I woke up early on a cloudy Sunday, a time when some college students are either sleeping in or hung over from another Saturday night of indulgence and avarice. The question weighing on my mind during this already atypical morning was: Is there such a thing as bus “culture”?
I headed Downtown to Eugene Station, departing from the University Station on Kincaid Street. Students ride the bus free, as long as they have their student ID. However, it was a mistake to assume busses would be running at the same frequency on the weekends as the weekdays. On Sundays, they come in intervals of hours instead of minutes. Rather than waiting another hour for a bus to take me Downtown, I elected to reach Eugene Station — my destination of choice — by foot.
When I arrived, I sat down to observe the place silently. The station was mostly desolate, yet there were still things to see. An older gentleman with a walking stick circumnavigated the lettered arrival points, apparently looking at bus times. A police car drove around both of the station’s throughways. A boxed-in parked car close to the McDonald Theatre pulled out and drove into the station, clanking down off the thick edge of the sidewalk.
Eventually, this form of observation became redundant. I moved into the LTD Center building in search of some experiences and stories from the employers at the counter. However, they declined to comment and instead referred me to the public relations telephone number.
Over at the New Odyssey Juice and Java Bar on the corner of West 10th Avenue and Willamette Street, I talked to manager Walt Hunt, and was beginning to make some progress in my search.
“There’s a definite bus culture,” Hunt said. “It brings people together, different layers of society — people who live in tents, street kids, businessmen, high school kids. That’s what’s interesting, seeing all these mixes of people; it’s a real socializer.”
Hunt said Eugene Station is a social scene for kids, especially teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17. He said many kids receive undue harassment from local security officers, indicating a hot spot of activity in the middle of West 10th Avenue.
“A lot of kids converge on this block — it’s very common,” he said. “From 3 p.m. to about 4:30 p.m. or 5 p.m., there’s a scene down here for kids.”
Another common hangout spot, according to Hunt, is the corner of West 11th Avenue and Willamette Street, where a similar demographic can regularly be found.
Later in the day, rays of sun broke out from behind the clouds and it got a little warmer, which reflected the social scene. The bus station was now smattered with groups of the people that Hunt had just mentioned. One more cycle of buses arrived, depositing people and picking others up. Then, just as quickly, they all left and the buses departed en masse.
Off in the distance, I spotted Ninfa’s Elite Janitorial Service employee Tony Perez. He has cleaned Eugene Station for almost a year, and said in that year, he has seen “a lot of fights, a lot of people and a lot of drunks.”
“Just like the everyday world — we all gotta live in it some way,” Perez said.
Perez agreed that the station is a social scene for kids — a place for them to see each other.
“It’s like a normal routine for them — like a home away from home,” Perez said.
Apparently, everyone does not agree with the idea of “bus culture” as a positive aspect of Downtown.
Before hopping on the 24 Donald bus, Eugene resident Robert Goodman said the station would be better if it were cleaned up.
“It just gets disgusting,” he said. “If they clean up all the panhandling and bumming for cigarettes and money, it’d be a better place.”