Tag Archives: Rosa Parks

27 + 60 = a bus baby

Bus Baby has arrived!

Vitals

First name: Rosa, after Original Bus Chick
Middle name: Caroline, after my mom
Nickname: Bus Chicklet (thanks to the reader who suggested it last spring)
Birth date: 11/1/07
Birth time: 7:33 AM
Weight: 8 pounds, 7 ounces

I am new

We had planned a cab to the hospital, which is only a couple of miles from our house, and had also enlisted family and friends as backup transporters; however, because we had more warning than most people (more on that later), we managed to ride the bus to (27 + 60) and from (a short walk + 4) Miss Rosa’s delivery.

As you can imagine, Bus Nerd and I are a bit preoccupied (and tired!) right now, but I promise to share the whole story very soon.

Detroit visit: a recap

I’ve been to Detroit a total of four times–each time accompanied by Bus Nerd. Except for the second trip, when we stayed downtown and practiced getting around solely by bus, our visits have involved a fair amount of car use. His parents, though bus chick sympathizers, are not bus riders themselves, and since we usually go there to visit them, we roll how they roll. And then there’s the fact that Detroit is the most transit-poor major city I have ever visited.

In Seattle, folks tend to be surprised if you use the bus as your primary form of transportation. In Detroit, they are surprised if you use the bus at all. It’s not that people in Detroit don’t ride buses (the buses we’ve ridden there have been pretty full); it’s that people who have a choice don’t ride buses. As I’ve mentioned before, the bus-stop signs don’t even tell you which routes stop there. There are no schedules, and maybe that’s a good thing, since (so residents say) buses are regularly very late. Sometimes (as I learned on my second visit), they don’t come at all. The trip planner on DDOT’s website worked for us on one of our previous trips, but when we tried to use it last Sunday, it was down. I’ve tried using it since I’ve been home. Still down.

A Detroit city bus
A Detroit city bus

Many factors have contributed to the state of Detroit’s transit system:

1) The Big Three: These guys have been undermining and outright blocking efforts to create real transit in the region for decades. They sell the heck out of car culture, and it’s working. It also doesn’t hurt that almost everyone who lives there is employed by the industry (assuming they’re employed at all), and they are justifiably proud of what they produce.
2) Sprawl: Detroit is a huge, spread-out city with no real central point of commerce. Many (maybe most) of its employment and commercial centers are in surrounding suburbs. As I learned in Houston, planning routes and transfer points under these conditions is a challenge.
3) Poor environment for pedestrians: Let’s just say that walking around in the Motor City made me long for Montlake.
4) Two systems that don’t play well together: The Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT) runs the city buses, but Suburban Mobility Authority for Rapid Transit (SMART) runs the buses in the suburbs, including buses that go from the suburbs to Detroit. Individual cities elect to participate in SMART, and some (Livonia, for example) have elected not to. This means no bus service whatsoever for the residents of those cities.
5) Racism: Detroit is one of the most segregated metropolitan areas in the country. The city is predominantly black, and the suburbs are predominantly (often, exclusively) white. Many suburban cities see transit as a threat (don’t want the “blacks from Detroit” to have an easy way to get there), so they don’t support it.
6) Weather: (Bus Nerd will disagree with me on this one.) It’s simply too dang cold to be standing outside in the winter.

Some reasons for hope:

1) Recent efforts to build a light rail line between Detroit and Ann Arbor: This would provide easy access to U of M and stop at the airport on the way.
2) Transportation Riders United: This is a very cool transit advocacy organization that is working hard on the light rail issue and also happens to have its offices in my very favorite Detroit building.
3) Post Super Bowl transit talks: During the Super Bowl, DDOT ran free shuttles from the suburbs and various neighborhoods to the festivities downtown. Lots of people–visitors, suburbanites, and Detroiters–used them, proving that folks will take advantage of options that are useful and convenient. It looks like city officials are starting to see the value.
4) Rosa Parks Transit Center: It’s in progress as I type and will have lots of cool features (for example, a climate-controlled waiting area) I’d like to see here.

And speaking of Miss Rosa (who, me?) … Detroit is also home to the bus she was riding on the day she become my shero.

Rosa Parks bus

Pilgrims on a bus bound for glory

Get on the Bus (source: Amazon.com)Today marks the 10th anniversary of one of my all-time favorite movies, Spike Lee’s Get on the Bus.

For those who haven’t seen the film: It’s about a group of black men who travel (by bus, of course) from Los Angeles to Washington, DC to attend the Million Man March. (Today is also the 11th anniversary of the march.)

It’s no coincidence that Lee chose a bus (the most democratic of vehicles) as his characters’ mode of travel. The men come from varied backgrounds, circumstances, and stages of life but share in common a desire to attend the march, and, consequently, their time on the bus. Over the course of the three-day ride, they discuss their beliefs, prejudices, hopes, fears, and histories. They discuss the problems facing the black community and their differing views about how to fix them. They develop friendships and rivalries.

No one mentions public transit. :)

To commemorate the film’s anniversary, I watched it again and found it just as moving and (sadly) relevant as I did the first time. It was definitely worth the bus trip (speaking of getting on the bus) to Scarecrow, including the return trip on the Husky Downer Express.

A side note: In real life, Rosa Parks (also known as my all-time favorite bus chick) was one of the speakers at the Million Man March.

Ah ha, hush that fuss

The automotive industry is the largest advertiser in the world. Auto makers spend billions upon billions of dollars to convince us that cars (and trucks) are the keys to happiness, freedom, success, and an unlimited supply of hot chicks. Apparently, they’re also responsible for the Civil Rights Movement.

Or something.

You see, GM is now using Rosa Parks in an ad for a Chevy pick-up. Seth Stevenson reviewed the ad for Slate.

The spot: Singer John Mellencamp leans on the fender of a Chevy pickup, strumming an acoustic guitar. He sings, among other things, “This is our country.” Meanwhile, a montage of American moments flies by: Rosa Parks on a bus. Martin Luther King preaching to a crowd. Soldiers in Vietnam. Richard Nixon waving from his helicopter. And then modern moments: New Orleans buried by Katrina floodwaters. The two towers of light commemorating 9/11. As a big, shiny pickup rolls through an open field of wheat and then slows to a carefully posed stop, the off-screen announcer says, “This is our country. This is our truck. The all-new Chevy Silverado.”

This ad makes me–and, judging by my e-mail, some of you–very angry. It’s not OK to use images of Rosa Parks, MLK, the Vietnam War, the Katrina disaster, and 9/11 to sell pickup trucks. It’s wrong. These images demand a little reverence and quiet contemplation. They are not meant to be backed with a crappy music track and then mushed together in a glib swirl of emotion tied to a product launch. Please, Chevy, have a modicum of shame next time.

Amen.

Rosa Parks Bus (source: Montgomery Transit)

 

I say, if you’re going to exploit the image of a woman who is no longer alive to defend herself, at least have the decency to do it in an ad for the vehicle she is associated with. It was, after all, a GM bus she was riding on the day of her historic arrest.

Transportation in the news

• Today is the first day of school! It’s also the first day of the Metro transportation pilot for Franklin and Ballard students. Wonder how it’s faring…
• Speaking of schools: There’s a new elementary in Redmond Ridge that’s named after my all-time favorite bus chick, Rosa Parks. Ironically, Rosa Parks Elementary doesn’t currently offer bus transportation. (This is not necessarily a bad thing, since all students live within a mile of the school, and there are organized groups of walkers. But still.)
• A couple of the major travel websites have recently launched programs to help guilt-ridden travelers offset the ecological damage their of their vacations (air travel, car rentals, etc.). Customers who participate pay an additional fee at the time of booking. That fee is then donated (as far as I know, in its entirety) to an organization that works to preserve the environment.
• PCC and Metro are teaming up to reducing driving in the region:

The “Metro Challenge” program at PCC is designed to let residents throughout King County add down-to-earth meaning to the broader policies King County is putting into place to reduce the harmful greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

The goal is to show PCC members that they actually can make a difference and improve the quality of life in their neighborhood by taking the bus, walking, bicycling, or even sharing a ride. And, if they try these alternatives just twice a week over a ten-week period instead of driving, Metro and PCC are betting they just may discover there’s a lot more to green than meets the eye.

Amen.