In preparation for making this entry I did a little research—very little, actually—and was chagrined to find that Seattle is not in fact among the American cities with the worst traffic congestion. I had heard it was on that top-ten list; it seems to deserve to be on that list; and I had convinced myself that it was so. But whatever its traffic ranking, Seattle’s public transportation is shabby and inadequate (or at least it was when we left 10 months ago, but perhaps Metro has wrought great improvements in the meantime), so we have been enjoying the much better transportation facilities here.
Which is ironic, because if you ever want to see Melburnians throw a fit, go ahead and compliment their city’s public transport. “Oh, you’re joking,” they will protest. “It’s terrible! Connex has absolutely ruined it. Back when the state ran the trains there was never a delay, and just look at what we’ve got now.” What they’ve got now is an overlapping network of trains, trams, and buses that covers the city and its suburbs, and seems just fine to us, though, as indicated, we arrived here not expecting much. Connex, a French corporation, operates the trains, though a Hong Kong consortium is due to take over in November; Yarra Trams runs the city’s famous tram cars; and I have no idea who controls the buses—Rupert Murdoch, perhaps. Most of our travel is on the trains and trams.
The $109.60 monthly ticket we each buy allows us unlimited weekday use of the network within zone one, covering the city and about half of the suburbs. On weekends, the tickets are valid for the whole network, including the most distant suburbs, which gets us out into the hills for some bushwalking. On weekdays, Kathryn brings her bike along, takes the train to the last station in zone one, then disembarks and cycles another couple of miles to work. My daily train journey is just 25 minutes, door to door. I have done this painless commute several hundred times now, if you count each direction as a trip, and cumulatively it has given me a fair bit of reading time, as well as opportunity to make pretty close observations of my fellow passengers.
They are from all walks of life, all socio-economic levels, and hail from every corner of the globe—a set of facts that delights me anew every time I look up and become aware of it once more. Riders on the commuter trains are generally silent, except for the people on their mobile phones, though there never seems to be more than one or two of these per car. When there are none, the silence can be a bit eery and oppressive to novice riders—at least, I found it so. On one of my early trips I felt a strong urge to engage my fellow commuters in a rousing singalong of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” just to lift the somnolent and funereal atmosphere. I was fortunately able to resist this urge: it’s plain to me now that the results would not have been good.
The silence prevails even when the trains are very crowded, as they often become during the peak commute times, and riders stand jammed in the aisles and entry points. As the train approaches a station, a passenger will shift very slightly toward the door, not saying a word, and his or her fellow commuters will likewise alter their stance enough to let the person by. Only very occasionally will someone mutter “cheers,” if the others have really had to scrunch up, but that’s the exception. It’s rather like bees tapping their antennae and passing smoothly through a tight spot in the hive, only with more iPods in the case of the train passengers.
On either side of the doors are signs announcing that certain seats are to be yielded upon request to elderly passengers or those with special needs. I’ve never actually heard such a request being made because whenever anyone boards who fits the bill, the person in the nearest seat will immediately rise and offer it without being asked. It really is striking for the outsider to see the way these veteran commuters, who normally seem to be deliberately ignoring the rest of the world, will instantly step up and act to help someone who needs assistance.
I got a close and unexpected look at this during my morning run the other day, when I came across a small old lady, tapping a white cane before her and apparently trying to tumble down into an underground parking lot. She did not look like one who had left her Maserati there, so I stopped to ask if she needed help. She did. After a lot of garbled communication (she was from Hong Kong, and was difficult to understand) she called her boss and handed me the phone. Apparently the tram driver had set her down in the wrong spot, and I soon found out where she needed to go. I walked her to the right tram stop, where we waited till the next one arrived. As we boarded together, the man nearest the door promptly vacated his seat for her; the lady in the seat next-door held my new friend’s arm and helped me get her settled; and the tram driver kept the traffic waiting till he was sure he knew where she wanted to get down. And the thing is, no one took this as an inconvenience or an imposition; there was no fuss at all: a blind lady merely wanted to go to work on the tram, and everyone regarded it simply as part of their morning routine to help things along and keep the commute running smoothly. That’s the kind of place I live in now, and part of the reason I love being here.
I did forget to mention that pregnant women are among those “with special needs” and having, therefore, a free ticket to the seats by the door. Australia encourages large families, and I have never lived in such a baby-rich environment as this. So, along with the elderly and the infirm, pregnant women are regularly offered the doorside seats. Of course, it is sometimes difficult to tell if a woman is pregnant, or is simply carrying a few extra kilos of non-baby weight. And, just as in the U.S., it is an extremely faux pas here to guess wrong in this matter when addressing a woman. A teacher I know says that because of this, a friend of his doesn’t usually offer his seat to a large woman unless he is sure she is pregnant. His reason for such apparently unchivalrous behavior is pure Aussie—straight to the point, and mincing no words: he would rather see a pregnant woman stand, he says, than see a fat woman cry.
--originally posted 8/2009
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