Bus - January 23, 2012

I took Anya out for a quick walk this morning, then chiseled ice off the car for Ingrid and made the half-hour walk to work in my heavy Sorel boots. It sleeted and then snowed last night... should have put the car in the garage. This evening after a meeting in the North Loop area of Minneapolis, I walked up to Nicollet Mall, another 20 minute trudge, to catch the bus.

When I talk about inside and outside, I'm speaking from a particular kind of privilege: car-ownership. Those who don't drive have to work with the much less flexible public transit system, and so end up spending more time outside: walking from their door to the bus stop, standing waiting for the bus, walking from the bus to the destination. Lather, rinse, repeat.

There's a reason people were so willing to fork out for a car back when they had the chance. It really does increase the number of things you can do in a day, and gives you slack where none existed before. That slack fills up with new to-do lists, but it's a different rhythm of life, living with the bus.

It's a different rhythm and it's a different inside. If the automobile is an extension of the home as a private space, then the bus is an extension of the sidewalk, close-quartered, anonymous public space. That's another reason people switched to cars: In a car, they were, in a sense, master of their own personal mobile space. In a bus, you have to negotiate socially with strangers. It's more work if it's not what your used to.