Slog
News & ArtsTuesday, March 19, 2013
Transportation The Natural Stupidity of Children and Seattle's Public Transportation System
Posted by Charles Mudede on Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 12:36 PM
Around 10 am this morning, just as the train reached the Mount Baker Station, my spirits sunk at the sight of 30 or so children waiting to board on the flying platform. We would be here forever, the kids would slow everything down to a crawl, time would tick and tick and tick. But then I brightened as I remembered that I wasn't on the bus but the train.
When a bus has to deal with a large group of children, their natural stupidity overwhelms it. The bus becomes stupid. Its operations become one with all that is stupid about children—their clumsiness, their chaos, their limited sense of reality, their poor sense of themselves and surrounding space. But the train with its many doors and absence of steps and other obstructions can smoothly absorb a wild blast of children. And during the process, during their transition from outside to inside, the children and the train do not become the same thing—stupid. The train retains its intelligence, closes its doors, and neatly, efficiently proceeds. This is what it's like to live in the only city in Seattle.
1
I know Mudede gets a lot of flack in the comments, but I have to say that posts like these make my day. No one else would say this stuff out loud. Also, I suspect no one else thinks busses aren't inherently stupid.
4
Just enjoy the joy of the kids at getting to ride on the train.
And stop being such a sour puss.
@1 ftw.
And stop being such a sour puss.
@1 ftw.
5
At the South Kirkland P&R, at roughly 7:20am, theres a strange route that goes to a school near Haller Lake in North Seattle. Theres typically 15-20 kids waiting for that bus and they all board quickly, all of them have ORCA cards, nobody has a problem with them. They are not stupid, they are not clumsy, they create no chaos.
Charles, you come off as a informational jackass trying to sell the viewer light rail, because boarding the bus is just so god damm challenging and chaotic that we need to spend tens of billions of dollars on light rail just to resolve this single problem that nobody but you appear to experience.
http://i.imgur.com/dmbmWC5.jpg
Charles, you come off as a informational jackass trying to sell the viewer light rail, because boarding the bus is just so god damm challenging and chaotic that we need to spend tens of billions of dollars on light rail just to resolve this single problem that nobody but you appear to experience.
http://i.imgur.com/dmbmWC5.jpg
6
Charles, in his customarily roundabout way, is making a highly valid point that so many Seattle residents and leaders fail to understand: uncompromised transit allows things to continue functioning smoothly even when conditions change.
Compromised transit, be it the bus for which you already waited half an hour filling with an unwieldy gaggle of schoolchildren, or be it a streetcar stuck in awful traffic, can do no such thing.
Compromised transit, be it the bus for which you already waited half an hour filling with an unwieldy gaggle of schoolchildren, or be it a streetcar stuck in awful traffic, can do no such thing.
7
@5 No, sometimes it's a lot messier than the situation you describe. Those kids are following a routine; it's how they get to school every day. Routine is a good way to get kids to do something in a calm and orderly fashion.
If it's group of kids on a field trip, or on their own, heading somewhere to hang out? It can be a completely different story. 30 kids packed onto an already-crowded 70 series or a 44, while two overwhelmed teachers desperately try to keep them from crawling all over the other riders or disembarking the bus prematurely is a recipe for chaos. And it slows the bus way down.
If it's group of kids on a field trip, or on their own, heading somewhere to hang out? It can be a completely different story. 30 kids packed onto an already-crowded 70 series or a 44, while two overwhelmed teachers desperately try to keep them from crawling all over the other riders or disembarking the bus prematurely is a recipe for chaos. And it slows the bus way down.
8
When you read something like this, you think, Boy, its a good thing he doesnt have kids...
And then you remember.
Oh well, thats what keeps therapists in business.
And then you remember.
Oh well, thats what keeps therapists in business.
9
Only someone who never drives in Seattle could think that children are stupider than other commuters.
11
I can see why someone would think this way about children, but in fact those characteristics are shared by most adults in Seattle as well. Most drivers and most pedestrians can't get out of their own way, and don't even know they're blocking the orderly movement of everyone else with their gawping and staring and directionless backpack-swinging and 12 MPH lane-drifting and pointless small discussions about why their outdated coupons for the wrong products should be honored anyways.
12
@7
So what your saying are kids who have never used the bus, have no idea how much the fare is, will take longer than those who do? Seriously, thats going to happen be it on a bus or light rail train, monorail or even subway system.
So what your saying are kids who have never used the bus, have no idea how much the fare is, will take longer than those who do? Seriously, thats going to happen be it on a bus or light rail train, monorail or even subway system.
13
@11 Agreed. Personally, I believe there is a special place in hell for those who insist on standing at the front of the bus, in the middle of the aisle, while there are open seats in the back and 20+ people trying to get on. Bonus level of hell if that person happens to be standing eyes down, earbuds in, and dicking around on their smartphone. I throw an elbow if I see that.
14
Good Afternoon Charles,
I disagree children, aren't naturally stupid. That might imply that a newborn is the stupidest human creature alive. I don't think that a fair judgement. Also, while there such humans as stupid humans. I don't believe an inanimate creation like a bus or train can be rendered stupid. They can be slowed (read: affected) as a result of several children, differently abled or disruptive humans aboard or boarding. But, buses, trains, planes etc. in and of themselves aren't stupid. Public Transportation is for the public, all the public especially children. And, it will continue to move even if slowed.
I disagree children, aren't naturally stupid. That might imply that a newborn is the stupidest human creature alive. I don't think that a fair judgement. Also, while there such humans as stupid humans. I don't believe an inanimate creation like a bus or train can be rendered stupid. They can be slowed (read: affected) as a result of several children, differently abled or disruptive humans aboard or boarding. But, buses, trains, planes etc. in and of themselves aren't stupid. Public Transportation is for the public, all the public especially children. And, it will continue to move even if slowed.
15
@12 Yes, but the light rail isn't trying to funnel everyone in through a single door and out through a single door. You swipe your pass at the station, then board and exit through any of the multiple doors that open on the train cars at each stop. I've learned through the experience of traveling to sporting events on both modes of public transportation that the light rail is much, much faster in this regard.
17
@12: Not if they're required to have paid in advance before getting anywhere near the thing.
But good job proving you have no idea what you're talking about.
But good job proving you have no idea what you're talking about.
19
Really what happened here is the children made Charles stupid and the train corrected his thinking. I think that was a nice thing for the train to do.
20
@16 Agreed! Or substitute old people or tourists or poor foreign-born people or black people - those are all sorts of people I've seen rendered stupid by the bus. My conclusion isn't that the bus makes people naturally stupid or that one or two people I've seen being stupid means that all people like that are stupid.
It's neat that you like the train; I do to, but it doesn't magically transform Seattle from one sort of city into another anymore than it makes stupid people unstupid. Sheesh!
It's neat that you like the train; I do to, but it doesn't magically transform Seattle from one sort of city into another anymore than it makes stupid people unstupid. Sheesh!
23
I am disproportionately amused by the folks who felt like they needed to leave a comment standing up for the honor of children. "Charles how could you say such a thing; you brute! I shall make this right again with the power of my trusty keyboard!"
24
Me thinks he doth protest too much.
It isn't the kids who are stupid. Some of them might one day grow up to become learned writers for The Stranger like this dude: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/charl…
It isn't the bus that's stupid. Anthropomorph-ing a bus is kinda stupid, but kids (and Charles Mudede, apparently) do it without blushing.
It is, perhaps, shortsighted of the transit designers who didn't accommodate more fully the rider-scenario of "pre-k field trip" when making the bus door and seat layout decisions (there are actually formulas engineers use to determine optimal door-, seat-, standing-space mix for transit). If Charles Mudede wishes to consider transit designers stupid he'd find lots of company in this town, especially those who were against the new monorail (now THAT was stoopid).
Children naturally have boundless curiosity about the world around them, which I suppose could be misperceived as 'stupid' by someone limited by their own judgments. But I'm not saying that's Charles Mudede, because I only know him through his writing (which sometimes frankly is quite stupid).
It isn't the kids who are stupid. Some of them might one day grow up to become learned writers for The Stranger like this dude: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/charl…
It isn't the bus that's stupid. Anthropomorph-ing a bus is kinda stupid, but kids (and Charles Mudede, apparently) do it without blushing.
It is, perhaps, shortsighted of the transit designers who didn't accommodate more fully the rider-scenario of "pre-k field trip" when making the bus door and seat layout decisions (there are actually formulas engineers use to determine optimal door-, seat-, standing-space mix for transit). If Charles Mudede wishes to consider transit designers stupid he'd find lots of company in this town, especially those who were against the new monorail (now THAT was stoopid).
Children naturally have boundless curiosity about the world around them, which I suppose could be misperceived as 'stupid' by someone limited by their own judgments. But I'm not saying that's Charles Mudede, because I only know him through his writing (which sometimes frankly is quite stupid).
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