BUS/TRAIN ANSWERS

Five replies so far:

(Judith)

In London definitely Bus - sorry to go against the majority but last year's temps on buses reached a few degrees higher than on tubes - it's the new bus design to blame. No open door now, window area too big, window design doesn't have slip slide action as in old design, only small angled push action that allows virtually no draught, main thing is upstairs front windows don't open at all - so no full on draught through the top deck when Bus picks up speed like in ye olde Routemaster. They're just greenhouses on wheels.

And:

Being stuck on a crowded, sweaty tube is undoubtedly worse. I think it's a matter of daylight - when on a bus, at least you can see escape; this is certainly not the case for the underground (save for the parts nearer the outskirts of London).

Also - is it me, or does people's body odour become significantly more pungent and putrid when on a tube train than when on a bus?

Now I can see why Conrad Redman [main character in Corpsing] spends most of his travel time in black cabs...

And:

Having written this I don't think it is so much an answer, as it is a pose.

The way I see it, busses make you sea sick, and the underground makes you city sick. Either way you look at the problem, it's all a question of motion. Busses and trains oscillate their hulks towards the natural frequency of your body. This has the curious effect of making my head feel like a large fuzzy dice... rolling.

If transports are so disgusting, and we all feel them so, then I suppose that you have to accept the fact at some point, that you too are part of the body of that disgust.

And how can you choose between evils knowing that?

And:

As a claustrophobic, both your questions have me reaching for a glass of
wine to quell my nerves, but I would say the underground train is far
worse, for reasons of escape. If the bus ever became utterly unbearable,
one could get off whereas remaining underground is simply your fate on
the subway.

And, more recently:

tubes are definitely worse, I'm on them all the time having moved down to
london last weekend having commuted from milton keynes (!) for a couple of
months. Its the rudeness, and the reluctant rush in the morning of people
who dont want to go to work but will shove you anyway because they cant be
late. I work in london bridge and i always think of the wasteland when he
sees the commuters flood over the bridge and is shocked to realise that
death had undone so many, thats exactly what its like