It was a hot and sweaty SkyTrain ride Monday for Susan Morton and her daughter, Deanna – but it was still no problem compared to the trip a summer or two ago when another rider started stripping.
“They got pretty much down to their underwear,” Morton recalled of that steamy trip from Burnaby toward Surrey and a passenger she believes might have been mentally ill.
“People were just sort of looking at each other.”
The nearly naked SkyTrain rider made it through several stations before attendants intervened.
Morton’s story is an extreme example of what TransLink is trying to combat in the current heat wave by asking passengers to treat each other respectfully.
The message: It may be so hot that you want to take off your clothes, but don’t. Sure it’s warm, but leave your shirt on. Please.
TransLink spokesman Drew Snider called it the Golden Rule of Transit: “Ride beside others as you would have them ride beside you.”
While there’s no actual dress code on transit, TransLink is following the example of most restaurants by advising passengers that it’s “no shirt, no shoes, no service.”
In these times of torrid temperatures and rising rage, TransLink would prefer its customers simply refrain from behaviour that can be irritating to others.
How so? Don’t get on a bus or SkyTrain and then block the entrance, Snider says. Don’t open the window if you’re on an air-conditioned SkyTrain – which includes all Canada Line cars and the bulbous-nosed new Expo and Millennium Line cars – unless it’s an emergency.
Barb Panter is visiting from Toronto and put the situation into perspective.
“This isn’t hot,” said Panter, 42. “You’re right on the ocean here, it’s fantastic.”
With its summer-long humidity and heat, Toronto can be much more of a trial, Panter says. Transit riders there get “crabby.”
“We’re all just sitting there sweating our brains out,” she said.
Still, some locals insist they’re suffering.
One Twitter tweet by translinktweets said “Caught an air-conditioned skytrain today. Both myself and my makeup thank the TransLink gods. Praying for AC on the B-Line.”
Other local folks don’t care.
Totally unconcerned about the situation was Zeus, a Giant Green Mexican iguana out for a walk with his human friend, Mike Reeder.
“He loves the heat,” said Reeder.
Vancouver’s typically cool fall and winter means the metre-long lizard spends October through May indoors in Reeder’s Gastown apartment.
They duo don’t take transit.
“I’m not that big on transit,” said Reeder. “I like to walk.”
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