Bus Bell Cord * USA - Is This Your Stop? Pull the Cord, Like Old Times
New York,NY,USA -The New York Times, by By A. G. Sulzberger -May 12, 2009: -- For most of the history of the public bus, all it took was a single, satisfying yank to bring the 16-ton machine to a halt... In New York City, however, the plastic-coated wire called a “bell cord” that a rider used to signal a stop was phased out beginning in 1980, replaced with strips of wall-mounted yellow tape for passengers to press when ready to debark... It got the job done — buses continued stopping upon request — and even if the modesty of the action left cause feeling a bit disconnected from effect, most New Yorkers had moved on by the time the next M15 rolled around... The bell cord became another city relic remembered affectionately if not all that often... What a surprise, then, when Areatha Walker climbed onto a bus recently to discover a yellow cord strung around the cabin, riders tugging at it as their stops neared. “It brought back old memories, it really did,” Ms. Walker, herself a bus driver of 11 years, said during her lunch break. “When I was a kid they had those.”... Without fanfare, New York City Transit has installed the bell cord in all new buses, including 270 already in service in every borough, with an additional 580 hitting the streets over the next year. Eventually, the whole fleet will be outfitted with the cord, said Charles F. Seaton, an agency spokesman... (Photo by Michael Appleton/The New York Times - Miles, 4, who was on his way to school on the Upper West Side with his baby sitter, Gina Harrison, used the new pull cord on the M5 bus in Manhattan. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is phasing out the touch pad buttons and reintroducing the cords to public buses)Labels: Bus Bell Cord
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