounds heard through the trip. The occasional, lively conversation, the sporadic
children’s excite, or the perfect stranger who tells us to "have a nice day," breaks once in a while the almost
generalized silence of passengers. Some board; others alight. The bus stops; advances. The route begins; ends.
Garage bound, on the way home, bus and passenger move further away from each other. The half-light of the
night closes the eyelids and turns off the headlights. Tomorrow, another journey.
routine journey of boarding, alighting and transferring from one bus to another, as well as walking she only knows
how many streets.
Just seconds before the bus arrival, a soft wind waves her long skirt at the same rhythm an American flag
undulates across the street from above. The screeching noise of the brakes interrupts the monotony with the
colorful, imposing arrival of the bus. The bus operator promptly welcomes the lady in with a synchronized
movement that opens the bus doors. A computerized voice is heard announcing to bus passengers about to alight
what routes they can transfer to from that intersection. Once in the bus, the woman and two other passengers
that hopped in the bus along with her, join about a dozen other individuals who quietly seat dispersed on the bus
seats.
Thousands of bus riders commute every day on this Valley Metro System’s route —Route 3— alone. According to
the System’s Ridership Report* an average of 8 thousand boardings in a single weekday are reported solely for
this route, that stretches from 67th Avenue to the Phoenix Zoo, via Van Buren Street. Statistics show that almost
60 million of system-wise boardings were recorded during the fiscal year 2005-2006. Evidently, the figures reveal
the great amount of individuals who use this type of public transportation to get around in most of the fourth
largest county of the nation, Maricopa County.
But navigating through the system and throughout the Phoenix Metro area is not an easy feat. Walking distances,
sometimes long waits, as well as crowded buses during peak hours —where the greatest movement of passengers
occurs— are among other factors that can make a trip using this type of public transportation quite a challenge.
Leave aside the soon-to-arrive hottest summer temperatures, which turn even the most straightforward trip into a
sweaty and breathtaking affair. For these reasons, riding a Valley Metro bus talks about the struggle and toil
thousands of men and women face everyday in order to move from one place to another.
But make no mistake. Riding a bus isn’t as bad of an experience as some people may think. Public transportation by
bus offers numerous benefits to people as well as cities themselves. In fact, thanks to the Valley Metro bus system,
it is possible for many individuals that wouldn’t be able get around otherwise, go from one place to another. Take
for instance two persons with a disability, a man and a woman, who are sitting on their own wheelchairs in this
bus ride. Occupying the space next to the back door of the bus, they sure seem to enjoy the accessibility of the
vehicle, which is equipped with a “wheelchair lift device” that raises and lowers a platform that makes possible for
wheelchair users to board and alight the bus. So public transportation plays a vital role in many people’s lives
despite the inherent hardships being a bus rider brings.
Thus, every day, and in metropolitan areas such as Phoenix’, before the sunrise and after the sunset, the
incessant traffic of people who lack their own transportation or that use the bus for their own convenience, creates
a peculiar culture of human movement. Upon the asphalt strip as an artery, the heartbeat of a crowd infuses a
sentiment of search in cities who attempt to awake to a daily challenge of staying vibrant and productive. Their
workforce, industrious and booming, searches within itself to be able to be transported rapidly and effectively
through streets and avenues, which regardless of their width or narrowness, get tight when confronted with the
piling up of traffic of vehicles that increases with the continuous advent of new inhabitants.
Let us imagine a city, not of private automobiles, but of a predominant public transportation, under a sky without
pollution and where the air is air and carpooling isn’t indispensable. More buses, and less cars; extinct traffic
congestions and an abundance of pedestrians walking upon sidewalks packed with people who exchanged opaque
and bald car tires, for shoes of shinny and attractive appearance. Less obesity, perhaps, better blood circulation,
and bodies in shape that encouraged themselves even to despise claustrophobic elevators, and to prefer the
concrete or metal of the staircase that is tiring, but drop the extra pounds all the way to the first floor. And in a
harmonious motion, the gross of the population traveling, sitting or standing, in buses where road rage is history
and new friendships germinate by sharing the bus book.
However, at least for now, public transportation slips away through routes where the private car is boss and the
bus is just an assistant. The Phoenix metropolitan area, in this way, becomes suffocated in the contamination of
the vehicular selfishness, where hundreds of thousands of cars with as many other hundreds of thousands of
lonely drivers inside of them, narrow the shared option of the democratic experience of traveling in a bus,
surrounded by strangers, who are people, after all. A bus; we could ponder it as a means of humble and
unpretentious transportation that is there only to take us to our destination, and at the rhythm of the “music” of a
programmed voice that guides through routes and buses so we do not err our direction.
On the way to work, school bound, coming back home; going to the market, the daycare facility or to the site of
reunion; Valley Metro buses carry people almost incessantly. Individuals engrossed in their own thoughts, men and
women with work uniforms and I.D. badges, entire families with children who enjoy the simplicity of happiness.
People with disabilities who, lacking help, rely on themselves at the pace of the wheels of their chairs that limit
them, but traveling in buses empower them. Homeless people who carry heavy backpacks and refuge from cold or
hot weather on a trip they long could be interminable. Strangers who act like childhood friends under the bus
shelters installed on the sidewalks, that provide seats and protection from the elements. There, friendships
emerge and dissipate within the “dwell time,” that is, the scheduled time a bus discharges and takes on
passengers at a bus stop, sometimes a few seconds. And lastly, the people who ride bikes where buses don’t run,
and whose bikes ride on the bike rack located on the front of the bus. All, equally —passengers of a
temporary stay— by means of a bus pass, coins or a transfer slip, travel inside a bus that is comparable to life, in
which we all board at one point and alight at another, at the end of our destination.
While the majority of the bus riders remain quiet, the ride is noisy. The sound of the bus engine, the air brakes, as
well as the incessant programmed voice that announces stops and routes as an automatic service for passengers,
compose almost the entirety of sounds heard through the trip. The occasional, lively conversation, the sporadic
children’s excite, or the perfect stranger who tells us to "have a nice day," breaks once in a while the almost
generalized silence of passengers. Some board; others alight. The bus stops; advances. The route begins; ends.
Garage bound, on the way home, bus and passenger move further away from each other. The half-light of the
night closes the eyelids and turns off the headlights. Tomorrow, another journey.
| Icon photos by Jonathan Hernandez |
| Hispanic Institute of Social Issues © 2007 All rights reserved. webmaster@hisi.org |
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| HISI © 2007 |
