CeMoRe Research Day 2011j.ebrey@chester.ac.uk

Riding the 86 BusMobility on a‘suburban’ bus route

Urban Mobility

As Jensen suggests (2009), ‘Urban mobility is an important everyday practice that produces meaning and culture’.

But which meanings and cultures?

How might an analysis of these in the context of the Manchester 86 bus, contribute to our understandings of mobilities and the city?

Research Questions (1)

I wanted to find out something more about ‘the multiplicity of histories that is the spatial’ (Massey,2000:231)

 How important, for instance, might the bus be to the people who travel on it? What kind of journeys were they making, in a physical, emotional and imaginative sense? And how were these related to other spatial trajectories?

Linked to the idea of ‘journeys’, I wanted to know what kind of space was produced on the bus. Was it noisy, contemplative, joyous, mundane?

Research Questions (2)

Amin and Thrift (2002:22) discuss the way in which a seemingly simple journey can be understood in terms of ‘a complex simultaneity of trajectories’, which they identify as:

“The practices and thoughts of those travelling

The histories of places crossed

The trajectories of places left, now getting by without you”

Research Questions (3)

Amin and Thrift’s observations suggested questions that I wanted to address:

What kinds of people were travelling when, and why. I was interested in whether there were ‘waves’ of travellers, perhaps going to work on a Sunday, or indeed riding home after work late in the evening.

Related to my work on the weekend, this research may, for instance illuminate how workers felt about working at the weekend and how many buses they may need to catch to get to their place of work.

Research Questions (4)

What might we mean by ‘the space’ of the bus? We can consider its design, the physical space in which we sit, the proximity of others and their connections, the interaction between passengers and between them and the driver. We might also consider the spaces through which the bus travels.

Research Questions (5)

Do buses and the people they carry ‘write’ the city in a particular way. We do, after all refer to bus routes as a means of orienting ourselves in the city

How is the space of the bus produced at different times and different days. Does the bus feel qualitatively different on Tuesday afternoon for example, than it does on a Friday night

To sum up…what am I doing?

Assessing the role and importance of the bus in the lives of the people who travel on the 86

Thinking about the relationship between the bus and the city

Considering and reassessing the bus as a form of everyday mobility

Finding out more about the role of the bus in the weekends of actors

The Research Methodd…

Permission from the bus company for interviews on bus…

Some diary work done on several occasions written on bus as I was travelling

Spent one weekend sitting on bus for two journeys to and from town asking fellow passengers whether they would talk to me

Did mini interviews with approx 25 people as we sat on bus

The ‘Omnibus’

An etymology of the term ‘omnibus’ reveals its origins in the Latin for ‘for all’

Since the Industrial Revolution, certainly in the UK, buses have been the form of public transport that has made city mobility possible for most people. In fact, the bus and the modern city have a symbiotic relationship. Could one exist without the other?

The bus, modernity and the city

In the Omnibus (1864) Honore Daumier

Daumiers painting of the ‘omnibus’ signifies the city and the new spaces and rhythms. The bus represents the city in microcosm and reveals the new public role of the working class.

Buses have historically had a role as urban imaginaries, signifiers of the modern city. This was particularly evident when municipally owned…

‘Their corporate presence spoke of continuity, civic pride and a sense of place, where the liveries of their successors speak simply of money.’ (David McKie quoted in Wright, LRB -2006 of buses in Leeds)

Buses in Manchester…thinking about a history…

Visited an old bus depot now reconstituted as Manchester’s Transport Museum in Cheetham Hill.

Visit told me more about another side of bus culture…that of the former workers involved in public transport who knew most things about buses and bus routes and who love buses.

In the former depot canteen, now the museum café, a spontaneous group discussion emerged, about buses and their histories, involving former employees of bus companies in the North West who like to spend time with each other and talk about life…and buses.

The Public Realm…

Here, amongst the buses and the souvenirs and the archive of timetables and schedules lay a moving commitment to the public realm, in particular bus travel, and a quiet anger about its deregulation, even if there seemed to be more than a little resistance by some former drivers, to the relatively new spaces provided on buses for buggies and wheelchairs

This commitment was evident in some of the Transport Museum archive material.

Deregulation (1)

50 years later, a very different approach to public transport was advanced by ‘Margaret Thatcher and her eager disciple Nicholas Ridley (who) privatised the National Bus Company in 1985’.(Paul Foot Jan 1999 LRB)

. ‘The buses White Paper was the basis of the Transport Act 1985 which provided for the deregulation of local bus services in the whole of the UK, except for N. Ireland and London…it allowed for competition on local bus services for the first time since the 1930’s.’

Deregulation (2)

One of the conversational group at the Transport Museum was a driver who told the story of the ‘saddest day of his life’, when the buses were deregulated and the depot where he worked in Salford was closed on the same day. At a stroke, he lost his loved group of workmates and was moved to an unfamiliar location somewhere else in Manchester to work.

Everyday Life (1)

Everyday life has often been understood as the routine, the dull, the uninspiring, though feminist writers offered an epistemological break with this perspective. Smith (1987), hooks (1991) and Felski (2001), have challenged this gendered idea of the everyday.

Everyday Life (2n)

Provincial bus travel is often viewed as part of this ‘routine and uninspiring everyday’ through its association with the least powerful - women, the elderly, schoolchildren, ethnic minorities and the working class. I wanted to see whether travellers felt this way or whether for them (us) it represented something more

M Thatcher and buses…failure if you travel on buses after age 26

Buses are ordinary…(1)

Buses we might say then, are indeed ‘ordinary’.

Raymond Williams, in his (1961) essay Culture is Ordinary tells a story of his journey from the nearest city of Hereford back to a rural border village on the bus. The markers of his journey back home, accompanied by a mutually ‘absorbed’ driver and conductress are viewed from the windows of a bus

The account is framed by the title of the piece which situates culture and the bus firmly in the quotidian

Buses are ordinary…(2)

Williams’ journey is both ordinary and extraordinary. On one level it is a story of a short bus journey from home, a small settlement near the Black Mountains, to the nearest town of Hereford.

This is a place where he can, within a few hundred yards, both view the 6.05 Special plus the cartoon version of Gullivers Travel at the cinema and nearby at the cathedral look at the medieval interpretation of the world in the Mappa Mundi. The spatial trajectories are complex, even in this small city located in one of the most rural counties in England

Buses are ordinary…(3)

Williams’ bus ride was a journey through a landscape where the traces of social, cultural and economic history revealed themselves through the bus windows

It was, too a biographical journey. He says ‘I was born and grew up halfway along that bus journey…not far away…my grandfather worked as a farm labourer’

Mobilities are about more than just physical journeys. As Jensen points out, the mundane journey is as forming of ‘our understanding of place, identity and subjectivity’ as heroic travellers tales’

The bus as extraordinary…(1)

Although bus journeys are seen as ‘commonplace’, as having ‘no special or distinctive features’, there are occasions when the space of the bus has become particularly significant

As Jordan (2002) has pointed out, ‘the ordinary can quickly become extraordinary’ Historically, this has been the case with the bus…for instance, when segregation and civil rights were challenged in the US, the space of the bus became a resistant space and a central focus for the struggle

The bus as extraordinary…(2)

Examples of such moments of historical significance are:

Rosa Parks and Montgomery bus boycott (1950/51)

Freedom Riders USA (1961) Southern states riding interstate buses to test out whether anti-segregation laws made a difference

The current struggle of the LA Riders bus union using civil disobedience to draw attention to fare rises and service cuts

The ‘Rosa Parks’ Bus

The Space of the Segregated Bus…

The Space of the segregated bus…2

The space of the segregated bus was very carefully delineated

Montgomery's segregation laws were complex: black people were required to pay their fare to the driver, then get off and reboard through the back door. Sometimes the bus would drive off before the paid-up customers made it to the back entrance. If the white section was full and another white customer entered, black passengers were required to give up their seats and move farther to the back; a black person was not even allowed to sit across the aisle from whites. These humiliations were compounded by the fact that two-thirds of the bus riders in Montgomery were black. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,991252,00.html#ixzz1I4k47UUS

The LA Bus Riders Union – resisting for buses…

The Los Angeles Bus Riders Union are currently in dispute with the LA bus authority about increased fares and cuts to services which they argue are racist, since these cuts affect minorities disproportionately, as they are the biggest users of the services in question

In order to challenge these decisions, made with no consultation, the Union asked for the US equivalent of a judicial review. A decision is awaited

The Politics of Bus Riding…

‘Service buses’…in the UK

No distinction between seats (cost)

Buses seem to be seen as the province of those on low incomes and therefore receive little recognition as a form of mobility…

Rarely mentioned in government initiatives (like the recent high speed rail proposal), despite millions of people travelling on them every day.

Cities would literally grind to a halt without the option of bus travel

The 86 Bus

Double Decker, generally with room for 2/3 prams or wheelchairs

One man operated

Large windows: ‘panoramic’ view (esp top deck)

The 86 Bus: Route

Begins at bus station in the centre of town (Picc Gdns)

Wends its way down Portland St (19c hotels, edge of China town)

Whitworth St (Large 19c Refuge insurance building (now hotel) , Palace Theatre

Oxford Rd (Cornerhouse, BBC)

RNCM and University

Redeveloped Hulme

Moss Side

Whalley Range Chorlton

Journey begins: Piccadilly Bus St

Palace Hotel…

Cornerhouse Cinema

Royal Northern College of Music

Hulme Garden Centre

Hydes Brewery

Upper Chorlton Rd

Chorlton Bus Station (final stop)

The ‘Inhabitants’ of the 86 Bus (1)

I spoke to 23 people in total – 14 women and 9 men

Ages:

15 -24 2 women. 1 man

25-44 9 women. 4 men

45 – 64 2 women. 3 men

65 and over 1 man 1 woman

The ‘Inhabitants’ of the 86 Bus (2)

Women 4 women worked in the home. 3 had small children, 1 had grandchildren

Chemotherapy nurse (1)

Classroom assistant/working in nightclub (1)

Waitress at hotel (1)

Creative industries (3)

Unemployed (1)

The ‘Inhabitants’ of the 86 Bus (3)

Men Data Entry clerk (1) Retired Cash and Carry owner (1)

Student (1) Retired Insurance manager (1)

Hotel maintenance (1)

City Council: admin (1)

Cleaner (1)

Retail (2)

IT (1)

Travellers on the 86…

Most women when asked were happy to have a conversation with me

Men were not so willing and I got several refusals

Two men apologised for their refusal, saying they were too tired…one had been on the phone all day at work and he wanted some quiet time

Another reminded me that working in retail at the Arndale Centre meant that you had to work until 8 on at least some nights. Shops are contractually obliged in the AC to open until then

The Space of the 86 bus (1)

The production of space within the bus changes at different times of day.

Double decker: each tier seems to have a particular meaning:downstairs seems to be the more ‘respectable’, space associated with being older. C, a young man in his 30’s, now always sits downstairs. When he was younger he sat upstairs, but ‘maturity’ he now says is ‘downstairs’

Most with whom I spoke sat at least on the same deck, if not in the same seat every time they got on the bus, something you do when somewhere familiar –home or work perhaps

Upper or lower deck?

Saint corroborates this understanding ‘The levels of double-deckers have always been at odds. The lower deck is for the old, the sedentary and the incurious; the top deck is for fighting, necking, sightseeing and making maddening calls. It used to be for smoking; on Routemasters it was for fare evasion, too. In their dying days conductors hardly bothered to go upstairs. Personal devices had put a distance between them and the passengers, one told Elborough. And they handled little money any more, mostly checking passes and cards’ LRB Vol 28. No 2. 26 Jan 2006 p35 Andrew Saint

The Space of the 86 Bus (2)

There is, however a reproduction of power relations in the space of the bus. Several women with whom I spoke had suffered sexual assault in particular parts of the bus – the back seat and the upper deck being in this case.

. Subsequently, they have both made sure they sit in what is perceived to be a safe space on the bus

A, now in her 60’s had ‘…a few experiences like this as a teenager. I haven’t sat in the back seat since’.

I, now in her 20’s always sits upstairs, ‘…but not if on her own at night time. (I was )exposed to, as a young(er) woman

What does the bus mean to people?

For many the bus is literally a lifeline. Without it they would not be able to get to work.

For V (in her 30’s and a care worker), travelling across the city from north to south Manchester to her job, the bus ‘ means a lot. (I can) get from one place to another’. Workers often have to catch 2 or 3 buses to get to work. Reductions in everyday services, particularly on a Sunday morning when many now have to work, mean massive inconvenience.

B (30’s,creative consultant) is ‘grateful there is a bus and I don’t have to walk’.

The Rhythms of the Bus…

The bus has a kind of rhythm of its own, humans (passengers and driver) interacting with the mechanisms of the bus to produce a series of sounds and visual cues

Stop, pick people up, button pressed, bell rings, panel lights on, people get off and so it starts again. In the background always, louder at some times of day than others, is what Tim Dant (2010) calls ‘the babble of humanity’

Lefebvre (1986) suggests that each town/city/place has its own rhythm developed through the cultural, political and social sediments developed over the long duree. I wonder how this is true of Manchester. How has the ‘beat’ of the city been produced through its initial role as first industrial city.

Rhythms and Routines…

For those people who work Monday to Friday, there seems to be a very definite 5 + 2 rhythm to their week and their bus use.

Although,‘S’, (30’s, works in IT) works at the weekend, it is only for 2 hours on one Sat or Sun. He uses the bus for 6 or 7 return journeys every week, so both his work and social life depends on the bus. The rhythms of week and weekend are different Friday night always has off. Meets friends in same place every week outside Central library. He feels ‘relief on Fri night that the working week is over’ and ‘celebrates’ that by eating out or going to the pictures. The bus is part of the rhythmicity of city life and interweaves with rhythmicities of individuals to create the ‘beat’ of the city.

The Pleasures of the 86…

For most people, their daily/weekly/occasional ride on the bus was a pleasurable one, which meant more than just getting from A to B.

For ‘A’,a woman in her 60’s, the bus ‘…passes lots of familiar places, obviously. ‘(I) got on the bus in Chorlton, live in Old Trafford, born in Hulme’. The journey reiterates an autobiographical trajectory, emphasising her identity which she says is ‘definitely Mancunian’. However, the bus journey is one that allows one to travel in some sense through the diverse mobilities of fellow passengers (though I did not ask her about that)

The Pleasures of the 86…

About half of the people I talked to, positively enjoyed their rides on the bus. Comments in response to being asked whether they enjoyed the bus jouney included:

‘I do actually yeah. I s’pose it’s because nobody knows you in a way’. (‘A’)

‘I do. It’s nice because you can just sit there and look out of the window’ (‘B’)

‘Yes it’s alright. Nice and quiet. No kids around me’. (‘L’)

The Pleasures of the 86…

Two women felt real pleasure on a journey which was theirs to enjoy. They travelled on their own, with no children or partner and felt a sense of freedom.

For ‘D’, a undergraduate studying in the Midlands but a Mancunian, remembers the culture of the bus, whilst still a student at a Manchester college. The buses provoke ‘Happy memories, college days. Water fights on bus – got kicked off. Loads of drunken times’. The bus journey was the precursor to a particular student club night, ‘Loads of us. 90 pence at Opus (nightclub). Messy Mondays (name of club night)) The bus was the liminal zone between home and club, the in-between place where you prepare for each destination.

The City is a State of Mind

The city (…) is something more than a congeries of individual men and of social conveniences – streets, buildings, electric lights, tramways and telephones etc; something more also than a mere constellation of institutions and administrative devices – courts, hospitals, schools, police and civil functionaries of various sorts. The city is, rather a state of mind …A city is not, in other words, merely a physical mechanism and an artificial construction. It is involved in the vital processes of the people who compose it; it is a product of nature, particularly human nature (Park 1925, quoted in Pile(2005:1)