This Morning On The Bus…

…I witnessed a full-blown civilian uprising. The reason? Bogota’s questionable and highly controversial public transport. Mobility is and has been Bogota’s main urban concern for probably thirty years. The TransMilenio seemed like a brilliant solution to traffic jams and pollution on a massive scale. Opened to the public in 2000, it consists of a network of over 1,500 buses on several interconnected streets with a wide separate lane reserved for TransMilenio buses. Since express and local buses stop at differing frequencies, the wide lanes allow for express buses to bypass local ones.

Customers enter the elevated bus stations made of plexi glass through a turnstile and get on when bus and station doors open simultaneously. Screens announce the next two buses to arrive.

TransMilenio door at off-peak hours.

Seems wonderful. And it was, until rush hour.

7.25am.

Businessmen, -women, clerks, students and randos like me all tried to get as close as possible to the automatic doors of the elevated station to avoid missing our precious bus. Whenever a bus arrived, the doors slid open and everyone screamed and pushed. Naturally, those who had to ascend most urgently found themselves before a wall of bodies reluctant to move even an inch. This might seem like rush hour in any other big city, but the change in the people that followed after waiting for several minutes was — honestly? — frightening.

Firstly, it turned out that the majority of waiting folks needed to take the J70 bus, the same as mine, the only one of its kind, going downtown. Within the first twenty minutes of waiting, two passed us by — overcrowded. No squishing would have made a difference there. Now the J70 crowd decided to capture and occupy the third bus. One red-headed lady standing in front of me, at the edge of the elevated bus station, and an elderly man behind me took the lead.

“Que tenerlo!” (Keep it!) they cried.

“No dejenlo! Hasta que llaman una otra J!” (Don’t let it! Until they call another J bus!).

Numerous hands prevented the rubber-framed bus doors and automatic station ones from closing. A cry of twenty people begged the driver to call another bus, while another choir threatened him that they would keep his bus. Then everyone started shouting “J! J! J! J!” like mad. It made some of us (less involved ones) smile, while others glanced around the swaying crowd in honest horror. After the captive J70 bus managed to escape, another bus (not a J70) was occupied for a while. Once again, pleas interspersed with threats hailed onto an overwhelmed bus driver.

Meanwhile, the bus entrance was totally blockaded by us “J people.” We had become one human wall, one mass, one anticipating, impatient and uncompromising being. So when any other bus came by trying to pick up some passengers, they were unable to climb on due to the wall. That is when I saw the first woman — a beautiful, young 20-something year old with carefully combed shiny hair — pull the hair of a woman in front of her. “Me dejaron pasar!” (Let me pass!) she yelled, her eyes on fire. The middle-aged woman whose hair had been so unexpectedly violated, stared back at her emptily; she was too shocked to react. What followed can hardly be related here, but it was messy and involved a multitude of Spanish words I do not know.

When finally an empty J70 arrived, everyone jumped on. Glasses were torn off heads, purses lost, suits crumbled, hairstyles ruined. The leaderman went in front to stand next to the bus driver (the red-headed woman leader was long lost by then), thinking he could control the J mob. As the bus went on, some loud fellows decided that no stops would be permitted until the bus had reached its last one, downtown. With help of the gray leaderman, they forced the bus driver on, without stopping.

Following some angry moans here and there, the autocratic decision was accepted and the bus ride preceded smoothly. One did not even have to worry about holding on to the handles; too impossible was the notion of falling in this tight mass. That is probably also why at first nobody noticed when I fainted. Ah, you know, maybe I am a feeble, little light-weight, maybe it was the heat, not haven eaten or repercussions of my regular familial drama, but somewhere between Calle 100 and 106, I must have lost consciousness. All I remember is staring at a woman’s red earring tremble in front of my nose, feeling quite hot and tired and deciding to put my head against a J mate’s shoulder, just for a short minute. Eventually, my state was noticed, and, without much ado, somebody volunteered their seat and a decisive couple of hands pushed me into it. Under the endless stream of breathing advice coming from five worried women around me, the black before my eyes slowly vanished.

Predictably, all ended up fine. I got to my destination, the university, to meet some friends, was chaperoned out of the bus and only let go after it became clear that I had indeed regained consciousness and knew where I needed to go. Now, several hours later, I sit at an Arab cafe next to the uni, with a milk coffee and a pastry, feeling quite jolly. But something about this experience struck me. Although I had witnessed quite a few wacky things on public transport around the globe before today (including an exhibitionist in France, a tearful break-up in the US and sadistic German bus drivers who close the bus door just in front of your nose after you ran half a mile to make the last bus), but never had I seen what the Transmilenio offered me this morning: an intense loss and subsequent return of human empathy within an hour or so. And I am glad to say that I can count on my fellow Bogotanians. Well… at least the J70 crowd.