|
Earlier this month, I attended the opening of an exhibit
at SOIL Gallery (www.soilart.org):
The Adventures of Transitman. Here’s how the artist
(a.k.a. former Sound Transit artist-in-residence, Christian
French) describes his project:
“A meditation on the power of choice, and the ramifications
of its exercise, this project expresses some of my assumptions
about the hidden capacities we all have to make a difference
in the world. Every act has infinite consequence. Even
a simple choice like how you commute.”
Finally, a superhero a bus chick can get behind! (No Batmobiles
necessary.)
The exhibit runs through June 3. If you make time
to check it out, you’ll see, in addition to cool
photographs and comic panels, and a seriously sexy yellow
and red superhero uniform, Transitman’s version
of a bus chick bag: a briefcase that contains a notebook,
keys, a copy of Real Change (seriously) ,and
an old-school flask. Now why didn’t I think of
that?
And speaking of Bus Chick heroes…
Tom Bakker, also known as the Human Bus Schedule, is one
of the finest.
It all started back in the day, when Metro was still Seattle
Transit, and six-year old Tom wanted to try riding the
bus. First, he asked his parents if he could take it from
their Capitol Hill home to his elementary school a little
farther north. Being the cool (and highly intelligent)
parents that they were, they said yes.
After Tom had proved himself able to get to and from school
without incident, he expanded his bus repertoire, buying
all-day passes on the weekends so he could explore the
city. It wasn’t long before he started memorizing
schedules. (Some kids put together puzzles or model trains;
budding transit geeks study bus schedules.) And memorize
he did. He quickly mastered all the routes in the Seattle
Transit system.
These days, Tom still lives on Capitol Hill, only now
he rides the bus downtown to work and has memorized the
schedule for every Metro and Sound Transit route in existence.
(Seriously. I tested him.) This accomplishment has earned
him a fair amount of local notoriety (including an appearance
on Evening Magazine that has been repeated 23 times since
1996) and at least one huge fan.
Tom has never owned a car, and, like most transit geeks,
can get almost anywhere in the Pacific Northwest on the
bus. Unlike most transit geeks, he can tell you how to
do it (including which routes to catch, transfer locations,
and wait times) without consulting a single reference.
Perhaps we should call him the “Human Trip Planner.”
I think Tom and Christian should team up and form an alliance
— like the Superfriends — and use their powers
to help bus riders in distress. If I keep improving my
bus skills, they might even let me join. I always did
like Wonder Woman… |
