Get on the Bus, Pt. 2

Local community action is what’s most needed today. By Shaun Bartone, editor.

The COVID Pandemic forced people indoors, out of their schools, workplaces, and away from each other. That broke the fundamental sense of trust in the public sphere, that it was generally safe to be “out and about” with people you didn’t know. It broke down longstanding working relationships among businesses and public service agencies. Transportation, both local and distant, became a risky proposition. The pandemic had a devastating impact on local communities. The local public sphere, the town, the neighborhood, became infused with a sense of danger, isolation and alienation. That fundamental senses of trust in the local environment has to be rebuilt with sustained effort and care.

During the Pandemic. the Worcester Regional Transit Authority, i.e. the local bus company, decided to drop fares for buses primarily to protect their drivers. Bus riders could enter the bus by the back door without paying a fare so they would not come into close contact with bus drivers at the front. 

I have been an advocate for free public transit in the City of Worcester for five years. Fare increases over the years was directly tied to a drop in ridership. We have been advocating for the WRTA to stop charging fares in order to increase ridership. As only 11% of the WRTA’s funding came from fares, it made sense to make up that 11% elsewhere. The WRTA never conceded to our demands—until the Pandemic. Then it decided to eliminate fares in order to protect its drivers. 

During the Pandemic, ridership was less than half its normal volume. Once fares were eliminated, ridership increased significantly. By 2023, “post-pandemic”, ridership increased until it actually exceeded pre-pandemic levels. We knew that people would take the bus if it was free to ride, even if the bus was not as efficient as many would like it to be.

So why do I go on about buses and public transit? Why is it so important? Because taking the public bus is an act of fundamental trust in the local community, the local public sphere. 

You get on the bus with total strangers, people you don’t know. They may not share your political or religious beliefs, they may not share your country of origin, they may not share your race or culture; they may not share your views on gender, sexuality or marriage. They may speak many other languages, they may have different physical abilities. They may be of a different social class*, from a different neighborhood. You don’t know. You simply get on the bus with all these different people and you trust that everyone will get along, quietly getting to where they want to go. Nearly every time I get on this bus, that is exactly what happens.

Even during the Pandemic, most people followed the rules and wore a mask. Some people didn’t, but nobody got in anybody’s face about it It was your choice if you wanted to wear a mask or not. We didn’t see people argue about it. People just got on the bus and quietly, peacefully, rode the bus together.

Together, in close communal space. That’s what public transit is about as an experience. You are riding together with total strangers. You have to trust that it’s going to be OK. You have to physically sit next to a total stranger, or make way for someone to get on or off the bus, or move to another seat for an elderly or disabled person to have their assigned seating. Whereas reliance on car transport isolates people and turns other drivers into your mortal enemies, riding the bus requires trust, patience, and a willingness to give space to others who are not like you. In its own quiet and unassuming way, public transit increases trust in the local community, the local public sphere.

Bus systems require public financing through the tax base, including taxes paid by people who never ride the bus. And here’s who benefits from public transportation: the poor, the working class, the unemployed, the elderly, people with disabilities, students, families with young children. 

But the benefits extend beyond those who actually ride the bus. Public transit benefits everyone who lives in it’s vicinity. Roads become less congested with car traffic; thus urban air quality is improved. It tends to reduce the need for road widening to fit more cars, which is an offset tax reduction. It makes roads safer for multi-modal transport by walking, biking and micro-electric vehicles. And public transit builds fundamental trust in the public sphere, in local community space. Public transit benefits everyone, even those who never ride the bus.

When I talk to other community organizers, I emphasize the need to rebuild fundamental community trust. Trust that has been severed by the Pandemic, and torn apart by political and religious division, prejudice, paranoia and hatred. We have to rebuild local community networks to help each other survive whatever we face in the current regime. And the most immediate way I know to rebuild that basic sense of community trust is to get on the bus.

*Social class is usually construed as a combination of education and income.