Monday, September 26, 2016

GOT THE T-SHIRT: "I SURVIVED A BERMUDA BUS RIDE"

 

Public transportation.  Gotta love it anywhere in the world.  In my opinion, London's bus rides are the best, followed closely by any major city in Europe.  In Peru and Ecuador - you take your chances with an erratic schedule and a busload of chickens and produce.  Ontario - what can I say - mainly redundant because of awkward timetables and long routes getting you nowhere.

Here in Bermuda, given the policy of only one car per family, bussing is an everyday occurrence for most islanders, and has become at least a weekly event for me.   The buses are clean, sometimes air conditioned (hear my sigh), and trundle past my stop with clockwork consistency.   Another plus, the routes cover the whole island, so there are few places inaccessible. 

Why not use the car you might ask?   I will hang my head in shame and whisper that I have not yet bothered to get my driver's license.  So the car sits sedately under a shady tree on weekdays, hence necessitating the bus drives.  My excuse is that finding parking can be a shrieking experience, or at least enough to make grown men cry.  Very little to be found except at grocery stores and even those become golden on weekends.   The narrow lanes provide hair-raising moments of stress - see photo below.  The winding roads and proliferation of s-bends have the ability to stop your heart when some daredevil on a scooter decides to pass the car coming towards you.  And for the life of me, I can't seem to find my way anywhere - I never seem to know where I am. Navigation never being my strong point.   

Second question - why is there a t-shirt?  Photo above should be self-explanatory.  However, there are additional reasons:  For one - the bus stops themselves are often nothing more than a blue pole (signifying a bus journey into the capital) or a pink pole (to let you know that you are on your way out of the city).  If you are lucky, those poles are placed strategically at a bus shelter, where the bus driver pulls out of traffic to let passengers climb on or off.   The more common approach is a stop with just a pole - placed on the edge of the road.  Often, this means that you have to stand very still and lean back slightly so that the bus doesn't scrape you as it rumbles off.  Beware of carrying large parcels at these spots as they can quite easily be knocked about as the bus leaves.  

Bus drivers are obviously very skillful - they manage to hug the sides of the road, brushing against shrubs and plants, hovering just inches from rock walls.  They miss the trucks on the other side by the other inch left available. Their speed is either full steam ahead, or zero when they come to a jolting, lurching stop for passenger drop offs and pick ups.  I quickly realized that the usual practice of anticipating your stop and getting up while the bus is still moving could have you swinging from bars, seemingly practicing an embarrassing pole dance move.   No one does this manoeuver here - we all wait patiently until the bus has come to a complete standstill before making our way down the aisle.

All in all, I am impressed with a small island's ability to move its people around so efficiently!

  

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