Member-only story
The difference between American and Mexican public transportation
As someone who's had the benefits of living in a different country from my home country, there are many and varied different ways of living. Like *this* big!
For example, my hometown is in a metropolitan city with several different neighborhoods. And with the long and sprawled history of expanding this city, the public transportation here is starling. Where there's a line key to keep track of one train system, you know that it's complicated to know all the stops otherwise.
The city I was living in Mexico was similar in that aspect, except for this slight complication of having hills or mountains where some of the neighborhoods are located. And not having subways, trains, or even an complicated airport. This is the capital city in one of the more popular states in Mexico.
There is no app to look for when trying to catch the 'combis' around the city. There isn't even a set schedule you can glance at occasionally when you're crouching down from being one of the two unlucky passengers to stand on a crowned combi. All one can do, if you didn't have a car to navigate going down a scary path made to freak out the fan of illusion art, or want to walk down a path on the mountainside at 5 30 in the morning, in your work clothes; is to wait, for a bus, which does have the predictable rush hours, incredibly early.
To get down from this neighborhood that I lived in, there were several ways to get down from it. Just two of the three main choices involved walking for almost half an hour.
In contrast, here in America, especially for the bigger cities, they may be crowded, but it's relatively large enough to have that joke about the clown car having way more people become real. Most of the buses made for public use have the priority seats for people who uses a wheelchair…