More of the same
It often seems that all I write about in this space is transportation (for me, buses and bicycles) and music. Today, I have more of the same.
I've been hearing rumours of the 'bendy bus' (articulated is the technical term) that Winnipeg Transit has been testing for the last few weeks. Today, I had the fortune to be a passenger, and I couldn't have been happier.
The formidable length (that's what she said!), multiple exit doors and inefficient allocation of seating space all reminded me of riding my favourite tram. The panels which normally hold advertising, or "Busology" tips, instead provided details about regenerative breaking, the parallel hybrid drive system, the 'bellows' (essentially the bendy bit), and Winnipeg Transit's plans to buy their own buses with a more generous seating configuration (the test model will be returned to New Flyer after the test run).
The Hamilton Street Railway apparently has several buses of this exact model in their fleet. This is what it looks like from inside:
There were a few kinks to be worked out. The interior display had the time wrong by an hour (which frightened me for a second), and kept telling me that I was on Route 4, which I was surprised to learn as Winnipeg has no such route. Besides that, all exit doors open simultaneously, which solves the problem with people unable to figure out the yellow strip, but might encourage hop-ons.
I would have fully immersed myself in the experience had I not been already rather immersed in an interesting podcast on my new toy. I'm on a bit of a classical music kick of late, so I've been looking for podcasts in that vein. The National Arts Centre Orchestra (in Ottawa) has a few of these, and the one that caught my attention carried the name "Explore the Symphony". Here is the description:
Join the National Arts Centre Orchestra's Marjolaine Laroche and one of Canada's foremost music journalists, Jean-Jacques van Vlasselaer, as they explore the symphonic form from Haydn to Shostakovich.Maybe it's just me, but on a podcast such as this, wouldn't you expect to hear some actual symphony music? I certainly did, but instead was treated to what were essentially very digestible music history lectures, in the form of rather delightfully-accented conversation between a French-Canadian bassist and a French-Canadian music critic. Which might have been even better. This morning's topic was Dvorak's New World Symphony, one of my favourites to play.
I won't bore you with the details, but I was shaken to the core to learn that the theme in the 2nd movement, which is also the melody of an African-American spiritual called "Going Home" was a Dvorak original, and embraced by black Americans, not the other way around as I had always assumed. So this 'miscegenation' the kids are talking about these days has been around for a while.
4 Comments:
It's true. Hamilton Street Railway has many such 'bendy-busses'. And I've always marveled at the inefficient allocation of seating. But the less seats, the more standing room (or at least in theory), which is usually what's at issue on those routes.
You should start posting a "Classical Music Education" series, complete with mp3s. All I do is read music blogs anyway and I might as well learn something for once.
It's the same with any type of mass transit rolling stock. Subways, trams, none of these have large numbers of seats relative to their size.
That Classical Music series sounds like a good idea. Unfortunately, I don't actually know terribly much about classical music, so unless you just want to be educated about what I think is awesome, I'd have to do some research.
If you find any good classical music podcasts, let me know. I looked a while ago for some, but I found the same, more commentaries than actual music. Despite CBC having a wide range of podcasts, shows like "music and company" are failing to represent.
Never underestimate the power of good public transportation. The soon to be president of Korea was Seoul's mayor and gave the public transportation a huge makeover. Voters liked the fact that he actually did something despite some criticism. Now everyone loves the new system (i think). But standing room is a lot more effecient, especially when I don't need to balance because of the amount of people on the subway who just prop me up.
Mark, you're right about public transport and I'd definitely trade a few seating spots for better service and longer buses.
As for the podcasts, I've only found a few that aren't almost entirely commentary or local symphonies shilling for upcoming concerts. Two are from Deutsche Welle, but they are no longer updated (one is a 6 concert series, the other is about 20 podcasts but almost entirely Beethoven).
You can check them out here and here.
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