I recently spent some time in Japan, where I had plenty of opportunity to use the trains. I didn’t have use of a cell phone while I was there, so when I was on the trains, I passed the time by looking around - at the advertisements on the train, at the passing scenery, and at fellow passengers. I’d estimate that maybe half of the people on these trains were focused intently on their smartphones - reading the news, texting someone, or playing a game (mostly the latter). I seldom ride public transit in the US (really just on trips a few years ago to DC and NY), but I assume the situation here is similar.
So how did people pass the time on public transit in the 20th century? The 50% of passengers I saw who were using their phones - would they have been bringing newspapers and books with them back then? Or did people used to engage with their fellow passengers more often? Or did people just look around and enjoy the scenery more?
No, people didn’t talk on public public transit. Not any more than they do today.
I spent a few years in Japan commuting on trains, before smartphones. I always brought a book to read. If I forgot, or ran out of reading material, I bought a new book or magazine at the train station.
All the buses I talk have a sign that says “No smoking. No food or drink. Radios silent”
Very out of date. Nobody would think of smoking on a bus today, no driver would think of banning a person with a travel mug, and who even carries a real radio anymore?
I’ve ridden BART (San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit) almost every day for the past 28 years. At one time, I would say at least a third of all the people riding would have been reading the newspaper, another third would have been reading a book, and the rest would be either sleeping, talking to a companion or not doing anything in particular.
I used to learn a lot about what was happening in the world by reading the headlines on the various newspapers. If I was interested enough in a story, I’d buy that paper later, or once I had Internet access, go and look it up online.
Until I got a Kindle, I carried at least one paperback with me at all times. I hated the feeling of finishing my book and not having something to read on the train.
They do in Portland. Total strangers will engage you in chit-chat. It takes a bit of getting used to. We even gave a fellow bus passenger a ride to her home, as it was dark and late.
Newspaper. There was a skill to folding a broadsheet just so, that you could go through the sections w/o needing to extend it to full size too often. Later, personal radio or tape with earphones. Talking to people around you. Hitting on cute fellow passengers (subset of the previous). On the bus, ignoring the person next to you by looking at the surrounding architecture. Loudly bitching and moaning about the service, fare, traffic.
Mostly read the paper, there was an art to folding a newspaper into a tiny rectangle that just displayed the story you were reading while minimizing the space you took up on a crowded train. People did the crossword, and I used to see this one guy on the Metro who would quietly sketch people on the train in a little notebook.
I remember lots of newspapers. And then there’s the old joke: “A terrible thing happened to me on the subway today. The newspaper I was reading got off at 59th Street!”
Years ago I had an hour commute by train to my job. I made friends with some other women and we’d talk the whole trip. Some other people had regular bridge of poker games.
I’ve been commuting on public transit (trains) in Chicago since 1989.
I’d read the newspaper in the morning, and either a book or a magazine in the afternoon. Note that I still do this.
I’d also listen to a Walkman – either tapes, or the radio. Those of you of a certain age from Chicago will note that I listened to Jonathon Brandmeier on the way to work, and Steve Dahl and Garry Meier on the way home.
If I was on the train with a friend or co-worker, we’d talk, of course.
Back when I lived in NYC, I rode the subway often. People would read a newspaper, then leave it on the seat when they left, for another person to pick up and read. Og knows how many people would read the same paper. Or some people brought a book or magazine. When Walkmans were invented I usually had mine one me for my commutes, whether by subway or walking. Wow – ninety whole minutes of music on one cassette!
I just look out the window. Sometimes I eavesdrop on other people’s convos, but that’s really boring. People live such vapid lives.
You know what I like to do? I like to ride the local bus, and make believe I’m a traveler from some other continent, having just arrived in the USA, and I look out the window at things and try to see them in the perspective of someone who is unused to the way things are in America. And then I compose e-mails in my mind, that I would send to people back home.
