Back in March 2009, winners were announced for A NEW INFRASTRUCTURE: Innovative Transit Solutions for Los Angeles. Co-hosted by the SCI-Arc Future Initiatives Program and The Architect's Newspaper, this open ideas competition called for architects, engineers, urban planners and students to propose new ideas for LA County’s transit infrastructure. The results further creatively fueled the discussion about President Obama's plans to rebuild the nation's infrastructure in general and LA County's Measure R half cent tax to rescue transit in particular.
Now a new book has been published featuring all 75 competition entries with in-depth documentation of the winning proposals in the professional and student category, as well as comments by jury members Thom Mayne, Aspet Davidian, Neil Denari, Gail Goldberg, Roland Genick, Cecilia V. Estolano, Eric Owen Moss, and Geoff Wardle.
We've got five copies of the A NEW INFRASTRUCTURE books to give away to Archinect readers. Instructions on how to win and some photo impressions of the publication after the break...
Back in March 2009, winners were announced for A NEW INFRASTRUCTURE: Innovative Transit Solutions for Los Angeles. Co-hosted by the SCI-Arc Future Initiatives Program and The Architect's Newspaper, this open ideas competition called for architects, engineers, urban planners and students to propose new ideas for LA County’s transit infrastructure. The results further creatively fueled the discussion about President Obama's plans to rebuild the nation's infrastructure in general and LA County's Measure R half cent tax to rescue transit in particular.
Now a new book has been published featuring all 75 competition entries with in-depth documentation of the winning proposals in the professional and student category, as well as comments by jury members Thom Mayne, Aspet Davidian, Neil Denari, Gail Goldberg, Roland Genick, Cecilia V. Estolano, Eric Owen Moss, and Geoff Wardle.
We've got five copies of the A NEW INFRASTRUCTURE books to give away to Archinect readers. All you need to do to win one of the five books is leave a very brief comment below with your favorite commuter story on public transport. We will pick the five best comments on Monday, Jan 18, at 12 p.m. Pacific Time.
39 Comments
This is not only a commuter story, but one of my life touchstone stories.
When I was a young white female architect in Philadelphia, dressed all prim and professional for my commute to work one day, the bus had only standing room. I had my hands full with briefcase and a bag of material samples, so I wasn't holding on to the bar but just balancing on my feet. Predictably, the bus suddenly slammed on its brakes. The man standing in front of me, an African American man probably in his late 50s, wearing the uniform of a laborer, grabbed my upper arm and literally stopped me from toppling over into the entire line of people standing in the aisle.
It was a perfect moment of human connection: no barriers of class of race, no fear of embarrassment or innuendo, just one helping hand to another human.
Since then I've been much more likely to run help people who I see need assistance with some small problem like getting a big box through a door or whatever.
I have another good bus story, much funnier, but I'll limit myself to one. I also heard a fantastic one recently about a dead dog in a suitcase, but that's not my story to share. After the competition is over I'll tell both of them.
I once sat next to Neil Denari on the bus . . .cool!
Show me the way to go home; the commuter story. By Jerome Beatty, Jr.
My bicycle tire went flat one morning so I jumped on the subway in nyc where I met a self-proclaimed ninja who fixed my tire for me (on the train) and then jumped off at the stop. My new ninja friend saved the day!!!
Riding on a subway in new york on NYE when a guy with bagpipes got on. He didn't want to play, but for some reason he thought he could go on the trip, surrounded by happy drunk people, without playing. Everyone on the train starting chanting to get him to play, and the entire car broke down in dance.
One evening while my friend and I were waiting for the Greenline train in DC after our Spanish class, she and I broke into spontaneous dancing while listening to our ipods. She was on the opposite tracks heading to dinner, I towards home. We were in our own, yet syncopated worlds of music. When the train arrived, I got on and thought nothing more of what we did. A little later, a young woman looking worn-out from a long day at work came up and asked me if I and my friend did that all the time. I answered no, just that we felt like dancing. She said it was great to see someone happy and made the end of her day.
I think at the end of the day, taking mass transit affords a peak into the everyday of our communities...the good, the bad. The stiff collared worker, the unemployed all-day rider, the school kids, the late night boozers, the beggars and everything in between. And somewhere a butterfly flaps its wings.
My husband and I met on a bus during our freshman year of college in Savannah, Georgia, a little over 9 years ago. Best commuter story ever!
Public transit—it could be your happily-ever-after.
This was just after that big east coast snowstorm we got about a month ago, in Baltimore.
I usually bike, but there was no way I was doing it that day, there was still ice everywhere on the narrow streets, which were made even narrower by the big piles of plowed snow. The buses were running, though, just really late, and after waiting at the stop for a half hour, one finally came to take me the 2.5 miles to work.
We're going really slow, and the bus takes up just over a lane in my neighborhood on a good day, today, we were way over, but that didn't stop cars from passing us when they got too frustrated to wait, this in a two way street.
As we got closer to downtown, the streets got even more clogged by construction and delivery trucks - Baltimore city usually completely freaks out at the sight of snow, and this was a ridiculous amount of the stuff, but it didn't seem to stop the Utz guy from getting his chips to the corner store, or the orange vest dudes from continuing to tear up the road all over the place. We had to stop three times to wait for delivery trucks to move, once clipping an orange cone and knocking it into an open manhole, I hope nobody was down there.
Then the bus pulls up at one of those stops where they switch drivers. And even though I've been on this bus for over a half hour at this point, the drivers still have to have a little conversation about stuff: like other buses that got stuck in the snow, or the guy ("Lonny, you know Handsome Lonny?") who found a purse on his bus and shocked everybody by calling it in.
At some point, the whole conversation jumps to a halt, because the new driver has just seen a cockroach. "Wtf! That's a roach, did you bring that with you?" he accuses the old driver. "It's not from me! All of these buses have got roaches!" "Nuh-uh! They show up, they'll get in your clothes! They'll get everywhere! Damn!" After a back and forth about whose problem the roach was, the old driver eventually says goodbye and gets off, and the new driver pulls out.
(con'td)
(con'td from above)
I've been on the bus about 45 minutes at this point, after waiting a half hour for it - I could've walked to work in less than an hour. New driver is pulling back into busy traffic, with construction and snow and delivery trucks everywhere, and he pulls out his cellphone. To call in the roach. "Yeah, this is number 64, day shift, yeah 352. That's right, bus has a roach. Yeah, she brought it in her coat. Haha, yeah, that's right."
He hangs up and at the next stop, a guy that must be a friend of his gets on. He tells his friend about the roach. "No shit?" "Yeah, watch out."
"Man, I tell you," he goes on, to his friend (at this point, we're waiting for another truck to move, two blocks form my stop, I hit the yellow stripe thing, and chill out). "I tell you" "These roaches, man, you see one, there are fifteen more you won't see." "You got a nuclear war, you know what's gonna be left?" "Roaches?" "That's right, roaches" "You cut one of their heads off, the thing'll live for another two days!" "No shit?" "No kidding, man, I tell you."
"You know one thing for sure, though" He says, just as I'm about to get off. "You know who will fuck up everything even worse than all that, anything they mess with?" "Who will?" "Guaranteed, anything at all they're involved with." "Who's that?"
"People," he says, "People will"
for the last couple of years that i was in arch school in new orleans, i worked at an office in the french quarter. afternoons when classes were over i'd hop on the streetcar for the 30 - 45 minute ride down to canal street. sometimes the trip was longer if, say, some oblivious driver decided to cross in front of the streetcar and get hit. these cars were invariably totalled, but i never saw any damage to a streetcar.
i loved to read on the streetcar, but most often ended up being distracted with people watching, admiring st charles avenue passing by the windows, or listening in on conversations.
getting off downtown, i'd walk royal or chartres to the office on pirate alley (next to the cathedral). after both classes and work, i'd be beat walking back to the streetcar and, while i might crack my book open and try to read by the yellowish overhead lights, i often fell asleep to the rhythm of the wheels and the rocking. i'd wake up every few stops when the doors flopped open - or in between stops when someone pulled the buzzer cord for too long.
if i was really tired, though, i wouldn't wake up and i'd find myself at the end of the line on claiborne ave. the car would stop, the operator would get up and start flipping the wooden seatbacks the other direction for the return trip, and, if i was lucky, i'd have the fare for the trip back to my apartment. i wasn't always lucky and sometimes had to get off and walk - not a bad walk, strolling down the grassy area between the tracks and the street.
(continued)
the operators started to know me. they'd smile ruefully as they passed me on their trip back downtown. eventually a couple of them knew my routine enough that they'd either yell to wake me at my stop or they'd let me off the hook for the return ride.
i lived right on st charles avenue, so the streetcar stopped right in front of my building. the streetcar was almost a character in my life during that time. it was my connection to the city at large - always the first ride talking me to my bus transfers around the city.
by my last year of school i was so accustomed to the hourly scraping rumbling sound of the streetcar passing by my building through the night that, if it didn't come - if there was an unexpected quiet when it should be passing - i'd wake up and wonder: probably someone stopped in front of it again and they all had to wait for n.o.p.d. to come and make fun of the car's driver.
soon enough, though, the streetcar would rattle by - faster than usual, trying to make up time.
and then i could go back to sleep.
After leaving a saturday class I was taking at University of the Arts, I was waiting in Suburban Station in Philadelphia for the R3 line to take me home. There are always people to look at and study, and one woman stood out. She was about 30 years old, was accompanied, and had an obvious mental disability.
It probably isn't good that I watch people how I do, but it is what it is. I was noticing that this woman kept twitching and making grunting noises. Feeling bad, I moved on and looked at another person when this woman collapses to the ground and has a seizure in the middle of the train station. People started crowding around and help was quick to arrive in the form of a Philadelphia police officer.
Just as all this happened the train I was to take home pulled up and opened its doors. To this day I wonder if that woman ended up being okay.
i saw one of the coolest showdowns in a bus. it was in the peak of summer and the air conditioning system in the bus was on full blast. i sat in the back, smack dab in the middle. a couple of seats to my right sat a hefty fellow by the window. i noticed a smell. i tolerate it because that's what you do when you share public spaces. a young lady walks in and sits two seats in front of the said fellow. she immediately smelled the smell and opened the clerestory window between her and the sweaty fellow. the guy closes the after a few seconds. the young lady notices and opens the window once more. soon after, he closes it. she opens it again, he slams it shut. then yelling began. "IT SMELLS IN HERE!!" she yells while opening the window. "YOU'RE LETTING THE COLD AIR OUT!!" he says as if he was talking to a child. this went on for maybe 12 exchanges until she decided to move towards the front of the bus...
friend of a friend story, New York Subway.
My friend's friend is a dog walker in New York. One day she was walking a older dog that belonged to an elderly lady. On the walk the dog died, presumably of natural causes. So the friend is at Union Square with a dead dog and doesn't quite know what to do. She calls the owner and the owner asks her to take the dog to a local vet so that they may properly handle the "burial". Still not sure how best to proceed the friend acquires a large black trash bag from an adjacent store and puts the dog in the bag. She then gets on the 456 to head up to 30th street where the vet is located. As she gets on a guy across from here asks her what's in the bag, not sure what to say she comes up with, "technology." The guys says, "Oh really? What kind?", "The best" she responds.....Not a minute later at the 23rd street stop, as the doors open the guy grabs the bag from her and runs out the door. Bewildered by what just happened she watches the doors close and the train pulls away.....quite the surprise for the guy when he opened the bag i'm sure.
jbk, your story reminded me of another one, I can't wait to tell it! I guess I've spent more time on public transit than I recall.
i ride the california street cable car in san francisco to and from work. one day i boarded the front of the car and sat down next to a man in well-tailored business suit holding a mannequin hand. for the first few blocks the crowded cable car stared at the hand until a man across from me broke the ice and inquired what the hand was for. the man paused, then laughed while trying to explain that his wife had asked him to pick up the hand from a nearby retailer that had recently closed so that she could use it as a jewelry stand. he was a good husband. i kept the conversation going by mentioning there was never a lack of jokes to be had when you have a hand laying around. and so the front of the cable car began offering their own "hand-made" quips. lending a hand...an extra hand to help...all hands on deck...you get the gist. we may have been a bit cheesy but we had a good laugh and the camaraderie that came out on that ride...sharing a moment with strangers, that is why i love my commute.
Raining, a bus ride
She ducks her afro in the door
a bird in her hair.
i scrambled in the morning to board the streetcar heading downtown.
half asleep, halfway there, sitting on the rickety bench, the streetcar operator laughs a little laugh at a dejected-looking clown who gets on the streetcar. ha ha pretty funny the clown says, and puts his fare into the box.
we arrive downtown, i go to work. i finish work, i get back on.
the clown comes back from his day at the french quarter and gets back on the streetcar. he's piss drunk. his makeup is smeared. he's staggering up the little stairs to get on, the old motor is rapping on the wooden floor. LOOK AT ME! THAT'S RIGHT! I'M A CLOWN! I'M A FUCKING CLOWN! WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU? SEE ALL THIS MONEY I MADE TODAY? HOW MUCH DID YOU MAKE?
the shouting is tiring, so he flips the wooden bench seat around, plops himself into it, mumbles a bit, breathes heavier, half asleep, halfway home.
good one, dando. the old motor is rapping on the wooden floor: i can totally hear that sound in my head right now. what was that, exactly?
at a former job, my commute required riding a bus from the beginning to the end of the line - about an hour ride. About halfway on the way home one day in the summer, this guy, who is obviously high on something, gets on (one warning he'd be trouble is that the driver made him throw out this open 40 oz he had before he got on), proceeds into some kind of rant about "the man," gets a warning from the bus driver to be quiet - sits down and doesn't say anything for a while, then just as we stop at one of the major transfer stations, takes off his pants and urinates all up and down the aisle (I was up front - people in the back started screaming - I turned around and this guy's junk was out and heading my way - I climbed up on the seat). He then jumps off and is chased by the transit police along the side of a busy highway - pants-less.
Here is one that will get your hopes up:
I once rode the Detroit People Mover around its track 4 times before a single person got on.
TRUTH!
I remember reading a story in the Toronto Star posted by a woman who regularly takes the streetcar leading to union station to and from work. One of the other regular passengers was Jason, who had down syndrome.
So one day, the driver announced over the speaker system that it was Jason's birthday and that he wanted to ride in a space ship. And so, as the streetcar entered the tunnel leading to the union subway station, he began to pick up speed announcing that they were reaching warp speed. He was roleplaying for Jason's birthday and the entire time Jason was laughing and enjoying himself.
On top of that, a couple days later, Jason apparently brought a thank you card for everyone on the streetcar to sign because the operator was retiring soon.
I take this route everyday too and I wish I was there to see it all happen.
NYC Subway Line 1 at night. Train stops on 72 street, doors open and a wave of people sitting down start lifting their legs as they scream. As I turn to see what is happening, a Rat the size of a rabbit comes running under subway benches and goes into the station.
I guess it was saying "excuse me, geting off" as we all do.
Here's another friend of a friend story:
It was a dark and gloomy night... (who really knows, its just a setup for something spooky). So a friend gets on a subway real late at night. The train was empty but he wound up sitting across from two guys and an attractive girl. As he gets settled in another person also enters the train and sits near. he notices the female across from him simply staring at him. He didn't mind, however one of the males was holding her and giving him dirty looks. He didn't want any kind of confrontation so he decides to put his head down and close his eyes. Every so often, he looks up to check his location and notices the attractive girl sitting there staring, followed by more looks by her two companions. After the doors of the subway car open, the person who got on with him, stood up, pulls his arm, and tells him "this is our stop". the doors close and the subway leaves the station. Not knowing what was going on, he begins to yell "what the hell???"
the person pointed out that the girl sitting across from him was staring at him because she was dead.
Once upon a time (about fifteen years ago) in a land far, far away (Argentina), an exchange student took the bus for the first time since her arrival to the country. In Argentina, at least in some cities, it’s very common to have people jumping into the bus for a couple of blocks to sell stuff, play music and pass the hat, collect money for a charity or things like that. Very often, the first thing vendors do is to distribute the merchandise they are selling so that the potential customers can inspect it while they make a presentation of their product to the entire bus. In some cases, these presentations are as long and elaborated as an infomercial (you know… they cut all kinds of stuff to show how great the scissors are or whatever). The young lady was sitting at the front row when a gentleman got on the bus to sell candy bars. As soon as she received the candy (that on her defense is normally given to you without any explanations because they assume everyone knows what comes next) she unwrapped it and started eating thinking that this was part of the service and included in the few cents that she had paid for the ride. It took her a while to realize what was going on.
I’m not entirely sure if this story is about how clueless this girl was, about how some people that visit Argentina for the first time find that certain things are so much better than they expected that they start believing that everything is great and the idea of a short distance public transportation system with free snacks on board seems reasonable, or about how public transportation can provide not only an alternative for commuting but also an opportunity for community life.
While on a train to slovenia from Milan my roomate decided the best place to sleep was in the luggage rack above the seats... It was the only place on the train where one could fully stretch out and I was guts enough to do so. We were a sleep when crossing the border and the Slovenian border patrol came on board to check our passports. Once he saw my friend as;eep he awoke my friend demanding he get down. As my was getting down the man said in English "wait but before you get down I want to take a picture with my phone and send it to my wife"... After he was done and sent his email, he demaned again that he get down.
Slovenia is a really great country.
While on a train to Slovenia from Milan my roomate decided the best place to sleep was in the luggage rack above the seats. It was the only place on the train where one could fully stretch out and I was guts enough to do so. We were a sleep when crossing the border and the Slovenian border patrol came on board to check our passports. Once he saw my friend asleep he awoke my friend demanding he get down. As my friend was getting down the man said in English "wait but before you get down I want to take a picture with my phone and send it to my wife"... After he was done and sent his email, he demanded again that he get down.
Slovenia is a really great country.
I am posting again due to the many spelling errors in the prior entry Sorry
gonadsxe, what city was that in?
liberty bell, it was in NYC.
The Scene: Halloween 2008, I'm dressed as a Ghostbuster.
The Beginning: I get on the F train in the West Village headed to my apt in Park Slope, somewhat intoxicated. I wake up a few stops from Coney Island, disembark from the train on all fours and proceed to vomit on the platform. I cross to the other side and wait for the next train.
The Middle: I get on the Manhattan bound F train. I wake up in Chelsea and stumble off the train. Two problems: there is not an easy transfer to the other side, you have to exit the station and cross the street (or at least that seemed my only option) and in the trip from Coney Island to Chelsea I had managed to lose my glasses, which means I can only see clearly to about 9 inches in front of my face.
The End: I nervously cross the street, barely able to see and get aboard a Brooklyn bound F train. This time I hug a pole and get off at the correct stop, 4 hours after I had originally left the West Village.
Sold my car three years ago living in LA, and haven't looked back since. Transit experience is a lifestyle, not a single anecdote.
Yes, architects & designers can promote transit ridership by designing inspiring transit solutions. However, real change will not occur until we, as a profession which claims to be the forebearer of greater cultural trends, walk the talk we talk.
I'd encourage everyone in LA to make travel by transit the norm, and travel by single-occupied auto the deviation from the norm. Then, as an eventual majority, we can get to fixing the issues that most of these stories highlight.
I'm with jackjood: sold my car over a year ago and have been a happy daily LA Metro commuter even long before that. So many stories to tell, so little time...
OK official submittal deadline is over so I'm adding my other two stories:
Both these stories happened in Portland. I was riding the MAX train one day and three punk rock 20-somethings got on. One of them, a girl, had super-bleached blonde hair, all messy and sticking up in all directions. A few stops later, a group of five people got on - two young-adult caregivers for three teenagers who were mentally other-abled, functional, but needing supervision. One of the girls looked at the punk girl and, with great sympathy and sadness in her eyes and voice, asked "Awww, what happened to your hair?" The whole train, including the punk girl, cracked up.
The same summer I was riding the bus formt he east side downtown, sitting next to the window. A punk girl got on and sat next to me, with a cardboard box in her lap, and immediately turned and started a conversation: "So I bought a rat, a pet rat, and IT BIT ME! Can you believe that? I don't want a biting rat. So I'm taking that rat - this rat (and she points to the box in her lap) - back to the pet store." Yay, I got to ride the next 15 blocks not 12 inches form a biting rat!
Great stories, all around!
good the eds decided to ak-sen-choo-ate the positive....
i mean, i got a good spine-tingle out of the dead woman story, but it doesn't exactly sell public transit.
I wanted resolution from the dead-girl story. Did the two guys with her get up and leave the car, without her ? What happened next ?
Great stuff, all around. Where there's life. . .there's life.
I actually deeply miss the random and wide-ranging human connection I had when I regularly took transit, even if on the bad days it made me wish a meteor would just wipe us all out. This has been a very fun collection of stories to read!
Man.. Americans are so weird.. It's just public transport... These random encounters are what you get if you actually mix with other people instead of locking yourself into the bubble of a car every day...
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