If you want to be by yourself in the U.S., one sure way is to get on a public transit bus outside of rush hour. Pre-coronapanic occupancy of a city bus, including during rush hours, was about 6 (U.S. DOT, 2019):
If it used to be, outside of rush hour, 3 people on a bus with a capacity of 75 prior to coronapanic, what do we think it is today? Anecdotally, I would say that 0, 1, or 2 passengers are the most common occupancies. At 7:37 pm on a Monday evening in Detroit, the articulated bus in the picture below had two passengers and the standard bus had none.
Both buses had “face masks required” signs on the front. The question today: Why? Under no circumstances will these buses become more crowded than an average retail store, in which masks are not required. Why a categorical rule that a solo passenger in the back of an otherwise empty huge bus must wear a mask?
Separately, here’s the web page for the QLINE, a 3.3-mile streetcar system that cost $140 million to build:
More than a year of shutdown waiting for coronapanic to end. Empty cars seemed to run every hour or so with “not in service” signs on the front.
Maybe this is why? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpibDL_lViE [sick passenger(s) kill driver]
PaulG: If you are confident that this particular victim of COVID-19 was killed by someone on a bus (not by obesity or diabetes, certainly!) and that a mask would have saved his/her/zir/their life, shouldn’t masks be required in all indoor environments? The original post is not about whether #MasksSaveLives, but about why there would a different policy for empty buses and comparatively packed retail stores.
Definitely shows the disconnect between the people who voted for nationwide masking & the few people who still live in the flyover states.
If the bus drivers want to keep their jobs, they do what the Boss says. That’s why New Jersey has so much bus transit.
Most municipal transit systems are jobs programs for blacks.
This isn’t even that much of a revelation. If you listen to NPR on a regular basis, you know that very large sectors of the public workforce – especially in liberal states – are basically minority set-aside programs. They don’t even try to camouflage that because it’s not just self-evidently true, it’s a feature!
Blog comments racist much these days?
NPR is racist? They talk about all the time.
How about the racist right-wingers at the Center for American Progress?
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2020/10/23/492209/public-work-provides-economic-security-black-families-communities/
“Employment with numerous federal, state, and local government agencies throughout the 20th century not only offered a leg up to millions of Black families, but also became so identified with a path to the middle class that they hold cultural significance to many Black Americans.”
…
“That legacy remains significant today, with Black workers making up 27 percent of postal workers—more than double the share of Black workers in the civilian workforce.”
…
“In Philadelphia,15 Black workers accounted for 60 percent of transit workers leading up to the recession. In District of Columbia Public Schools,16 almost half of teachers are Black—48.6 percent—as are a majority of school principals—63.2 percent. In many state and local governments, Black workers form the backbone of public service, and in turn, public service provides economic security to many of these Black families.”
What is the percentage of Black teachers and administrators in the Baltimore City Public School system? Is it similar to to DC? We know what the GPAs looked like. Are they anti-racist enough? Are they helping Black students succeed through education?
https://komonews.com/news/nation-world/baltimore-city-schools-41-of-high-school-students-earn-below-10-gpa-07-15-2021
“BALTIMORE (WBFF) – Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS) has reached an alarming low in student performance. WBFF learned during the first three quarters of this year, nearly half of high school students in the school district earned a grade point average below a D.”
@Rhetorical, and yet there is NO #DumbFear like #CovidFear or #EducationSavesLives like #LockDownSavesLives. We value and must save the lives of the 70+ y/o over the 10-20 y/o. We value the lives of the already sick with health condition over the fit and healthy.
It’s not COVID or climate change that we should be worried about, it’s the politician in office, public leaders and talking heads on TV that we should be worried about.
And how could I have missed this one: “No child left behind? In the name of equity, Oregon gets rid of math, reading, and writing requirements for graduation” [1]
“On July 14, Gov. Kate Brown, D, signed into law Senate Bill 744, which removes the requirement that graduating seniors must be able to show they can read, write, and do high-school level math. The bill wasn’t made public until two weeks later. Moreover, there was no signing ceremony or press release, and she has yet to make any comments on the law.
However, when pressed by the Oregonian, Charles Boyle, the governor’s deputy communications director, replied in an email statement that the bill will benefit “Oregon’s Black, Latino, Latina, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color.”
He added, “Leaders from those communities have advocated time and again for equitable graduation standards, along with expanded learning opportunities and supports.”
Democrats overwhelmingly supported the removal of the proficiency standards while Republicans largely opposed.”
If the leaders of people of color want to keep their people of color dumb, then I don’t know what more can be done.
Frankly, I don’t know anymore if I’m reading real news or The Onion!!
[1] https://www.standingforfreedom.com/2021/08/09/no-child-left-behind-in-the-name-of-equity-oregon-gets-rid-of-math-reading-and-writing-requirements-for-graduation/
@George A: It’s good that you notice the similarity between the increasingly left-wing Democratic Party and The Onion, which was started in the Chicagoland area (at least partially) by one guy who used to work in a video store, and was deliberately left-wing. It became slightly less overtly left-wing when it expanded to a nationwide phenomenon via the Internet and picked up a lot of corporate sponsorship. But in its earliest days, when it was primarily a local Chicago/Wisconsin Liberal Land print phenomenon, it was unmistakably leftist and if you look up the history, proudly so. That is why Aaron Brown popularized it on his late-night News Night with Aaron Brown. He brought out their articles to the late-evening liberal-leaning news crowd for comic relief.
As the Democratic party has devolved over the past 20 years, they increasingly resemble the wise-ass left-wing apparatchik humor of The Onion.
Everybody who was left of Chomsky in Chicago used to read The Onion at hipster coffee joints like “Intelligentsia” in the Lakeview area while they saved their deep thoughts for discussions of The Baffler.
@George A: And that is also why the “A.V. Club” has always been one of the best parts of the Onion, from an arts and theater perspective. The staff and audience, especially in the early days, were heavily into local theater and the arts scene in Chicago, which ranges from left-wing to doppler-shift-left-wing. There are no Republicans or Conservatives in theater. Period. A handful of Libertarians who mostly serve to annoy and amuse the others, like Dennis Miller types.
I live in Lockdown land central. While swimming pools , restaurants retail stores, ski jills and even forests were under strict lickdown, the buses continued to run. Even the local bus, which has never had more than one or 2 riders ( and one is the nus drivers cousin) never stopped. I dont understand why a store is shut but the bus is not. No hospital workers use these buses. No one does. I have asked my local politicians this and they mumbled incoherrent adjectives, in random strings: safety equity diversity common good service public welfare