When entering the bus off of the corner of Euclid and Edinger, i noticed a couple of things. there was an elderly African american male bus driver as he took my money and kindly welcomed me onto his bus. The bus was as big as it was on the inside as it was outside. It was quite spacious with places to stand and places to sit. Big colorful comfy chairs to sit side by side with. It reminded me with my elementary years when i took multiple field trips on big yellow buses (even though this isn't the same) I sat down next to a Hispanic lady dressed in her cleaner uniform. i looked around me and tried to notice all the other passengers. All i saw were mostly Hispanics, Asians and a couple of elderly Caucasian folks on the bus.
"you have no idea why they put great big windows on the sides of buses, do you?
...
to humiliate the people of color who reduce to riding on them"
The movie Crash
This reminded me of Stuart Hall on the concept of race. And how buses are floating signifiers which are historically tied to meanings that are produced by communities at sometime and some place.
Members of society would have no reason to take the bus if they have their own car, but instead the members of the low class who cannot afford cars end up taking the bus. People who also might take the bus are people who cannot drive because they lost their license or are incapable of driving. These people of the low class end up being the minority of america.
When you think of the public transit bus, you think of the huge things that drive so slowly on the road and take too much space on the road. But then your mind also comes to who rides it and for most people they think of minorities who ride it. Blacks, Asians and Hispanics.
I'm glad i took the bus and was able to figure out this connection and how there is slight racism in the public transit. Because normally buses have big tinted windows for athletes or important people to ride it to hide their identity. But instead these have big fat clear windows so the outside can see inside and see what race is riding the bus.
Hi Peter. I find your thoughts on public transportation to be particularly interesting because your trip took place in Orange County, a region within the LA metropolitan area that is particularly scattered in terms of spatial arrangement. This idea was touched upon by Olin Kling and Poster in The Emergence of Postsuburbia.
ReplyDeleteOn your trip you noted that the ridership was comprised primarily of minorities and the elderly. I imagine this is a common theme across public transportation systems throughout metropolitan areas that exhibit a polycentric spatial arrangement as Orange County does. Orange County offers an interesting way to look at institutionalized discrimination as it is expressed through public transportation because of the way that everyday life there is dependent upon the automobile. I think you’re correct that there is a stigma attached to the usage of public transportation in Southern California, and as a result those who are either too poor to afford their own vehicles and those unable to operate them are unfairly judged and looked down upon.
As I read your commentary on this experience I started thinking about how these issues might be different in regions that formed during the third urban revolution. Decentralization in the LA metropolitan area can largely be attributed to the huge change in transportation that came about through expanded ownership of automobiles in the post-war era. Without the automobile, decentralization probably wouldn’t have occurred. What do you think the makeup of public transportation looks like in say Chicago or New York City? Do you think it reflects what we see here in Southern California where these systems are primarily used by minorities and other vulnerable populations, or is it more mixed?
Having never lived in a city that existed as a major industrial center before the advent of the automobile I can’t really comment on how similar or different their system is to our system. I imagine that any differences would depend upon the demographics of individuals you see within the cities and the suburbs. I have however lived in two cities (Houston and Colorado Springs) that have public transportation systems that are much worse than those found in Los Angeles and I can tell you that in those areas it is again minorities and vulnerable populations that are affected the most. It is quite tragic as public transportation is one of those issues that often gets mixed into arguments over the proper role and scope of government with many on the right wanting to cut funding to these essential services.