Daily Public Transit Ridership by Peter Felton

Daily Public Transit Ridership: The Inside Scoop  (Daily Public Transit Ridership: The Inside Scoop at Amazon) is a book that appealed to me on several levels.  First, it is the story of Peter Felton, who became fascinated with the transit system, called Muni, in the San Francisco Bay area.  We learn in the opening pages that Felton, when old enough, was able to make his first trip on Muni and felt exhilaration at finding that he could, to paraphrase an old saying, “get there from here.”  His enthusiasm is palpable when he describes the sights and sounds he encountered when riding the Muni routes, a world teeming with energy and life, all available to anyone who had a few coins or a pass and was willing to ride the extensive public transit routes in San Francisco.  With knowledge gained as he got older, he further learned that, with a simple transfer, he could explore the metropolitan bay area and go almost anywhere.  I was fascinated by the author’s enthusiasm since so many people take the ability to travel for granted and don’t take time to really observe their surroundings.  That is who we see in the opening pages of this book: an explorer.

The next chapters of the book explain in great detail the various routes in San Francisco and surrounding areas, as well as list the specs for the numerous kinds of electric cars that have been in the Muni system.  They also explain how they operated and evolved over the decades.  As someone who grew up riding the streetcars of New Orleans and later became interested in trains (to the point of collecting magazines on locomotive and diesel specs and taking endless pictures of railway cars), I applaud the author’s efforts to explain and preserve the proud history of rail transportation, including the technical side of the Muni cars and how they affected ridership ease (or occasionally the lack thereof).  The chapters even talk of stations, platforms, signs, and seating capacity.  Do you wish to know about the legendary BART system or learn of the fabled Embarcadero route?  You’ll find the information in these pages.  As the subtitle indicates, the book provides the inside scoop.

I also enjoyed the book because it reminded me of how eco-friendly public transit can be.  This is not to say that public transit is without its flaws or has no negative impact on the environment, but public ridership does indeed cut down on the number of cars crowding streets and freeways, plus many municipalities are working hard to cut harmful emissions from their transit vehicles.  The book reminds us that comfortable and efficient public transportation is overlooked in too many communities. 

The passages in which the author describes his great wonder at being able to share the driver’s compartment, both as a youth and as an adult, with a Muni operator, even to the point of actually operating a car, brought back memories of when I yearned to drive a streetcar or diesel engine, an opportunity I never received.  Through Felton’s eyes, however, I vicariously got the chance.

Ultimately, this book is about odyssey and opportunity.  We don’t need to climb mountains to find adventure and exploration.  As a kid, Felton saw a world that others lived in but were blind to.  Muni was (and is) not just utilitarian transportation, but rather an exciting way to travel and make discoveries.  The book is a coming of age story in which the author learns to navigate a small part of the world that, through his eyes, isn’t really small at all.  Rather, it is filled with the pulse of life and a million sights that are waiting to be noticed.  As a child, I sat in streetcars and looked at mansions and rural vistas one minute, only to pass through gritty streets lined by brick buildings the next.  I learned a lot about the larger world by investigating the microcosm of New Orleans.

This book reminded me that the simple way of doing things is sometimes the best.  For the price of a simple token or pass, one can board a trolley, bus, or subway, and, like popping in and out of a black hole, discover new places and people—or maybe even the backyard that is the city where you live.

~ William Hammett