I recently sent the below letter to a reporter at the El Paso Times in response to something he wrote:

Public transport is not and should not be treated as a mere curiosity.

The fact of global warming with the inevitable premature deaths, migrations and diseases should be at the forefront of your journalistic consciousness.

In this respect El Paso is a community which seems to be in denial. And the management of Sun Metro fail to understand the role they could play in achieving a more sustainable life style. Unless buses become truly convenient (as they currently are not) people will not voluntarily choose to forego using their cars.

I understand that you think your article says that bus riders are individuals—each with his or her own story to tell. But that is not the whole story about what you have written.
You both trivialize and exoticize the activity of riding the bus and the people who ride the bus.

Riding the bus is not fun. Even less fun is waiting for the bus. You should try taking the bus from Northeast El Paso to North Mesa—using lines 44,42, and 15. And you should add up the time you spend waiting for the next bus. I suspect your enthusiasm for overheard conversations would diminish.

The bus shelters—so called—rarely provide any shelter from the elements. There are truly scenic bus shelters on North Mesa which look good from a distance, but provide little shelter from wind, sun, or rain. Most bus shelters have as much in common with a shelter as a cardboard cut out tree on stage does with a real tree. If I took a cardboard tree to the bus stop, I’d get as much protection from the elements as I would with the typical bus shelter.

It was insightful that you noticed that Mexicans seem to accept the fate that others don’t so easily accept. This insight, however, could be developed. You stop short of recognizing the obscene injustice and inequality which is characteristic of our United States --as well as global political and economic structures.

You have, quite simply, missed the bigger picture.

I am sure it was not your intention, but nevertheless your article manages to lend support to the unspoken ideology which says that real people have cars.

Your article reinforces the image of the bus rider as an outsider, as an “other”, as not one of us, and consequently, less important—an object of curiosity but not an object of genuine respect—the kind of creature who deserves less time at intersections because real people have cars.

Perhaps you say that since most people have cars, it is only natural that they have more influence.

But there is nothing natural about it. Why is it that some cannot afford cars? Not because they are stupid and lazy, but because our political and economic system is cruel and insane. (That you or I are relatively comfortable is no counter-argument.)

If there were no global warming, I would condemn the use of the personal auto on cultural grounds. Cars are noisy and the foster a me-first mentality. Cars and trucks make El Paso an extremely ugly city. North Mesa, filled with glass and steel shining in the sunshine is one of the most inhuman (and inhumane) places on the face of the earth. Cars and trucks are noisy—whether or not they have loud stereos.

The City of El Paso adds insult to injury with poorly timed pedestrian crosswalks—which become obscenely unsympathetic when they count down (with flashing lights or some perverse artificial voice) the time remaining before the impatiently enormous trucks (brutal as no mere animal could be) race forward.

You have missed the bigger picture. Public transport does provide a public space that is less competitive than the space of the personal automobile. That’s why there are conversations for you to overhear.

And you are right to notice that this is an unusual phenomenon in El Paso, Texas. Unfortunately you have under-estimated the power and importance of your own insight.