![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguist) wrote2025-01-15 10:28 pm
Yellow bus
Going to an in-person work meeting this afternoon was my first time on an official Bee Network bus (they just got to my part of the city a week or two ago). Immediately, the driver has already given me absolutely brilliant service.
When I got on, he asked where I was getting off and when I told him he said there's a diversion today and then said where I should get off instead! This is absolutely the best I could hope for as a blind bus passenger, I'm so impressed with that driver.
Also, the audio announcements have kicked in (I think they were missing for the first stop or two after I got on, but I might have just missed them?). First hearing that "this is a [number] service to [destination]" automatic announcement had a surprisingly strong effect on me: I actually jumped a little in my seat and then felt weirdly emotional.
Even when I don't "need" them because this is my most familiar route, the audio announcements feel like a big deal. I'm always talking about their importance at work so you'd think I wouldn't be surprised to feel like they're important, yet here I was.
In my own city, not a stressful trip to That London where everything is unfamiliar and I'm anxiously waiting for one stop that I hope sounds like the one I've memorized. There is infrastructure here to support me, I'm not on my own. That's an incredible feeling.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
We were yellow bus spotting as we drove around after seeing you. A few on the A6 but not got to poshville (Marple/Compstall) where I grew up, yet...
Delightful bus service. Almost like NewBusVinyl = new attitude/training/approach. I hope it sustains!
no subject
I'm still yellow-bus spotting a lot -- we're the last area of Greater Manchester to get them, south of the city centre and Stockport and all that, so it's been a real novelty for me. Even when I was being driven around in a car the other night I was excited to see them, it was dark and they are much easier to spot than the old buses! Of course I'm sure their livery will not always be so clean and shiny but it still is handy that the color of bees and Metrolink can be bright yellow.
I'm sure I'll have dreadful times on these buses too but it's so nice just having one entity to escalate things too (and one where I vaguely know staff, because of work), rather than "is Stagecoach going to care." I'm never one to be pollyannaish about this but the staff I've encountered who work on the buses etc. do seem to actually give a damn about accessibility, and lots of stuff about the bus franchising gives them opportunities they didn't have -- everything from being able to lobby bus manufacturers for more accessible rolling stock, to getting to decide their own targets for how long a driver should spend at a stop to get everyone off/on, to learning from some of TfL's expensive mistakes and implementing cheaper sturdier infrastructure here.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Some cities and even towns and rural areas in England do -- notably London, like I say -- but some don't. How buses are managed here is such a convoluted mess that I have to care about it for work and I will not bore you with the explanation. :p Short version: it's taken a long time to improve these things in the city where I live and I've been excited for a while.
no subject
Yesssssss!
Oh! Yes!
I remember the first time I boarded a route bus with a lift, and much happier still, the low-floor bus with the ramp that quickly flaps open.
Last fall I boarded an articulated BRT bus, and they have tie-down systems I control with a push button.
IT'S SO GREAT WHEN WE'RE PART OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE.
no subject