Public Transportation

In California, I do not travel on public transport. I ride the few miles to work in my car each morning and I ride back home in the evening. It’s my own little environment heated or air conditioned to a pleasant temperature, with NPR on the radio, a cup of coffee in the cup holder – all is well in my private little world. However, every time I come to England I get to travel on public transport - the London Underground, the train to Chesterfield - and every time I do this, I realize what I am missing in my cocooned little life in Sacramento. It is good for us to brush up against the throngs of humanity from time to time and Public Transport allows us to do this.

I am not sure how I would feel about this if I were a regular public transport commuter. I would probably have a longing to get away from the seething masses. I am certain I would be desperate to get away from that annoying, and in my view, impolite intrusion of mobile phone calls into our communal public life. We just do not that affront on our senses and we just do not need to be privy to so much information about the personal lives of our fellow passengers.

I wonder what will happen when we get cell phone usage permitted on airlines. Will we have cell free seating zones on the plane – if so where will they be at the back or at the front? An argument for noise canceling headphones, which I have and which isolates me even more from my fellow travelers.