Can I Lean on your Bus?

It's rush hour on a Thursday in the middle of Newmarket on Broadway. It's a warm, muggy, overcast day. I spot a unicyclist (hard to miss) riding as fast as he can next to my bus. He has bright yellow hair under a black trucker hat.

Suddenly the light turns red and he pauses and realises he's going to fall over unless he grabs something as tall or taller than he is. At a full stop, and without falling, he looks at the driver and asks:

"Mind if I lean?"

The driver, normally one of the grumpy ones, says, "yes," without missing a beat. The unicyclist leans on the two doors just as much as required to stay upright. This is transportation cameraderie at its finest!

We wait for the light to turn green and the unicyclist takes off, ahead of the bus, and even catches a two-wheeled cyclist - legs pumping at a furious rate. He's riding one fat tire the width of, say, the front tire on a World War II era motorcycle and nearly the height of the front tire on an old time 20s era bicycle. He's an imposing presence, one moderated somewhat by the speed his legs are moving.

I wish I could have gotten a snap of him, but the two chances I had were ruined by the glacially slow shutterspeed on my mobile phone. The attached image will have to do, though it isn't 100% accurate.

He makes it through the next light and the bus I'm riding does not so I don't get to watch him do his thing, but I have to say he's the most intense I've ever seen in my life. Wonder what else he leans on, though? The bus seems to be a happy accident.

(Photo credit: pugsley, surley)

Father and Son

[Edit 6-Feb-2010: I'm a proud father to a new little son! Let the Father/Son bond begin.]

It's not often that during my commute home during rush hour I see parents with small children. I have a Ms. 3 and she LOVES the bus and the train and just stares out the window happily for 20 minutes or more - this is astounding for anyone who understands what kids are like.

So on this particular day, on a packed, hot bus (Auckland summers are more humid than hot, but the humidity makes for sweaty conditions) I'm surprised to see a father with his curly-haired, chatty son right in front.

It seemed very much that the dad was waiting for a bomb to go off, namely his talkative son. I sat down two rows behind them and wondered when the fireworks were going to start. The boy was already fidgety and restless, jumping up and sitting down repeatedly.

Now remember, the bus is usually a sacred place in the afternoon and noise is discouraged. Even loud talking can annoy people. I find this a bit strange because I've made some very talkative bus friends in spite of this.

The dad looks apprehensive, as if he knows what's going to happen and is just hoping his son can hold off for the 20-30 minutes they have left on the bus.

Anxious Father stays stock straight as his son gradually ratchets up the activity and noise, screaming at various junctures about what's going on outside - generally acting like a "drunken CEO" as my good friend always says about children's behavior. I love that description because it's so apt. "Me thirsty!" reminds me of any Christmas or New Year's Eve corporate party I've ever been to.

I notice all passengers on the bus tense up, and I do too, but probably less than most of them. I'm used to a certain amount of screaming so my resistance to it is slightly higher as is my level of empathy. I'm a dad so the son's behavior gets me thinking on a totally different tangent: I have child #2 coming any day now - I wonder if it's a boy, will he be like that? If not, what will he be like?

My thoughts are a mixture of fear and excitement. Fear about what I would do in this situation, but excitement at the prospect of having a son. My dad was absent from my life until my early twenties and so I don't have much experience at all with the father-son relationship. I'd love the chance to find out how a Father loves a son. How a Dad can shape a son's life.

I can tell Dad is desperate to keep his son quiet, that he hasn't yet learned the art of distraction and engagement. I've found with my Daughter 3 that as long as she feels I'm engaged with her she tends to behave a bit more. If I'm silly, she loves it.

Funny how we all need engagement in our lives and we feel lonely without it. Sometimes we act out just to make sure someone, anyone is listening. We want to know someone cares.

If I had to boil down the essence of being a parent, it amounts to simply being there and being silly, childlike. Being engaged. So come on baby #2, let's ride the bus together. I'm ready to engage!

(Photo credit: flickr/nonproliferator)

There's a First Time for Everything

This graffiti is on the ramp to the Newmarket train station, just off Khyber Pass Road
and Boston Road.

Hard to believe but I drove to work for the first time on Tuesday this week. I've been taking the bus for more than a year now and I have to say driving was weird!

A few things stand out:

1. It only took me 15 minutes (granted it's still the holidays around Auckland so no one is on the roads till next week)
   
2. I didn't have to hand anyone any money
   
3. I didn't talk to a single person
   
4. I walked 50 meters from my car to my office instead of the usual .75km I trek from the site of the graffiti in the photo above
   

Soon I'll be buying a car and taking the bus much less because my routes have changed. I miss the 1/2 hour of personal time each way where I can people watch, read, do whatever I want and have someone else drive.

Some look down at mass transit and consider it beneath them, but I see it as a special thing - something I cherish that I now have to give up. I wrote about how things change on my route in a previous post, not realising that my route itself would end.

Good thing I've quite a few stories saved up, should take me into the next three months at least.

It makes me sad, but I'll get over it.

It's Too Early for the Bus to be Late

(Photo credit: @cateowen. Original photo.)

This was so funny I had to post it (thanks Cate Owen!). Imagine, you're at the bus stop at 5:39am - the bus is scheduled to arrive, when? DLY means "delayed". How could that possibly be?!

Either there must have been a lot of traffic at that time of the morning (not bloodly likely!) or someone had a few too many last night?

Cate and I joked that this is a sign that our transport system is flawed, but that might be a little melodramatic. I just think it's funny.

In other news, Ending free Christmas rides affects thousands. A tradition that started in the early part of this decade gets cancelled this year by Infratil/NZBus. No Christmas gift for us wee riders this year. Stink.

Google NZ Adds ARTA Bus Routes for Auckland and Wellington

More than once I've been disappointed with how unusable transit information is in Auckland. I want to see a map with all possible routes avaiable to me without having to download a pdf or search repeatedly for the information to fill in the blanks.

If you're at a bus stop and can use the text system it's amazingly helpful, but otherwise planning a trip can be frustrating at best.

I saw a tweet from @aucklandtrains regarding the Google New Zealand blog post about Google NZ adding ARTA bus routes for Auckland and Wellington and this is very exciting news.

Nothing against maxx.co.nz, but honestly it's very difficult to find relavant route maps on their site. This partnership between Google and ARTA is a perfect match and I'm looking forward to using it. Maxx is a very "search one route at a time" website whereas Google and ARTA have taken pains to show more information with each search.

There's a great google link for transit information here that you should try when planning your next trip - just replace the demo data with your own for Auckland or Wellington and make your itinerary. It's quite good because you can see your route real time and make adjustments if necessary.