Would You Rather? Public Transport Edition

If I were to be asked, “Would you rather get to work using public transportation in Europe or the United States?” I would confidently answer Europe. I am from the South which means I am sorely lacking practical experience with public transport in the United States. In the US, I have never had the chance to ride on any bus except on school field trips, but in Brussels, I quickly adopted the bus system into my routine.

The buses in Brussels were strange in that the tickets were semi-optional. I of course always scanned my bus pass (which was very reasonably priced might I add), but it seemed that you almost didn’t have to do so. The reason a ticket was truly needed was that sometimes there would be random security searches at certain bus stops where a police officer would come on board and check your tickets to see if you scanned your ticket and that it was valid. Of course, some people got around this by jumping off of the bus as soon as the doors opened before the officers boarded. This was always slightly nerve-wracking because there was anxiety over whether or not I had forgotten to scan my ticket this time.

Other than the bus system Brussels also had a metro and aboveground tram system which I used a couple of times. The tram system was very similar to the metro system, and I had no issues with either of them. The metro was a smaller system than most and was usually pretty busy. All of the stations had interesting artwork, were free of panhandlers and didn’t smell too bad. It was interesting to me that the city had both systems of tram and metro that they kept separate.

Going to work I took the 95 Wiener bus from the Thys stop outside of my dorm to the Luxembourg stop where I would walk a few minutes to work. The Thys stop was rarely busy, but the Luxembourg stop was always packed. It was more often than not a struggle to cram into the 95 bus in order to get back home at the end of the workday. I can proudly say I only fell on the bus a single time during my final week in Brussels. I tripped on a fellow passenger’s grocery bags while returning to my dorm after work. Thankfully no one was hurt but it was still a nuisance. Speaking of, bus accidents a fellow student on my Brussels trip was on a Brussels bus when it got in a car accident. Again no one was hurt, but still, I can’t imagine how awful it must have been to be with strangers in such a situation. The Brussels Times reports that in 2019 there were 2,773 bus accidents in Brussels.

Compared to my other travel throughout Europe in Spain the Brussels public transportation was better. In Barcelona, I can only speak for their metro because that is all I used but still, I thought it was less accessible and dirtier than Brussels. They had more small shops and advertisements as well with less artwork. I thought it was pretty interesting to use and compare European cities' public transport and I hope in the future I have the opportunity to return to Europe and continue my comparison.