Tag: class

Transportation is about class – some thoughts

You may only think of transportation in a practical sense of how you travel from A to B. However, there are many hidden assumptions in your travels, including ideas about Comfort, Cost and Convenience. And those three C words got me thinking about another C word, Class.

I started thinking about our underlying assumptions on transportation when I read this piece:  transportation is about bodies, by Navneet Alang. A key quote for me:

“I’m just saying that as a person who spends a lot of time in the suburbs: to “most people” — and I here I don’t mean most people in a generic, metaphorical sense, but in a literal and political sense — bike lanes and transit and so on don’t sound so much like options as much as the ravings of a crazy person. And it all sounds insane because the vast majority of them are concerned about their bodily comfort, and we are asking them to be less comfortable. We are saying what at least sounds to them like “you are going to have face your own body and feel more uncomfortable.” Any approach to changing transportation habits or making the case for why we should has to, in some way or another, deal with that simple fact.”

A light bulb went off when I read that. Transportation is about the best way to get from A to B. The best way can be defined in terms of speed, effort, convenience, comfort and cost. For biking advocates, bikes are the best way in terms of cost and convenience (e.g., easy to park, flexible routes). Automobile advocates think cars are the best way in terms of speed, effort (none), and comfort. For patrons of the public transit like the TTC, it is somewhere in between. In every case, travellers are thinking about their bodies, their physical selves, when they think about travelling. Some subway riders don’t want to be all sweaty when they get to work, and some car owners do not want to be crammed in a bus in winter with sick passengers. Meanwhile bike riders love the idea that their commute makes them physically fit, unlike the feeling they get stuck in a car or a bus. Each sees their means of transportation as the best way, depending on what they value.

Class is an additional way people think about themselves as they commute. This is especially so when they are travelling commercially. On trains and planes and ships there are different classes of  passengers, and while they may all get there with the same speed and effort, the comforts and costs and even conveniences differ depending on the classification of your seat.

As for automobiles, in cities where public transportation is lacking, class is assumed based on the type of vehicle you ride. People with expensive cars being of a supposedly higher class, people with beat up cars being a lower class, and riders of bicycles being the lowest class. Which is why you will see people driving cars they cannot really afford: they don’t want their vehicle to indicate in any way a lower class status.

Class is more difficult to discern in cities where public transportation is good. Wealthy people in cities like New York might ditch their expensive car and use the subway because it is faster and more convenient. That is also true with cabs: rich and poor hop in and out of the same yellow cars to go from updown to downtown (and vice versa). In New York and beyond, new transportation options like Uber and Lyft also tend to water down class indicators in terms of transportation. While services like Uber offer levels of class in terms of vehicle selection, you can also randomly get an expensive car with the basic Uber X option. Subways, cabs and Ubers all blur the ability to use someone’s commute as a class indicator.

Class and commuting tend to travel as a pair. I would extend this statement to say by daring to state that bike lane advocates and public transportation advocates are likely to fall in the left wing/progressive side of politics and their views on class tend to mix in with this, even as car advocates are likely to fall in the right wing/conservative side of politics. So when people are advocating for adding or removing bike lanes, they are promoting their ideas on class as much as they are promoting their ideas on the best way to travel. It’s hard to rationally argue for better cities with more bike lanes and congestion pricing with someone who for many years has worked hard and aspired to drive a very expensive car freely all around the city.

If you are going to advocate for certain transportation options, you need to account for speed, effort, convenience, comfort and cost. But you’d be wrong to leave out class: it is an essential element of any decision made when it comes to travel.

(Image of “Planes, Trains, and Autombiles” from Wikipedia, a movie as much about class as it is about transportation, with class being a theme that comes up often in John Hughes’s films.)

 

On class, Tim Hortons, and Starbucks


While there is alot being written about the Tim Hortons/Burger King merger from the point of view of taxes and finances, this piece in the blog Worthwhile Canadian Initiative touches on something else: class

Can’t we at least get a decent class analysis of this question? There are two sorts of people: Starbucks people; and Tim Hortons people. And this class distinction is far more important than anything based on superficial differences like income and occupation. As a Tim Hortons person, who feels deeply ill-at-ease in a Starbucks, and who does not understand the menu, I cannot stop myself asking the “barista”(?) the subversive question: “Can I have a small double-double please?”

In my experience with going there, Tim Hortons is an establishment that seems to be staffed sith and patronized by working class people. As opposed to Starbucks, which seems to be staffed and patronized by middle class people. This is not to say that one class is better than another, but there appears to be this class distinction that differentiates them. The blog post linked to above talks about cultural or educated classes, but I think there is a case to be made that this also has to do with economic classes as well as a rural / urban / suburban divide.

Economically, the lowest coffee advertised by Tim Hortons is closer to one dollar (in Canada). In Starbucks, the lowest coffee advertised is closer to two dollars. While that may seem like much to some, for working class people, it makes a big difference. (Never mind that alot of the coffee bought in Starbucks is over three dollars once you start getting it from the espresso bar versus from the coffee carafe.) Likewise, a coffee and a donut costs less than three dollars in Tim Hortons, while a coffee and a snack at Starbucks is closer in the range of four to five dollars. (Based on the many coffee / snack combos I have bought at both.)

In terms of rural / urban divide, Tim Hortons has been over time making a move into the downtown core (at least in Toronto), while Starbucks has been slowly expanding outwards (e.g., Sydney, Nova Scotia recently got a Starbucks).

Those of you who say you have good taste may say: yes, but Starbucks is better. (And there will be others that say both are terrible and only indie coffee shops have good coffee.) I believe it is better too, though I don’t think Tim Hortons’s coffee is bad. (I have drunk bad coffee, and Tim Hortons is not bad.) I think for Tim Hortons customers, coffee is a hot beverage with caffeine that is good to drink while driving and at work.  Having it cost less makes a difference. Tim Hortons advertises that their coffee is fresh: that is the quality it has. Starbucks will talk of their coffee in terms of where it comes from and with terms you often hear wine experts talk about: those are the qualities it has.  Your values will determine where you buy your coffee from.

By the way, one of the stereotypes was that only middle class people (and pretentious ones at that) drank lattes. Now Tim’s has machines that make lattes and a wide range of milk based coffees too. They may not be as good as those in other places, but they are not bad and they have two other qualities: they are fast and they are lower in cost. Those two qualities are valued by working class people. And working class people like to try things too: they are no different from people with more money and more education who live downtown in the city.

Coffee is about class. It’s about the different classes we have in our society that center around money, education, where you work and where you live. Starbucks and Tim Hortons are based upon that as well, though as each attempts to grow more, they are expanding from their class base. As someone who comes from a rural working class background but lives an urban middle class background, I am comfortable in and recognize the value in both.

In Canada, we don’t talk about class much, but it is everywhere. Including the coffee shops we patronize.