The Subte

I have a theory that subways can tell you a lot about the city they belong to. (Actually, this may be less of a theory than a truism. Anyway.) New York: dirty and crowded, but it gets the job done. London: Spotless to the point of being antiseptic, ruthlessly efficient, and yet somehow charming and almost quaint — all neatly encompassed in the phrase “Mind the gap.” Washington, D.C.: Poorly run and disturbingly segregated, but still my favorite. San Francisco: Just weird. It’s a subway and a tram at the same time. And there are no maps. If you have to ask, you don’t get it, are probably an Easterner, and might even vote Republican.

The Buenos Aires subway, like the city itself, artfully treads the line between the first and third worlds. Of course, even having a subway system is a sign of affluence. But the subway system (or subte) is incredibly badly designed — all the lines are essentially parallel to each other, and meet only at the Plaza de Mayo at the far east side of the city. You can easily spend an hour on the train to get ten blocks north or south.

The part that was the strangest for me at first is the peddlers that walk from car to car handing out little knickknacks — cheap pens, or coloring books, or lighters — to everyone who will take them, and sometimes even to the people who wave them away. The first time someone gave me a cell phone card I thought it was a present. But then the peddlers return and take back whatever they handed out, unless you pay them, which as far as I can tell no one ever does. I barely notice anymore when someone places a highlighter on my lap and then takes it away a few minutes later.

Subte cars get elbow-in-the-face crowded and swelteringly hot during rush hour, which seems to last somewhere between 8:00 am and 1:00 pm for the morning and 3:00 pm and 9:00 pm for the evening. The last train runs somewhere between 10:30 and 11:00 at night, stranding anyone eating dinner out. Sometimes when it rains the trains get flooded and certain stations have to close.

But I use it to get almost everywhere I go. The subte runs regularly every five minutes or so all day, and rarely breaks down. Despite the awkward layout of the lines, trains go incredibly quickly, and as long as don’t have to switch to a different line I can get from one side of the city to another in half an hour flat. Every station is equipped with television screens that show SubTV, a channel that shows the frequency of trains on each line in a ticker tape across the bottom, and alert you to any delays or breakdowns. (The top part of the screen shows random clips about tango or girls running around in bikinis, along with about five commercials that play repeatedly — all of which I have memorized.) Unlike the buses, you pay for the subte with magnetic cards, not coins, so the moneda shortage isn’t an issue. It only costs 30 cents — 90 centavos — no matter where you’re going.

The extensive bus system is an alternative form of public transportation, but it confuses me so much that I try to avoid it at all costs. Figuring out which bus (or colectivo, or bondi) to take is a multi-step process that even native porteños don’t really have down.

(A simplified explanation: Everyone in the city has a Guia T, a novella-sized booklet sold in kioscos that contains the routes of the several hundred bus lines that crisscross the city. You have to use the Guia T to look up the address of where you are, which points you to a page with a map on it, which is divided into little squares that contain numbers of the all buses that pass through your particular square. Then you look up the address of where you want to go and try to find a number bus that passes through both of the little squares. Once you’ve done that, you have to figure out in which direction you want to take the bus by reading all the stops in the back of the book, which if you’re lucky also tells you on which street the bus will stop. Basically, I don’t get it.)

Being able to navigate public transportation is one of the few concrete things that always makes me feel comfortable in a new city. I’m only halfway there here, but it’s fun figuring things out.