It’s not easy to keep your balance on a trolley bus if you are wearing vertiginous high heels or are weighed down with shopping. It can feel like surfing rather than just riding the bus. But spare a thought for those whose seatlessness is more than just an inconvenience. In recent months, this Wellingtonista has noticed her protruding baby bump doesn’t get her a coveted seat on a packed peak hour bus. I can be standing with my bump right in some civil servant’s face and he won’t budge. And just this morning, I watched embarrassed at myself and my fellow Wellingtonians, as a woman with Parkinson’s struggled to hang onto a pole as our bus swept down Brooklyn Hill packed to the gunnels with people looking the other way. Have Wellingtonians lost their benevolence for their fellow man – all for the price of a seat on the bus? Surely the people of my beloved city are better than that? Surely?
With so much happening in this fair and glorious city of ours (it’s not just mine, it is all of ours) there’s a high chance that you’re gonna bump into some “out of towners”, especially the next few days as the city fills up with drunk penguins, herds of Elvis-es and not an unwelcome amount of nearly naked people … the rugby Sevens are on!
Whilst we all know that nearly everything is within walking distance of the Stadium (“It’s a very walkable city” was probably only just pipped by “Absolutely Positively Wellington”) we at the Towers are sure that there will be a high proportion of these tourists catching buses from ‘here’ to ‘there’.
And once on the bus they will be pleasantly surprised by how, as Wellingtonians leave the bus, there is a hearty, “Cheers drive!”
Well, actually it’s likely to be a, “Thank you” or even a, “Thanks driver” but why shouldn’t it be, “Cheers drive”?
…if you find yourself halfway down the bus, during rush-hour, with the entire rear of the bus’s aisle not only empty, but with half a dozen seats still there for taking, please don’t just stand there, acting as a dam against the ever-increasing human stream forcing its way up against your inconsiderate arse.
Moving back, and up that one small step is all that divides you from a possible seat, and from allowing another ten or so people onto this bus, instead of causing them to wait 10 minutes until the next (probably also overcrowded) bus arrives. Arsehole.