wolfsbride (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wolfsbride) wrote2010-09-29 11:49 pm
wolfsbride) wrote2010-09-29 11:49 pm
Entry tags:
Day 272 - Go Green
Go green was the slogan that the transit people had several years ago. I don't know if they have the same slogan now or if they even care about the environment anymore, but back when they were spending millions of dollars advertising their brand spanking new slogan, I would frequently mutter, if they want people to go green they need to improve the damn transit system. I'm sad to say that several years later, the situation is still no better.
Sure, they've made vast improvements in the transit systems that take people in and out of the city, but it's still ridiculously annoying to try to take transit around the city itself. Case in point. If I had a car and drove to work, it would take me fifteen or twenty minutes from where I currently am residing. I happen to be house sitting a friend's cat at the moment. Today it took two hours to get to work and an hour and a half to get home.
This was caused by several things. One, the transit system's website sucks. You used to be able to easily put in your location and your destination and it'd would spit out what sorts of transits you needed to take to get from A to B. Now, with the revamped system, you need to know what the buses are before you can even get started. If I knew what buses to take, I wouldn't need the damn website would I!
Two, bus drivers suck. Yes, yes, this is a HUGE blanket statement and I immediately apologize to all bus drivers who do NOT suck. All three of them. You also used to be able to get on a bus and ask the bus driver: Am I on the right bus? Where should I get off for such and such a place? What side of the street do I catch the so and so bus on? In the olden days, bus drivers were a font of useful information. And they actually had senses of humour.
Now I totally understand that slogging away for 12 hours in what amounts to a tin can packed with people can be a grind so I'm not holding the no sense of humour thing against them. And I totally get that with all the billion changes that have been made to roads etc, that to expect them to know every thing is unrealistic. However, if I get on the bus and ask them a question that pertains to the ROUTE THEY DRIVE EVERY DAMN DAY, I expect them to give me the right information, not tell me a bunch of crap that leaves me stranded at the end of a line.
Three, transit connections suck. Are you sensing a theme? I think the people who make up the bus connections must have been disgruntled flight connection workers. In both cases, you often get scenarios where your connecting bus or flight leaves almost before you even arrive at the damn point of exchange. It is MOST ANNOYING to pull into a stop only to see your connecting bus pull out at the exact same instant you're getting off the bus. I swear they must have teams of evil mathematicians working around the clock with cursed abacuses and demonic equations in order to figure out exactly how close they can come with the schedule in order that the two never meet. I imagine something like: If bus A is five minutes late and bus B is one minute early, how many times a day do people nearly kill themselves trying to make their bus. The answer is an infinite number by the way.
I have seen people nearly get run down by oncoming traffic in order to make their connecting bus. The why of it leads me to four, bus frequency sucks. Ten years ago, buses ran every fifteen minutes. Ten years later, most buses run every half an hour and a lot of the time, during certain hours of the day they only run every hour. Like what??? Ten years later, we're a bigger city with a bigger population. Do they honestly think that people need to get around the city in a prompt manner only during the hours of 6:30am to 9:30am and 5:30pm to 6:30pm???
The transit board often babbles about how many new buses they have. Apparently, they're keeping them for some special occasion we bus riders don't know about. They certainly don't put them on the road.
Sure, they've made vast improvements in the transit systems that take people in and out of the city, but it's still ridiculously annoying to try to take transit around the city itself. Case in point. If I had a car and drove to work, it would take me fifteen or twenty minutes from where I currently am residing. I happen to be house sitting a friend's cat at the moment. Today it took two hours to get to work and an hour and a half to get home.
This was caused by several things. One, the transit system's website sucks. You used to be able to easily put in your location and your destination and it'd would spit out what sorts of transits you needed to take to get from A to B. Now, with the revamped system, you need to know what the buses are before you can even get started. If I knew what buses to take, I wouldn't need the damn website would I!
Two, bus drivers suck. Yes, yes, this is a HUGE blanket statement and I immediately apologize to all bus drivers who do NOT suck. All three of them. You also used to be able to get on a bus and ask the bus driver: Am I on the right bus? Where should I get off for such and such a place? What side of the street do I catch the so and so bus on? In the olden days, bus drivers were a font of useful information. And they actually had senses of humour.
Now I totally understand that slogging away for 12 hours in what amounts to a tin can packed with people can be a grind so I'm not holding the no sense of humour thing against them. And I totally get that with all the billion changes that have been made to roads etc, that to expect them to know every thing is unrealistic. However, if I get on the bus and ask them a question that pertains to the ROUTE THEY DRIVE EVERY DAMN DAY, I expect them to give me the right information, not tell me a bunch of crap that leaves me stranded at the end of a line.
Three, transit connections suck. Are you sensing a theme? I think the people who make up the bus connections must have been disgruntled flight connection workers. In both cases, you often get scenarios where your connecting bus or flight leaves almost before you even arrive at the damn point of exchange. It is MOST ANNOYING to pull into a stop only to see your connecting bus pull out at the exact same instant you're getting off the bus. I swear they must have teams of evil mathematicians working around the clock with cursed abacuses and demonic equations in order to figure out exactly how close they can come with the schedule in order that the two never meet. I imagine something like: If bus A is five minutes late and bus B is one minute early, how many times a day do people nearly kill themselves trying to make their bus. The answer is an infinite number by the way.
I have seen people nearly get run down by oncoming traffic in order to make their connecting bus. The why of it leads me to four, bus frequency sucks. Ten years ago, buses ran every fifteen minutes. Ten years later, most buses run every half an hour and a lot of the time, during certain hours of the day they only run every hour. Like what??? Ten years later, we're a bigger city with a bigger population. Do they honestly think that people need to get around the city in a prompt manner only during the hours of 6:30am to 9:30am and 5:30pm to 6:30pm???
The transit board often babbles about how many new buses they have. Apparently, they're keeping them for some special occasion we bus riders don't know about. They certainly don't put them on the road.