London Bus Diary: On the Lam

Double decker bus and a Taxi, London
Photo by Curtis Cronn

This is cool. Eliane says she went to the Muni Diaries Live Reunion/Open Mic last week and had a blast. She had such a good time, in fact, that she was inspired to pen her very own diary from public transit in her hometown — London, England. Take it away, Eliane:

I was taking the 73 bus home to Stoke Newington one sunny evening. This was in the days when the 73 was a Routemaster – the old style double decker bus with an open back you could jump on and off. It was chugging slowly through Islington and we’d just turned into Upper Street by Angel. It gets busy just there with three lanes of traffic going each way and lots of lights. And it was rush hour so there were lots of cars and buses and vans and so on. Anyway, there we were. A full top deck of commuters ignoring each other, when someone jumped on the bus while it drove along and ran straight upstairs. He was young and looking very nervous, running up and down the aisle, ducking low, looking out of both sides, watching to see if he was being followed. Which he was. By a big security guard who also jumped on the bus and started to climb the stairs. Where could he go? He was trapped. Also turns out he was nuts or on something. He ran for the back of the bus (where the stairs came up) and instead of running down, opened the emergency exit window and climbed out of the bus onto the roof.

Read the rest of Eliane’s London bus diary “And if a double-decker bus …”

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