I just want to make a couple of points:
1) 402 is NOT a bus that is mehadrin.
2) Intercity Egged buses in Yerushalayim have 3 and some even have 4 doors, all of which are regularly opened and closed at stops, on request from riders if the driver does not open the doors at the very back of the bus.
3) There is absolutely no connotation of “putting women in their place” by having us sit at the back of the buses. Intercity buses are not at all like the NY buses where the sits are the same on both sides of the bus except opposite the back door. Here, there are single seats on buses designed for handicapped access, some buses have more seats in the front than others meaning that many men would have to stand in the front of the bus. I live in an area where people attempted to make the new bus route be mehadrin, but due to the construction of the bus and the seating, there is some mixing, but people do try to sit separately if possible.
While I do think that men could and should take a little responsibility and avoid looking at places that they shouldn’t, people can only take responsibility for their own actions/thoughts, so I would still rather not cause someone to be nichshol and would rather sit at the back if necessary to prevent that.
Just as a side note, I was on a bus that comes from a newish chareidi neighborhood and goes through a chiloni neighborhood. The askonim in the chareidi neighborhood worked tirelessly for an extended period of time to get properly established bus route(s) to the chareidi neighborhood, which at the same time have benefitted the chiloni neighborhoods immensely. These same chilonim had been given buses by Egged for the last 30 years that ended up being packed like sardines every time one left the vicinity. There was one bus per hour for each of 3 major neighborhoods in this vicinity and each one was packed to the gills and had tremendously long, winding routes before reaching the destination. Now that the chareidim came, they put much pressure on Misrad HaTachburah to fulfill the previously determined plan to bring a new bus company to the area and they finally succeeded. They added an additional 3 bus lines and greatly increased the total number of buses traveling to and from each neighborhood in the vicinity throughout the day. The fact that the buses coming from the chareidi neighborhood are full testifies to the fact that there are many people without cars who rely on public transportation and would indicate a need for more buses, but definitely not fewer.
Now this chiloni lady who sat opposite me says to me that it’s “lo beseder” that all of the buses come from the chareidi neighborhood already full. She said (beshem someone else that I could not understand) that we should worry for our own selves. The thrust of her comment was that we should not be on the buses that are for their neighborhood because we take up the whole bus. I would have very happily told her that we should cancel the bus that she was on and she simply would have had to wait for another 20 minutes before a different bus would pass by her stop. Can anyone explain to me this logic? By the way, no one told her to sit at the back of the bus.