The 3 R's

I noticed how everyone faced the front and didn't look happy


I then looked around and noticed how some areas were dirty and the emergency exit did not look comforting



Growing up and going to school in Columbus, OH, the COTA (Central Ohio Transit Authority) was my main source of transportation, so riding the bus was nothing new for me. Other than finding time to do the assignment, I didn’t think that there would be any difficulties. What I failed to realize was that although both the GTA and COTA are similar, the experience was totally different. Before this assignment I had not traveled on the GTA and should have mapped out where I was going before attempting to venture out into the city. I was traveling with a small group of friends and we decided to take the HEAT bus downtown to the depot and from there find a destination to travel to. Well, we didn’t realize that there was more than one HEAT bus and that they traveled to different locations on, around, and off campus. We took the wrong HEAT bus and ended up wasting 30 minutes riding around campus. Frustrated, embarrassed and hungry, we decided to simply drive down to the bus depot and continue with our original plan. Once at the depot, my previous experience with taking public transportation came back to me and after reading the guides and schedules for where each bus went, we decided to ride to Friendly Shopping Center and back. While on the bus I paid more attention to my surroundings due to the fact that everything was so unfamiliar. Even though I have been to Friendly Shopping Center more times than I can count, I had never traveled there on the bus. I felt a little disoriented and that made me upset. After all I had ridden the bus hundreds of times before but it was in my home town so I knew the people and where I was going, and did it without much thought as to what I was doing. Here I was trying to focus on where the bus was going, the people around me, the different smells, who got on and off, and what stop to get off. Along with all of this, I noticed that people where staring at us. At first I didn’t like it but then I understood why, after all I used to stare at other people the same way. It was almost like they could tell that we didn’t belong on the bus and that it was not a part of our daily routines. That’s when I started to pay more attention to the people on the bus. I remember having a since of pride as well as discomfort when I would ride the bus in Columbus. The pride came from me understanding that the bus was just a means for me to get to school in order to better my life and how I wasn’t ashamed of my circumstances. The discomfort came from the looks and comments of those who looked down their noses at me because I used public transportation. I had already read Chafe’s text this summer while taking an online Social Problems course. But I didn’t relate the assignment to the text until reading it again after the ride. The reading talks about racism and segregation and how horrible it was for those who suffered from those injustices. I related those injustices to those that the poor face every day. A different type of segregation takes place where poor people are looked down at because they have less. I noticed that many of the people on the bus were what we consider to be working class and others were what we describe as poor. I also noticed that no one smiled or even looked content. They looked as if they felt trapped. I felt bad when I got off the bus because perhaps unlike some of them I walked to my CAR and drove home.