Punctuated by birthdays, holidays, and breaks a college student’s year includes heavy travel and shuttling back and forth from destination to destination. Lines for Peter Pan buses intertwine throughout South Station. The unreliability of the red and green lines cause frustration as travelers find themselves doomed to be tardy for time-sensitive arrangements, and bystanders watch as red-faced twenty-year-olds sprint up the stairs in an attempt to catch their bus as the clock ticks away. Living out of a backpack is not an easy task, but as students acclimate to their ever changing environment it evolves into a mandated skill. After all you can’t expect to be able to navigate around the city with ease, meanwhile having a giant duffle bag or an array of bags in tow. Packing transitions from including every outfit that you might wear, to the essentials to get through your planned escapades.
Identifiable by number and named based on Peter Pan Stories, the Green Monsters shuttle fifty-plus individuals from where they presently are to where they need to be. Drivers and incumbents watch as passengers cry while saying goodbye to their loved ones, run off the bus to clock-in to work in time, or place their belongings in the seat beside them to make it clear they intend to take on their travels without a neighbor shouldering them. At each stop these lone travelers inhale as their eyes dance anywhere other than the aisle, where a stranger might ask the dreaded “Is anybody sitting there?” Typically followed by an eye roll and a begrudged “No”, the lone rider has now been gifted with a new travel partner.
Public transportation brings together a motley of people. Sometimes you hit it off with your travel partner; gaining a friend, potential date, or just a source to distract you from your worries. Other times, you have the person who eats the entire time, spilling crumbs on your chair; the person who takes pictures of you when they are under the impression you are not looking; or you have the travel companion who might as well not be wearing headphones because their music is so loud. You have couples laughing, best friends gossiping, and strangers sitting silently. While traveling who will end up being your companion is a gamble which players have little influence on.
Kept at a toasty seventy-plus degrees, with windows that do not open and seats which make you get up close and personal with your neighbor, buses act as an incubator for each its visitors’ senses. The buses acts as an amplifier for the aromas of foods, an arena for voices to bounce against its low ceilings, and a stage for sickness to hop from one traveler to another. Recent efforts have been made to enhance the comfort for travelers; adding outlets for our technology powered generation and adjustable seats to be fitting for trekkers of all shapes and sizes. Companies have even included WiFi and television screens on their vehicles; neither of which I have seen in action. The determination to better the experience for riders is being demonstrated, but the execution is not completely there.
Although not the most comfortable, sanitary, or desirable public transportation is a typically cheap alternative which allows college students to transport back and forth to their desired destination. Weekend getaways, reunions with loved ones, or just quick day trips into the city are granted by the bus lines which establish routes across the nation to help connect the people.
Admittedly I may act begrudged when knowing I have to sit on a bus for three hours before I can get to my destination, but I love watching how all my traveling companions act as we arrive. Their eyes light up as they realize the trek is over; they finally get to see their loved one, are en route to curl up next to their dog, or have plans to hit the town for a "me day". All the passengers share the compassion to travel to follow what or who they love. Although the bus may be cramped and the rides monotonous, each traveler knows that once they step out of its boundaries a love of theirs will be waiting.
