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I can’t suffer in silence anymore! I know there are worse problems in this world—the stupid war, tsunami disaster, starvation, AIDS, etc. etc., but right now I MUST say something about the stupid, even dangerous new buses AC Transit has unleashed on our streets. 

First of all, I am an urban walker, a native San Franciscan, transplant to Berkeley. I can’t imagine living any place where I’d have to step into a car every time I leave my house. I own a car but never use it within San Francisco or Berkeley during the day if I can avoid it. (We chose our house to be near a BART station for trips to San Francisco.) When I walk far enough in Berkeley to get very, very tired, I hop on a bus to come home. Since I’ve just turned 75, that weariness attacks me sooner. 

The first time I saw one of these new abominations lurching and rocking its way toward me, I thought “new driver?” but no, the thing just does that. Something odd about the springs. I stepped on, looking forward to swinging round easily and sinking into one of the front seats reserved for old and disabled. But, no! Those seats were a step up, like a Greyhound bus! Seeing the little “reserved for disabled and elderly” sign by them was like a bad joke, since getting up and down from those seats is a true hazard for anyone with mobility problems. Furthermore, the aisle was narrow, seats were few, hand-hole poles VERY few, none overhead, and with inconveniently placed buttons to signal that you want to get off (no wires along the windows to pull on). 

Since then, each time I get onto one of these buses, hoist myself up, or stumble down the aisle to one of few seats at floor level (where you can’t see out the windows!) I watch as a person my age or older struggles to get in and up to a seat, then down from a seat and out again. I watch young mothers with a couple of active pre-school kids trying to pay the fare, hold onto the kids, hoist them up into a seat before they fall a second time! 

I ask myself, with so many mothers with young children and so many old and infirm people using AC transit, poor people who can’t even own a car, what genius made the decision to choose this design? Or is this a fleet of buses rejected by every other country in the world? Or someone took a bribe, or jumped at a bargain the manufacturer wanted to unload? It seems too late to protest--they’re everywhere—but I am outraged anew every time I get on one of these awful things. And all I need to do is mention them to get a similar reaction from other people who use them. Of course, many will refuse to do so, if they can afford to drive. And isn’t that just what Berkeley was trying to avoid?—more cars driving and parking on our streets? 

Berkeley author Dorothy Bryant is a frequent contributor to the Daily Planet.