“Move on back, there's plenty of room!”
Surviving the intimate #4 Oxford East bus each morning
Fanshawe College's full-time students are given free access to the London Transit Commission's (LTC) bus services each year. Seven days a week, students can jump on any bus, flash their shiny Fanshawe Student ID card and get a free ride. This agreement allows students to grab any bus going in any direction, not just those headed to and from the school. So whether they're headed to the mall, to work or downtown on a Friday night the LTC is making sure that Fanshawe students get there safe and sound. It's a pretty sweet deal, and it's free! Well, I'm certain it's buried somewhere in our tuition fees, but I know it “feels” free.
With fuel and parking costs rising and winter just around the corner, I'm actually excited to know that I won't be scraping my car off at 7:30 in the morning or shoveling myself out of a snowdrift at the end of a long day of classes. It's also nice to know that for every person who chooses to take the bus, there's one less car on the road. That means cleaner air for all of us and less demands on our natural resources.
This all sounds pretty great and maybe you're even thinking about hopping on the bus tomorrow and giving it a shot?
Well, depending on your schedule, it might not be quite that easy. There seems to be a gap in providing enough buses for how many people are actually taking advantage of this service. Specifically, if you choose to take the bus from 7-to-8 am or from 4-to-5 pm, you will find yourself in an unexpected and rather unorganized situation.
Let me paint you a picture of what a typical rider will experience in getting to Fanshawe on the bus for an 8 a.m. class.
The #4 Oxford East is an extensive route that covers ground from White Oaks Mall through downtown and then to Fanshawe, so it's the main route to and from the school. If you join this route early on, you may be lucky enough to secure a seat, but the further the bus gets from White Oaks the more likely it is that you'll be standing all the way to the college. The further down Oxford we get, the more ridiculous the situation gets. As more and more students are squeezed into the bus, the more intimate the crowd becomes.
Students aren't your typical morning commuters; they have so much technology and baggage you'd think they were headed further East to the airport! It's rare to see a student with just a book bag. Most carry a book bag, a lunch bag, a purse and usually a laptop. Many students this year are choosing ergonomics over style and are even dragging their supplies around in wheeled luggage! Not to mention that most people are carrying an iPod, a cell phone or a coffee. Sometimes they've got all three.
Throw all of this into an unventilated steel box that is weaving it's way through detours, construction sites and early morning traffic at 50 km an hour and it's surprising we get here alive. I usually find myself pressed up against the same stranger each morning. He's tall, dark and tired and probably unaware of just how much of him I experience each time the bus makes a sudden stop. Nothing is worse though, than the sudden commanding voice of our driver yelling at us to “Move on back, there's plenty of room!”
I assure you Mr. Bus Man, from where I am standing, pinned between a boy who didn't brush his teeth and the girl who smells like all five Harajuku girls, there is not more room!
If your schedule demands that you remain on campus for a full eight hours, then you now have the ride home to look forward to. It's very similar to the morning's excitement except you're usually a bit more tired and hungry and possibly more likely to lose your grip at a quick stop and fall into the lap of the nearest stranger. Whoops, sorry about that.
The solution to this overcrowding issue would really be to simply add more buses during these peak times of the day. I've seen “Fanshawe College Only” buses running alongside the #4 Oxford some mornings picking up the excess students, but these “helper” buses don't seem to appear with any type of consistency or schedule. I'm sure it's more complicated than it seems on the outside. I'm sure that each of these buses is expensive to purchase and operate and perhaps the LTC doesn't have room in its budget to accommodate the demands the students are putting on this route. I wonder why it is then that every full-time student is required to pay into this service through their tuition in exchange for a safe ride to school?
I've personally seen drivers forced to refuse access to students because the bus is simply too full to take another passenger; and it's only the first month of school! What's going to happen when winter comes and the walkers and bikers join our travels? Or when the mini-skirts and flip-flops are replaced by parkas and snow boots? Or when we all finally get our textbooks!
For the most part, I'm a bus girl. I enjoy the simple lazy nature of the whole experience. Like most other people on the bus, I'm able to eat, read, text or even nap on my way to school knowing that the bus will get me there safe and sound. I know the system works; we could just maybe use some of those cool accordion buses in the morning routes and stop wasting them on the #25 Kilally that no one is using.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
Fanshawe College's full-time students are given free access to the London Transit Commission's (LTC) bus services each year. Seven days a week, students can jump on any bus, flash their shiny Fanshawe Student ID card and get a free ride. This agreement allows students to grab any bus going in any direction, not just those headed to and from the school. So whether they're headed to the mall, to work or downtown on a Friday night the LTC is making sure that Fanshawe students get there safe and sound. It's a pretty sweet deal, and it's free! Well, I'm certain it's buried somewhere in our tuition fees, but I know it “feels” free.
With fuel and parking costs rising and winter just around the corner, I'm actually excited to know that I won't be scraping my car off at 7:30 in the morning or shoveling myself out of a snowdrift at the end of a long day of classes. It's also nice to know that for every person who chooses to take the bus, there's one less car on the road. That means cleaner air for all of us and less demands on our natural resources.
This all sounds pretty great and maybe you're even thinking about hopping on the bus tomorrow and giving it a shot?
Well, depending on your schedule, it might not be quite that easy. There seems to be a gap in providing enough buses for how many people are actually taking advantage of this service. Specifically, if you choose to take the bus from 7-to-8 am or from 4-to-5 pm, you will find yourself in an unexpected and rather unorganized situation.
Let me paint you a picture of what a typical rider will experience in getting to Fanshawe on the bus for an 8 a.m. class.
The #4 Oxford East is an extensive route that covers ground from White Oaks Mall through downtown and then to Fanshawe, so it's the main route to and from the school. If you join this route early on, you may be lucky enough to secure a seat, but the further the bus gets from White Oaks the more likely it is that you'll be standing all the way to the college. The further down Oxford we get, the more ridiculous the situation gets. As more and more students are squeezed into the bus, the more intimate the crowd becomes.
Students aren't your typical morning commuters; they have so much technology and baggage you'd think they were headed further East to the airport! It's rare to see a student with just a book bag. Most carry a book bag, a lunch bag, a purse and usually a laptop. Many students this year are choosing ergonomics over style and are even dragging their supplies around in wheeled luggage! Not to mention that most people are carrying an iPod, a cell phone or a coffee. Sometimes they've got all three.
Throw all of this into an unventilated steel box that is weaving it's way through detours, construction sites and early morning traffic at 50 km an hour and it's surprising we get here alive. I usually find myself pressed up against the same stranger each morning. He's tall, dark and tired and probably unaware of just how much of him I experience each time the bus makes a sudden stop. Nothing is worse though, than the sudden commanding voice of our driver yelling at us to “Move on back, there's plenty of room!”
I assure you Mr. Bus Man, from where I am standing, pinned between a boy who didn't brush his teeth and the girl who smells like all five Harajuku girls, there is not more room!
If your schedule demands that you remain on campus for a full eight hours, then you now have the ride home to look forward to. It's very similar to the morning's excitement except you're usually a bit more tired and hungry and possibly more likely to lose your grip at a quick stop and fall into the lap of the nearest stranger. Whoops, sorry about that.
The solution to this overcrowding issue would really be to simply add more buses during these peak times of the day. I've seen “Fanshawe College Only” buses running alongside the #4 Oxford some mornings picking up the excess students, but these “helper” buses don't seem to appear with any type of consistency or schedule. I'm sure it's more complicated than it seems on the outside. I'm sure that each of these buses is expensive to purchase and operate and perhaps the LTC doesn't have room in its budget to accommodate the demands the students are putting on this route. I wonder why it is then that every full-time student is required to pay into this service through their tuition in exchange for a safe ride to school?
I've personally seen drivers forced to refuse access to students because the bus is simply too full to take another passenger; and it's only the first month of school! What's going to happen when winter comes and the walkers and bikers join our travels? Or when the mini-skirts and flip-flops are replaced by parkas and snow boots? Or when we all finally get our textbooks!
For the most part, I'm a bus girl. I enjoy the simple lazy nature of the whole experience. Like most other people on the bus, I'm able to eat, read, text or even nap on my way to school knowing that the bus will get me there safe and sound. I know the system works; we could just maybe use some of those cool accordion buses in the morning routes and stop wasting them on the #25 Kilally that no one is using.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
