My Ride on the Bus Essay

The final paper topic that I decided on was the observation of American culture from a 5 mile bus ride. On 20th July, on a Friday, I rode the Foothill 482 bus towards Puente Hills Mall, a bus ride of about 10 miles. It was around 4.30 p.m. when I took the bus and I arrived around 45 minutes later, having passed through many landmarks and stops. From the ride, I observed a whole lot of events that made me conclude a few things about the modern American culture. The five conclusions that I made about America from this bus ride are: the distinct modes of transportations for citizens of different social classes, the continuing rise of the automobile industry, the increase in consumption of fast foods; especially among the middle-classed, the ever-going strong influence of Christianity in religious American society, and lastly the tendency of modern Americans to use foreign cars. Firstly, I would like to go into the different modes of transportations that modern America use according to their social classes. From the ride, I observed out of all the passengers who rode the bus along the 10 mile journey, there was not even one single white person who came on the bus. The only white person there was the driver, and the passengers all were either of Hispanic or Asian descent. I quote this from an online article: â€Å"But U.S. transportation systems have not been marching toward racial integration—quite the opposite. According to the research of Mark Garrett and Brian Taylor, minorities accounted for 21 percent of bus riders in 1977. By 1995, that number had jumped to 69 percent.† (http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/07/race-class-and-stigma-riding-bus-america/2510/). Now it may be easy for me to say: â€Å"Oh! White people of America don’t ride the bus, only minorities do.† But on more careful scrutiny of the passengers, of the type of clothes they wear to the places they were coming from when they boarded the bus, I realized that most of them (I’m not trying to be judgmental here, just from my observations) were of the working, middle class. There was not a single suit-wearing, briefcase-toting professional. So it is a safe conclusion for me to make that professionals and people of the upper-middle to upper classes don’t prefer to ride the bus. An evidence of this would be that when we passed through a very high-classed gated community on Golden Springs Drive at Diamond Bar, we did not even stop once along the one or two-mile stretch of road. This shows that buses are not really a main form of transport for the residents there. Another evidence was that when we passed through the Gateway Corporate Centre, a long stretch of private companies and government offices, we stopped only once, and the parking lots were full of cars even though th ey can accommodate many cars. So from my observations of the passengers and this report I quote: â€Å"Fewer than 40 percent (of Hispanics and Blacks) have middle-class levels of wealth and this proportion has not changed since 1996. Nearly 75 percent of White households have middle-class or higher levels of wealth.† (http://www.c3.ucla.edu/newsstand/national/wealth-gap-widens-between-whites-and-hispanics/), the reason why there were less Caucasians compared to Hispanics on the bus was that both races dominate different levels of the social class, thus the very little integration between the passengers of the bus, a middle-class dominated form of transport. The second point about modern American culture is the continued rising of the automobile industry and its related businesses. Between the early 1900’s to the early 1940’s, automobiles were a form of luxury and not anybody can afford them. Add to that the Great Depression and World War II, not many people were thinking of spending their money on cars and just stuck to buses and trains. â€Å"In 1900 only 4,192 passenger cars (and no trucks or buses) were built in the United States.† (http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/MarinaStasenko.shtml). However, during the rise of the consumer culture during the 50’s and the 60’s, people start to spend on things that they don’t necessarily need but to satisfy their material needs. So more people start to spend their money on cars and less people use public transports. â€Å"†¦ The United States still constitutes by far the largest vehicle population in the world; with 239.8 million cars†¦Wardâ €™s reports that there are 1.3 people for every car in the U.S†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/08/23/car-population_n_934291.html). An evidence of the increase of cars on the roads is that during the bus ride, we stopped a lot of times at traffic lights, which is one of the main forms of traffic control of automobiles on the road, so a lot of stops mean that there are a lot of cars to handle. Another solid evidence of the high numbers of automobiles on the roads is that I saw the very busy and congested S. Californian 60 freeway, especially since it was around 5 and everybody was trying to get home. With the increase of cars on the roads, there was also an increase in automobile-related businesses like car washes, gas stations, motels etc. Along the way, gas stations like Esso, Shell, and Chevron etc. dominated the roads with one being less than a quarter mile away from each other. When the bus moves further along the route, you’ll see another gas company of the same brands again, also not even 2 miles apart. The high number of gas stations available indicates the constant need for gas for automobile and there is also increased competition between the gas companies to get the most profits. There were also a lot of small car washes by the side of the road, and even at the mall, there was a Sears Auto Centre which sold car parts and accessories, even though Sears are most well-known for selling household appliances and clothes. Same is to be said for restaurants that have drive-throughs. It seems that they too wanted a share of the profit of the expanding automobile industry. A third conclusion I made from the bus ride is the increase in consumption of fast food in America, especially among the middle-classed. What started from a semi-successful burger joint by a pair of brothers, a visionary named Ray A. Kroc bought out the business and it is now a multi-billion dollar industry. McDonalds now owns about 450 branches in California alone, not counting the ones in other States and the whole w orld! During the ride, I would observe that fast food joints, not only McDonalds, but a whole lot of others like In & Out, Wendy’s, KFC etc.; were located on only some parts of town and not others. Their locations were nearest to neighbourhoods of middle-class stature. There were not a McDonalds in sight for the whole long stretch of the rich Golden Springs Dr. area. Their locations were also very near to each other, where all the fast food joints were grouped together on a half-mile radius. This means that somehow, even with the whole lot of competition going on with the other restaurants, each of the restaurants was doing well at their locations. So it would be safe to assume that a big target market for these fast food joints are the middle-classed because they were located so near to those neighbourhoods.