Context - The Three R's

There are many different experiences to be had on public transportation. They are dependent on where you are going, who you are with, and what time you ride. A ride with a friend, midday in the downtown sector, will inherently be very different from a ride alone at night through a more rundown route. When we were given this assignment, I really wanted to keep this in mind. I originally wanted to choose a route through a more depressed area of Greensboro both during the day and at night, to analyze the differences in the people that ride and the general atmosphere, and to try and pinpoint what are the key contributing factors to the difference. My actual experience turned out a bit different.

A friend and I picked up the bus at Spring Garden and Tate around 9:00 pm. Our original intentions were to ride the bus to the Four Seasons Shopping Center, where we had parked another car. I have used public transportation in the past, whether it was getting around D.C, Fredericksburg, or Bologna. I felt pretty confident in my abilities to read maps, and take in my surroundings. In general, the bus was very quiet and indifferent. The passengers looked very tired after a long day. Laura and I were the only two white people on the bus the entire time. Most of the people had take out containers, and the bus itself had smudgy finger prints on the windows and graffiti on the seats. The stops went through mostly lower income areas and the highway.

It was interesting to notice which stops people were getting off at. I half expected a mass of people to get off in one major location, but the opposite was true. People dribbled off the bus at remote stops along the highway, making me wonder where they actually lived and how far they were walking to catch the bus at 9:40 at night. I also noticed a high ratio of young mothers with their infants and toddlers on the bus.

Two things really stuck out for me. Number one was the fact that the bus made me very car sick, which does not seem like it should be a key moment, but it was. If I had to take the bus everyday, getting carsick every time wouldn’t matter, because it would have to be something that I had to deal with. Instead, it was something that I ended up focusing on because I have alternate transportation. It is a luxury that I can even complain about it. Many of the people that I saw on the bus didn’t have an option, they are playing with the cards dealt to them.

The second thing was the fact that Laura and I missed our stop. Like I said before, I have ridden public transportation before, and did not consider myself unversed in bus etiquette. I was under the assumption that the bus stopped at every stop. Maybe in the past, someone pulled the cord at just the right time that I needed it, but in this particular case, we did not pull the cord. We watched our stop out the back window as the bus continued down the highway. The fact that we ended up riding the rest of the loop is pretty funny in retrospect, but it really gets to a deeper issue. I evidently do not know as much as I think I do.

The demographics on the bus pointed to lower income families. Laura and I were the only two white people on the bus the entire ride, but it was the two college girls who didn’t know to pull the string. The concept of knowledge is different for different people in different situations. With this information in mind, we decided to call it a night after riding the bus for an hour. We also decided that riding the day route the next day was not feasible for us, due to time restrictions.

The next day I did the reading. I honestly had no idea until earlier today that Greensboro was such a hotbed for racial and social unrest. I vaguely remembered that the sit-ins started here, but the article gave breath and depth the issue. The article communicated that individuals really can make a different and to truly believe in the power of students. This reading helped me to think about the bus in a different way. First, it’s important to understand the history of a place before you try to assimilate yourself into a community. You cannot step onto a bus and be the only white person who is still holding the keys to their car, is taking notes on other occupants and snapping pictures of bus signs, and not expect to get some nasty looks from the other passengers. Also looking at the situation from the perspective of a design student, understanding the history of a place is a key element in understanding what would be best for a community. In reference to the article the author said that one of the reasons that Zane’s campaign failed was because he only worked within a traditional framework to solve a problem. As design students, it is best for us and the community to think outside the box, and outside the bus, to create smarter design.