by jayceslesar
I’ve been noticing some happenings with the city busses around Burlington these past few months, not with the schedule or how they seat due to pandemic or anything like that. My attention lies on the advertisements placed on these busses. As a wise man once said, “what’s the deal with bus ads, like what are those?” – “Jerry (“Gerald”) ‘Seinfeld’”. I believe, to tackle that question, one must answer “what’s the deal with city busses, what are those, like who does the things with them?” – “Gerards Jerr Iseinfeld”. My answer to that question you ask? Simple. City busses are for the public, a clear example of the city aiding the public in ways beneficial to both, where people can now use the bus to get to work if they don’t have a car, saving time all across the board. But it isn’t just that, when I see a city bus I see Burlington trying, which is nice.
This brings us to the bus ad question, “what’s the deal with bus ads, like what are those?”. Well, it seems as if Burlington was pretty poor, because it went from the Flintstones (which is fine by the way, no harm there), to local candidates (yeah I get it but come on guys that’s city ad space), to the presidential ones, and to start from the top I would not want to ride in a city bus that says “TRUMP 2020” on the side of it. Pretty lame by Burlington I’d say. It makes me think the city is either so poor that they had to do it or that they think they are so “apolitical” it would have been “political” to say no. Either way, bad move boss. Really easy way to make people question the authority of their city. Some of the political ads are ok I guess, but if you allow some you have to allow all of them, so I say strip the campaign ads of the public city busses and let them be free to drive without risk of heavy judgment from the very citizens it is supposed to help.
Listen folks, I’m not saying you shouldn’t support the city busses or Burlington in general, and I’m certainly not saying you should support Uber or Lyft over the busses but definitely please maybe think twice about the next bus advertisement you see. Use that brain for thoughts other than “who is rally cat”, “where is next Yerba” or “need to buy weed”. But now fellow readers, students, scholars, individuals of the Burlington area, I reach out, I ask, I plead, I encourage you to not stoop as low as the city has with these ads. Do your own thing, be your own person, don’t sell out for someone richer than you because capitalism, make them envy you which VT has done a great job with. We are special and smart and pretty safe here. Heck the bus ads, long live the Flintstones.
Categories: jayce slesar, October 20, 2020, reflections, wt staff