Good News about City Buses

I have been fortunate enough to ride on city buses in a number of Canadian cities. I grew up using buses and street cars in a small town outside of Montreal. I can remember how exciting it was as a child getting on the street car with my mother - feeling very grown up, or as a young adult learning to master the brand new subway system in Montreal.  More recently, as I have travelled back and forth between Sudbury, Ontario and Duncan, British Columbia, I have used city buses to either visit different places within those towns or cities, or as a means to get through some city as I hitchhiked across the country. Generally, I like city buses (and C trains/Sky trains/subways). They are all relatively affordable, once one masters how the system is organized - they are efficient and as few buses go in a straight line, one gets to see a fair amount of a city on the way to your destination.  On a good day I get to chat with the bus driver or some of the passengers.

I think I am a fairly experienced and well practiced bus rider. I have, to name a few, used the bus system in such places as Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary, Kelowna, Kamloops, Vancouver, Victoria and on Salt Spring Island. I remember going through Calgary just after the Stampede Parade ended and seeing the hundreds of people crowding on to the C train. It seems as if they were all bubbling with excitement - especially the little kids, from all imaginable ethnic groups, dressed up in their finest cowboy outfits. I can remember the bus driver in Winnipeg who was envious of my journey. He might just have left his bus on the side of the road and come with me if I had asked him to; or the bus driver from the Sault who liked to talk about the number of hitchhikers he had driven to the edge of town - never to know but always curious if they got rides. I have had a number of drivers call up their supervisors and ask someone which bus I needed to get on next if they were not sure. I have seen bus drivers maintain their composure in busy rush hour traffic as they get cut off again and again by inconsiderate drivers and I have seen bus drivers in almost every town let someone on the bus who did not quite have enough money to pay the fare. I like riding on buses.

Not all bus drivers are created equally. While the majority of them are polite and generally try to help me get to where I need to go, in some cities I had some difficulties in making it clear as to my needs. Calgary has been the worse. For a number of years I got bad advice from almost every driver. It was as if they could never understand why anyone would ever want to leave their fair city and therefore didn't want to help me to do so. The bus drivers in that city always seemed to be more grumpy than any others. But in the last four or five years that seems to have changed and not only are the bus drivers friendlier but they understand what I need and get me to the right spot.

The bus drivers in Sudbury, especially in the winter have a right to be grumpy sometimes. There are high snow banks that ensure that their stops are less than accessible, people with heavy coats have to fumble longer looking for the correct change or their passes - meaning that icy cold blows longer into the bus, the roads are icy and slushy and certainly in that city, many of the other drivers seem to ignore buses' right of way entirely. But this past month - without exception, all of the bus drivers were bright, friendly and welcoming. That was not always the case but something seems to have changed. So why are the bus drivers in Calgary and Sudbury now so nice?

I think it is because more and more people as they get off the bus, from the front or back door - shout out "thank you". Just a few years ago in Sudbury, it felt as if I was the only person who ever said thank you - now lots of people do it. I do not know why but it is wonderful. It is the same in Calgary - more people seem to be saying thank you - and saying it was some enthusiasm. In every city where I travel on the bus system and where the riders say "thank you" - the bus drivers are nice. I am not sure which happens first - do buses drivers become nicer and then people respond - or do people use their manners and the bus drivers respond? It does not matter - I think there is a connection.  

So as we start another year - be nice to those who serve us or help us. Say thank you to the store and bank clerks; wave a thank you to those car drivers who let us edge in ahead of them in some merge lane or stop so we can cross the street; say thank you to the crossing guards, those who hold doors open for us  or the receptionist at your doctor's office. Maybe - just maybe if we all say thank you and mean it - perhaps the upcoming year will be a kinder place and a safer place. It can't hurt.