Smells like ... 2

Recently, RantWoman got on one of her regular bus routes earlier than usual and found herself suddenly on a most unexpected olfactory journey. The bus was crowded and it was the beginning of the workday where people on average have bathed more recently than at other times of the day. Still, RantWoman found herself stumbling down a long tunnel of odors: rice, sweat, probably the effects of living too close to noxious roadways or places spewing vile fumes.

RantWoman found herself feeling uncomfortably like some of those people she used to travel with, the kind who wrinkle up their noses and every new olfactory experience and cluck about how nice it would be if the locals just "use cosmetics." Actual cosmetics tend to make RantWoman sneeze and break out, so RantWoman was just as glad there was no overlay of cheap hand lotion, but ever since RantWoman has been reflecting on the wonders and oddities of her part of town and the competing imperatives of promoting transit use while coping with the public's preference for being among "the beautiful people," not to mention not smushed in close with quite so many of the particular flavor of "beautiful people" who abound on early-morning bus trips.

The area where RantWoman lives and does a lot of her bus travel includes many of the most ethnically diverse census tracts in the entire country. An incredibly large percentage of the population speaks a language other than English at home. (Depending on who has come over, RantWoman never knows whether to count herself among this number.) There are several thousand each who speak about 6 different languages, and dozens more languages spoken by at least a few residents. RantWoman likes to tease RantMom: RantMom's retirement planning does not really afford world travel so RantMom gets to go out and meet the world on the bus.

Even before the latest olfactory odyssey, a few months ago RantWoman signed up for an important public participation exercise related to some impending changes in the local transit system. This particular project included faces that look somewhat like the neighborhood. Still, there is something about the prospect of poring over ridership data and bus route proposals and sundry related issues that cause the panel to skew heavily toward the college-educated and people with a certain hard-core nerd fortitude.

The other point about the panel that resulted: although the balance by skin tone was not terrible (could have been better; could have been worse), the introductions at the initial meeting revealed an interesting duality. People who had moved to Seattle from elsewhere tended to have lots of experience with transit systems around the world. These people also tended to think the transit system is wonderful. People who have lived their whole lives in the area and have maybe moved with prosperity from the center city to the suburbs tended to have lots of complaints about underdeveloped transit networks near where they lived. Three guesses about the average skin tones of these two groups as well.

Truthfully, lots of effort was made to provide other people ways to participate in the process. Decent statistics were compiled about some areas where people with limited English have strongly different opinions from the people who participated in English. Despite these efforts, RantWoman suspects the project still falls short of extracting actual input about some points from this work. For instance, RantWoman has a 120-page report on her hard drive that she needs to look at on a related thread. RantWoman found herself mumbling Duh, Duh, No kidding several times as she read the 3-page executive summary.

Soon though, reports and public hearings will occur and RantWoman will have her opportunities to speak up. As you might guess, RantWoman being RantWoman, there is another whole thread about which RantWoman vernacular could easily be "This smells." though th time is ot quite ripe for full-bore RantWoman ranting. RantWoman also regrets that she did not have time to lend an ear to the partner project where she might have had some topical linguistic experience

Here though RantWoman needs just to put her ranting aside and share communications from another dedicated transit fan who also sometimes writes about these themes as well as many other issues, Bus Chick.

Bus Chick's Blog

RantWoman especially recommends Bus Chick's comments on raising her daughter Chicklet on the bus as well as her reflections about the backgrounds of people who choose only to ride the bus

Bus Chick's This I Believe essay