Thank God that bus stopped for the red light (on the bus below).

OMG! You insulted something related to Apple Computer! You are in trouble now, the fanboys will make you pay for this sacrilege.

Is my glasses-enhanced-vision just that much better than average, that I have no problem seeing through those ads where the average person is blinded by them? The only complaint I really have about them is they make it dimmer in the bus... that's all. *shrug*

I fucking H*A*T*E bus wraps.
That is all I have to say.

It is nice to see a blog post that doesn't put apple on the same plane as mooby the golden calf.

Who the fuck looks out the window anyway? I ride the bus every day and nobody ever looks out a window. You read your book, you listen to your Zune (obviously, iPod hater), or you stare at somebody else. What the hell? Would you rather pay more for the ride? I doubt that Metro is giving those ads away for free. If they lose that revenue where do you think they are going to have to make it up? That's right, your fare. Suck it up.

Get real. Charles is a prisoner of his own pretentiousness. I've never had a problem seeing out the window in a wrapped bus. I also don't consider myself a prisoner because I have to ride the bus.

That's a pretty swank-looking prison bus. The ones I've seen on the highway have all been converted school buses.

JESUS. he's saying we're slaves to consumerism, that we don't even have the decency to be honest about it but instead dress it up and collectively agree to the illusion. what does that have to do with how well you can see?

The bus wrap program has been eliminated, if I remember correctly. The current ones will go through the length of the contract, but after that, no more. Yee-haw!

Laurel is right--Bus wraps were eliminated by the King County Council in last year's budget. The wraps may be gone, but so is the revenue they provided which helped pay for service.

Feel better now?

Charles has never been on a Metro bus or used an iPod. He has been on a prison bus because he's black, of course.

You know, I'd be happy to have the buses wrapped if it meant they'd have the money for more buses.

If Charles has a better way to pay for Metro (this is why they use advertising like this is to generate revenue after Mr Eyman's delightful tax reversals) I would love to hear it.

Stop bitching if you are not going to bring a solution to the table!!

And guess where they're going to get the lost $750k.
Get ready for $2 fares. Thanks complainers!

Word Charles. I HATE riding on the buses with the advertisments obscuring the windows. Even though my nose is usually buried in a book for most of the trip it still sucks ass.

I also wonder what genius decided it'd be a good idea to do that to the monorail as well, considering that some people would expect to be getting a view from the damn thing. Imagine the disappointment of tourists as they ride through downtown expecting a view a can't see shit due to the advertisement on the outside. World class city my ass.

laurel @ #10: great news. thanks! i didn't know about that.

k x one @ #16: seattle is far from a world-class city. took a while to figure it out though. if back in the day you had told me it wasn't i probably wouldn't have believed you. veil's been lifted a while now; however, what is world-class about seattle is the amazing views seen on what might otherwise be an ordinary bus ride. hard or impossible to see them through those bus-wrapping ads.

Could someone recommend a good book to read on the bus? Seriously. I have a library card, but get so confused and dizzy when I am there.

A good paperback that fits in my hands and backpack...maybe a title or an author that will intrigue someone enough to strike up a conversation and remind me that we are not alone in this world.

My iPod was stolen (again) from a methhead (again)and a book is cheaper and more fun.

I hate those things so much. I have on occasion been sorely tempted to try and peel them off the windows.

It has alwasy confused me why a city with beautiful vistas like ours (I ride the #49 everyday and get to see the Olympics and the Cascades on the way to and from work...weather permitting) would obscure them with...ipods...and who needs to see ads about ipods anyway? Anyone who isn't aware of ipods has either been living in the wilds of Borneo for the last 7 years or has their heads lost in a choice orifice.

Oh wait I'm not confused anymore. The city doesn't fund public transportation so they have to whore themselves to advertising so that they can still give sucky service.

I would be in full favor of some kind of city ordinance against obscuring the windows of the buses with ads and require companies to content themselves with the area below the windows. Then fund the damn system for god's sake.

Or we could be like Sao Paulo and just ban all advertising.

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/04/14/sao-paulo-goes-adver.html

That would be sweet.

The bus is a moving fishbowl. A mobile zoo exhibit. In the bus, we are fish. We are animals on display. There is also no way to escape the pervasive anxiety incumbent in the experience.

The ads provide us breathing space: blocking access to the fishbowl, to the zoo exhibit, we are visible only to our fellow captive creatures. The perfect system: capitalism solving a problem of its own creation.

Not all bus ads are bad. Check these out.
http://inventorspot.com/articles/taking_transportation_next_level_6455

THE LIFESAVERS BUS IS AWESOME IN A GOOFY WAY!

My answer to the masses.

@9

"As it is hard to see the free world through the windows of a Metro Transit bus that’s wrapped by an ugly ad for a portable music machine..."

I've never had a problem seeing through those ads, but Charles and many other people I know insist they are impenetrable to the naked eye. That's what it has to do with my vision.

Every time I get on one of those ad-encrusted buses I end up missing my stop, as I can't see thru the window.

Kind of like being on a photo-op tour of Iraq. You know you're there but you only see the pretty lies they want you to see.

Whereas the metro bus is dishonest, the one below it has the decency to tell its passengers the truth: You all are prisoners.

You ARE a prisoner when you ride a bus, or other forms of mass transit. It's like a little prison term, a little hostage crisis, every time you get on.

One the great pleasures of riding a bus is gazing at the world going by, daydreaming, observing, just looking at stuff, taking it all in, life's rich pageantry.... something that really can't be done whilst driving. When I get on a bus bastardized with one of those wraps it does feel like punishment, like prison. Well put, Charles. They can't be eliminated soon enough.

By taking a symbiotic ride on the bus (supporting the system that is in turn supporting you), you are forced to bow to the corporate machine. Your choice is limited. Do you refuse the ride to protest corporate greed and the mainstream vanilla culture dominated by the desire for wealth and posessions?

No - you ride the bus, your view obscured by someone else's money and vision.

@19
Try Terry Pratchet's Night Watch Series- Start with "Guards, Guards". You will laugh out loudly. As a bonus, you will be perceived as the Crazy Guy; no one will sit next to you.
I was hoping to see yellow cab shrink wrap a 60ft trolley. It would be funny as hell watching the tourists and drunken clubbers try to hail it.

I'm as sick of consumerism as the rest of ya, but I'm sicker of single-person-occupied cars clogging streets and smogging the air. If it funded more frequent and/or cheaper mass transit, they could rename the bus routes after Microsoft products for all I care so long as it cuts down on congestion of the streets and air.

I dunno about Seattle, but in Toronto, the budget for the public transportation system is so enormous that the revenue from ads -- which include wrapped buses, streetcars, subway cars, and even columns and flights of stairs -- are just a drop in the bucket. Evidently if we raised fares by a five to ten cents, we'd be able to eliminate ads entirely on our system.

In my experience, it's the Jheri curl residue on the windows that makes it the most difficult to see out.

I almost cared for a second.

I'd much rather have a wrapped bus than have to look at one more gross picture of Sara Jessica Parker trying to sell me some weird perfume for zombie prisoners.

Paying extra to ride the bus to be free of ads frees me from what now?