collaborative storytelling that is equal parts critical and creative
LEAH LOVES THE BUS
Lizzie Shackney
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Leah loves the bus. She and her mother went on a bus adventure a few weeks ago. They took the bus to Zilker Park and flew kites. The kite flying was a wholesome, exciting experience, but the main purpose of flying the kites was to take the bus rather than the other way around. This got me thinking, Leah might have a unique perspective on the concept of Getting There.
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Her second birthday is in September, so she is pretty young. I don’t know too much about her, and maybe she doesn’t yet know all that much about herself, but one thing is certain: Leah loves the bus.
I first met Leah back in May, when I rode along with her and her mom, my coworker, Erin, in the car on the way to daycare. This was a quick detour before Erin and I embarked on a road trip for work. Our conversation during the short drive between the grocery store and daycare revolved entirely around the bus. “Bus,” she said, totally transfixed on the bus in front of us. To get stuck behind the bus was like, wow. A huge treat. A great way to start the day. A great way for me to get to know Leah and her interests.
I recently visited Leah’s home to learn more about her relationship with the bus.
According to Leah’s mother, her passion for the firetruck actually predates her fascination with the bus. She lives next to a fire station, and the firemen are very generous with their time and vehicles. They are responsible for stewarding the next generation of people interested in firetrucks, and they have found a fan in Leah.
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Leah’s understanding of the firetruck was then projected onto the bus, facilitated by the daily activity of looking out the window at her daycare. The daycare window provides significant (but safe) exposure to public transit. She and the other children look out the window to the street, Guadalupe, or the Drag, which runs through the University of Texas at Austin campus. It’s an important bus route, and many students hop on and off the bus at different points on Guad. She is at the nexus of student commuter life, every single day. It follows that she would come to appreciate the joy of watching a public resource run its reliable course.
Another phenomenon visible from a bedroom window in her home is the garbage/recycling collection process. This, as you may have inferred, also involves a large vehicle resembling both a firetruck and a bus. During my visit to her home, she was excited about this vehicle, too, which raised the question: Does Leah differentiate between the bus, the firetruck, and the garbage truck?
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My best guess is, yes. She’s a smart kid, and there’s something that differentiates the bus from other large vehicles: it belongs to her, and the vehicle itself is used directly by her. It belongs to all of us.
Similar to the bus, the firetruck and garbage trucks are also public utilities. However, our interactions with and appreciation of each vehicle is not of the vehicle itself, but of the tasks they accomplish. The aspect of firetrucks that we interact with in the event of a fire is the thing they transport: firefighting personnel. Our primary interest in the garbage truck is the service it provides, removal of garbage, and we prefer to stay out of the process.
The utility of the bus is the bus, but it has a more precarious future. What happens to our relationship to public transportation--why is it cool and fun when you are a kid, and then it’s not? Not everyone loves it or wants to interact with the bus in the way that Leah does.
As Laura Bliss explains in this CityLab article, the bus is often seen as slow, unreliable, or unclean. If you can afford a car, you take your car, not the bus. But this is not because the bus is inherently slow or unreliable or unclean. It’s because our governments (and therefore we) have made it so. Public budgets prioritize cars over mass transit, and private citizens choose private (expensive) options.
Cars and ride-shares are cost-prohibitive, and bus riders tend to be lower income people of color, who rely on the service from which we've disinvested because...who needs public transit anyway? Aside from its obvious merits, public transit is a civil rights issue and a moral minimum, Kafui Attoh reminds us in this interview. He concludes: "No right to the city, no rights at all."
I get the sense that Leah intuitively understands the virtues of the bus. The bus is the collective resources that she gets to be a part of--it exists to get us from place to place. It is, as Attoh reminds us, a moral minimum. It is my hope that she and her daycare associates retain their appreciation for the bus and someday become strong advocates for more accessible, efficient public transit for all.
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thanks editors, Lily, Allison, & Erin W.!