The Bus that Changes its Number
Have you ever seen such a thing?
Dear reader,
This is Insider Post #151, the Sunday edition of this newsletter that previously only went out to paid subscribers. As of this summer, the paywalls are down, and all readers are invited to see all the words and lines.
However, every Insider Post still begins the same way - with gratitude for the readers that decide to become paid subscribers. Your support helps me continue this journey to be an independent artist and writer. It has made possible some of my best words on this platform. It is helping me tune out of social media. Over the last few months, your feedback to these posts has helped me tremendously with the book I am writing this year. (Lips sealed for the moment, but more on this soon!)
Today, a curiosity of the Vancouver public transit system. If you have ever seen such a thing in your city, tell me about it in the comments!
The SneakyArt (Insider) Post is the Sunday edition with deeper thoughts and reflections on my art, the cities I see, and the people I observe.
Only the one bus
Only the one bus plies up and down my street, and it is a special thing. About halfway through its journey, it changes its number - from #15 to #50. I have seen nothing like it in all the places I have lived or visited before.
Have you?
The #15 is an important part of my life because it takes me to the gym, my studio, and the art supply store I visit most often. When I leave home, the nearest bus-stop is outside Queen Elizabeth Park, a 3 minute walk from my home, but on the way back I am able to get off right beside my building. It changes into the #50 just one stop after I get off to walk to my studio.
The #15/50 is also an important connector for the city. Its route passes by two important tourist landmarks - Granville Island and Queen Elizabeth Park. If you board it as the #15 it will take you all the way downtown as the #50. If you board it as #50 it will bring you to important train and bus connections to other parts of the city. By then, it will have changed back to #15.
So it is an important bus that changes its number FOR NO DISCERNIBLE REASON.
Reader, can you think of any good reason why this happens?
A Head-scratcher for Tourists
On summer afternoons, it is possible to find young families staring at the information board at the bus-stop, scratching their heads, wondering if Google is playing a cruel joke on them.
I have learned to give them their space to confer quietly, then intervene after a couple of minutes to let them in on the secret. Why, they ask. But I have no answers.
Some other (unnecessary) confusions:
🚏 Downtown is up from the rest of the city. Should not downtown be always down (or south)? Cities in India do not have a downtown, and in Europe they often spiral out of a centre. So I have not lived for long around this concept.
Reader, where is the downtown of your city vis a vis the rest of the city?
🚍 The numbers fifteen and fifty sound so similar that a non-native English speaker is likely to be more confused by your explanation. Could it not have been 15 and 75? 15 and 32? A decent 63? A nice 81?
Reader, what are some other good numbers?
You Can Always Trust City of Vancouver…
Recently, when I boarded it (as the #15) to return home from the studio, the bus was being driven by a trainee. In such cases, the trainer watches over their shoulder, to offer route-specific advice.
I asked him about the number change. “Why change numbers at all? And why oh why in the middle of the route?!”
“No idea!”
“Also … why 50? Why not 73 or 87 or…?” I rattled off some other very fine numbers.
“I know!” he agreed. “You can always trust City of Vancouver to take the worst decision out of a hundred good ones.”
We nodded sagely at one another, and left the matter there to rest.
I leave with you this thought, about the #15, the #50, and any train, and any bus, in any city of the world -
Public transit brings together countless strangers, different in so many ways yet momentarily united by the common purpose of going from Point A to Point B. Transit is a brief intersection in the individual journeys of our lives, a chance for our worlds to collide. Sneaky Art is often found at such places, hiding in plain sight, waiting to be seen. The next time you travel by public transit in your city, look for it!
Thank you for giving your time and attention to this trivial obsession of mine. Reader, share some trivia about your city that outsiders may not know (or otherwise really care about).
When you query bus numbers (we have many three-digit ones, hard to recall and easy to mix up) you tend to get told they encode important information about where the bus goes. If you’re a stranger trying to navigate, even in possession of the code you’d still be lost; and whatever you do or don’t know, all you want to know is where the bus is heading. You can bet the people who think this stuff up don’t ride buses!
That's so weird. There's probably a very quirky story behind all this, containing rivaling neighborhoods and grand egos.