Word on the street is that [tag]Chicago[/tag] has a lot of [tag]overweight[/tag] people. Actually, not just a lot, but apparently the most, per capita, so they’ve said in the news at least.
Apparently, as I imagine you’ve all heard, the effects are as far reaching as the [tag]CTA[/tag] widening seats to better cater to their overweight audience.
So, really, before today, I had been aware only of the press’ reaction, but pretty much completely oblivious myself to any of this. This morning on the [tag]bus[/tag] however, I had some time to think about it.
What happened was I got on the bus as I expect I will usually do on Mondays and Wednesdays going in to my internship, but today, the bus was rather crowded and there were already people standing due to lack of available seats. But then, when I looked to the back, I saw that there were two partially unoccupied seats.
What is partially unoccupied? Not, in this case, some jerk leaving their bag of briefcase or whatever on the seat, which as far as I know, doesn’t really happen so often, as people just ask them to move, but instead, this huge guy sitting and spilling over into both adjacent seats, thereby rendering them unsittable.
I understand that while such a person would benefit from wider seats, I don’t think that any reasonable widening will actually accommodate people that huge. And widening seats only serves to make it so less people get to sit down on a crowded bus? I don’t know, I mean, maybe there are enough people for whom slightly wider seats would improve satisfaction with the CTA or something, which I guess is why they’re doing it, but it does little but alienate somebody like me, I suspect, namely the stick thin commuters and such.
Whatever, that guy was huge, and when he waddled off, it was after the bus had largely departed already, so for nearly the whole ride up from Woodlawn & Hyde Park to State & Adams, two people were standing as a cost to this guy being gigantic. I was lucky, I got a seat when somebody else got off before leaving Hyde Park.
5 responses so far ↓
1 ani // Jan 30, 2006 at 10:08 am
The SW solution is probably a bit impractical to implement.
I wonder, actually, if they could force someone to get up if there were spillover and if the bus were full. That might work.
2 Russell // Jan 30, 2006 at 10:10 am
SW as in Southwest Airlines? Is their solution to make huge people pay for additional seats? I am a fan of such a solution, however, yeah, hard to actually put to use.
The problem with any sort of seat-relinquishing solution is that it inherently involves an additional delay when the exchange takes place, and nobody wants to be late while waiting for fatso to give up his or her seat.
3 ani // Jan 30, 2006 at 6:43 pm
Yeah, SW is SouthWest.
I was thinking, actually, of having the bus driver ordering fatties to stand (or off the bus – they need the exercise), and then a normal person could jump in. That’s still not very practical. I’m not sure there really is a practical way to deal with this problem.
4 tropicanana // Jan 31, 2006 at 11:56 pm
maybe fat ppl would be more socially acceptable if they were viewed more along the lines of being handicapped? sometimes when they get the handicapped on board, not only do their elaborate wheelchairs take up THREE seats, but also everyone has to wait for the ramp to lower and raise with them in it.. and everyone has to step aside to let them in and then wait for the seats to be folded in so they can situate themselves in their stead. it’s definitely much more of a cost, to everyone on board and the CTA (as it takes like 4-5 minutes) but I’m not sure if it’ll be okay to charge handicapped accordingly. B/c y’know. They’re the handicapped. Like pregnant mothers, they get special priveleges. And you can’t be like, dude, handicap, pay up buddy for your unfortunate fate.
5 Russell // Feb 1, 2006 at 12:07 am
Comparing handicapped people and people who are grossly fat is not reasonable. People who are fat have at least a modicum of choice about their state. That is, they can get better from their “affliction.” People without the use of their legs, not so much.
I mean, it’s true, waiting for the whole ramp thing and so forth is a pain. I won’t lie and say that I don’t mind because they are handicapped, I still find it frustrating because of the delay, however, I understand that that’s how they have to get around, and I will not begrudge them something they can’t rightly do much to change.
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