Video posted to YouTube by lacotoba.
Fare went up to a dollar and a half as of midnight.” Line from Martin Scorsese’s film After Hours.
The movie is black comedy. Transporation fare increases and the general cost of living these days combined with a paucity of job opportunity is just sad. I believe NY MTA is up to $2.50, sometimes more. And New Yorkers aren’t happy, though they are promised no further fare increases until January 2011. There have been service cutbacks there just like everywhere else. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, transporation expenses have certainly increased as well. For all the fare increases, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) isn’t what it used to be. There’s even a website called BART Rage where citizens vent their frustrations. Amazing that it is now often cheaper to take your car than to hop a train or bus. Doesn’t bode well for the environment.
Gone are the days . . .When I left New York in 1977, I think a subway token was fifteen cents and you could ride as long as you wanted and go anywhere the train lines went. You could ride all day if you wanted to. I remember a time when subway tokens were ten cents and bus rides where five cents with a student pass. Transportation costs took up a smaller percentage of personal income than it does these days. The system was pretty reliable and the service pretty consistent. A bum could beg dimes from two or three people and surf the subway system to get out of the elements, or stop at a coffee shop to buy a cup of joe, or even make a phone call. Can’t do a thing with a dime anymore.
They say we’re in recovery. I think it’s a recovery that benefits the haves, not the have-nots. Today a homeless gentleman was begging for dollars on a busy street here, trying to get enough money to go from Silicon Valley to someplace in the East Bay, where he might find some friends or relatives with whom to stay until he could get reestablished. Formerly employed as an engineer and unemployed or underemployed for most of the past three years, he had hiked and hitched from Santa Cruz. We talked. I always talk to the homeless. I want to acknowledge their humanity. Ever notice how many people avert their eyes or look right through a homeless person? Is this a fear of vulnerability, like looking death in the face? “That could be me tomorrow.” Is it a fear of being asked for help? Or is it a deeply rooted and unconscious Calvinism? If you are poor and homeless, a have-not, you’re unworthy and therefore invisible. If you are a have, you’re visible. As we talked, I watched the homeless gentleman watch a woman throw away half a hamburger not three feet from where we stood. Why not just offer it to him?
I recognize that this is late-night stream-of-consciousness, but you get my drift … The question used to be, “Buddy, can you spare a dime?” Now it’s, “Can you spare five bucks?” And that five bucks may not buy you what ten cents used to buy. Well, anyway, I can’t spare five dollars, but I did. So did a man who didn’t look like he could really spare it either. Thanks to the addition of his five, our homeless friend hopped a bus headed for hope while the haves walked on by.
