You’re waiting in the rain, and you’re late. You first hear then see the glorious bus approaching. You do the little I’m-about-to-get-on-the-bus shuffle, adjusting your jacket and backpack unnecessarily, making sure you have your transfer pass, which has actually been clutched in your cold hand for the past fifteen minutes. As the bus is approaching you unabashedly look forward to nestling in next to the man wearing four well-used blankets and holding a garbage bag full of doll heads, then petting the mangy non-service dog under the seat next to you, and warming up in the wet stale heat of too many bodies that you’ve come to know as comforting. In the half second that it takes for this fantasy to unfold in your mind, the bus is close enough for you to make eye contact with the driver, you’re looking straight into each other’s faces, your eyes are locked, you raise your frozen ticket hand half an inch and watch as the bus barrels past you at full speed. Leaving you there staring at its back, poised with your ticket held out in front of you; frozen; blinking.
Now, what one goes through in the moments following this experience, I won’t be getting into. It’s a sad and grotesque display of human frailty and there is a sick level of desperation that no one wants to read about. As well as the fact that all TriMet riders have experienced this more than once in their lifetime and don’t need to relive it. Skipping over that three minutes of desperate rage, you have now vowed on all things holy and satanic that you will never ride a TriMet bus again, and you’ll be making that very clear in the strongly worded letter you’ve already started writing in your head to the owner of TriMet, which you have now brilliantly dubbed LieMet.
You’ll never get on the bus again, after this one last ride…
This we know to be true, alternative commuters of Portland, it will never be your one last ride. Your immediate rage will simmer down and one day, probably the next day, you will, once again, need to go somewhere. You will learn to trust the system again and eventually it will thwart you. Again. And the cycle continues. So here it is. The time to break the cycle. Which, I heard from some yogi, can only be done through compassion. Getting to know the one who has hurt you so badly. Exploring the inner depths of the enemy. Discovering the pains this person has gone through in an attempt to find the humanity, to find forgiveness, and with hope, a new relationship.
So we’re now going dig up those baby pictures and see if our hardened hearts can change….
When Portland was born in 1951, public transportation was merely a twinkle in its eye. For its 21st birthday in 1872, the world welcomed Portland’s first dewy eyed cute-as-a-button public transportation system as it came trundling down First Ave from Glisan to Caruthers in the form of horse and mule drawn trolleys. Awwwww!
By 1888 the little guy was running on steam, and went through quite a growth spurt when the next year electricity ran through its little veins! 1892 hits and our little public transportation rascal has grown wild and is divided into many lines all around town. Well that wouldn’t do, it needed discipline, consolidation, and a name. The Portland Consolidated Street Railway Company! Its first name, how darling.
A couple years go by; and our friend is reaching pubescence, getting a bit willful, and shortens his name to Portland Railway Company. Life is good, the future looks great, and he has his whole life ahead of him! Well…by the 1920’s things aren’t quite going PRC’s way anymore. He finds he’s not as popular, he’s getting picked last for basketball, and it all started when the new kid, Automobile, showed up. In attempts to be cooler, he changes his name to Portland Electric and Power Company. PEPCO!
Sorry to say, things didn’t look up for sweet PEPCO as he moved into the 1930’s. We all went through it, some of us died our hair black, others wore ripped baggy clothes, PEPCO suffered The Great Depression with low attendance, low sales, and combatted it with its own new look: the bus. (Previously he’s been all on rail) Well this turns out to be a good change! This and the fact that annoying Automobile has gone to war, attendance is high, sales are good, chicks are diggin’ him again. The 40’s are a dream come true for our once down and out PEP.
However, like all good things, it didn’t last. World War II was over, Automobile came back looking sexier than ever, PEPCO lost most of his street cars, traffic and congestion in Portland were becoming a big issue, and damnit he needed a change! So yet again, he changed his name in 1956, to Rose City Transit. Perhaps to appeal to his gentler side.
But to no avail. If we think, dear riders, that our bus system has known no pain, let us think again as we look back into his most trying years, the 1950’s and 60’s… Rose City Transit was suffering a deep depression. He was facing bankruptcy, making unsavory demands of his riders with increased fare prices; he even made threats, bad threats. It pains me to say this but our dear RCT was suicidal and threatening to close down completely. After this cry for help immediate action was needed. With the helpful hands of the seven esteemed members of the Mass Transit Advisory Commission, he got up, brushed himself off, and took the necessary steps to change his name for the fifth and final time to Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon! But his friends call him Tri-Met. Word.
The next decade brought its own difficulties, but through hard work and perseverance Tri-Met was making its way in the world. By the 1980’s T-Mets brother MAX hits the scene; that’s Metropolitan Area Express to those who aren’t in the know. The 90’s brought all sorts of expansion, the Met boys were painting the town red, showing up all over the place, over under and all around the city and beyond. And finally the 2000’s to present day. Our darling Tri-Met spiffs up his look, drops the hyphen, and becomes a man. Max and cousin Streetcar open more lines and life looks good for many years to come.
Now, sons and daughters of TriMet, whilst standing out in the rain, staring in abject fury as you watch the backside of the bus hurling off into the distance without you, your transfer pass held up, trembling in your hand; this is your chance to apply
what you have just learned. Instead of descending into the bowels of
violent thought and hate, try taking a couple deep breaths and picture
baby TriMet being pulled on a dirt road by mules, and adolescent TriMet
getting ignored and neglected in the shadow of fancy cars, and of
course, scared and confused TriMet s many years spent in the abyss of
suicidal depression. I know this won’t prevent you from getting left in
the rain, or late busses, or god forbid, early ones. But perhaps, as
you wait the seventeen, twenty-nine, fifty-six minutes for the next bus
to come, you can fill those long cold minutes with thoughts of
forgiveness and compassion; even as you watch your transfer ticket
expire.
1 comment:
Great writing, but for one minor quibble:
When Portland was born in 1951
Check the date again.
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