Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Bus experiences

Believing I could ‘catch’ some nap on my morning bus journey to work, I was irked by the loud music emanating from the MP3 headset, which belonged to the passenger behind me.

Music, when tuned to such a volume to frayed nerves all around is no longer music, it is simply noise.

It was even more amazing that the passenger playing the ‘music’ was sound asleep while those around him could not do so due to the loud music blasting from his music set. What an irony!

Bus journeys in Singapore are generally pleasant experiences with the improved design of buses for comfort and aesthetics. The quality of experiences on buses for one, however hinges on the interaction with of other passengers too.

Refusal to move to the rear of buses, the hoarding of one full seat, blasts of loud music, loud talks and other nuisances are becoming common hallmarks of a bad bus experience here.

Of late, I have spotted another nuisance enacted in the queue-up lanes in bus interchanges, for lanes with long queues.

The bus arrives, the queue advances and as you are close to entering the bus, you realize the people in front of you suddenly halt.

Then you realize that the people at the very front of the queue have refused to board the bus, which has, by then reaches 90% of it seating capacity.

Their refusal to board has ceased the flow of the orderly boarding of the bus from the queue in the lane. You find yourself having to contend with the uncomfortable scene of easing yourself forward, brushing past these stationary bodies to board the bus. While doing so, you cringe at the thought of the bus driver not having seen your intent to board and move off the bus.

As you are grappling with the discomfit to board the bus in this manner, you realize that the small crowd of boarders who have refused to join the queue in the lane at the onset (thus gathering on the side of the bus to board the bus after the queue), has suddenly surged forward to board the bus after the momentum of the queue has halted.

We still have some way to go towards a gracious society!

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