Beer is heavy on public transit.
By “home sweet home” I, of course, mean after a shuttle bus, two transit systems and a short walk.
YRT strike
The public transit system in my area (York Region, north of Toronto) contracts out to at least 4 different transit companies. Last year, one of these went on strike. The southbound route I normally take wasn’t running. That strike lasted only a few days and I was able to work from home.
Currently, we’re into the fourth week of a strike by three other contracted companies. My southbound route is running, but my second bus (an eastbound express route) isn’t.
My alternate route is to go east, then south. It means local service buses, one of which is run by Toronto’s public transit system. If I time things perfectly, the commute takes me 10 minutes longer, all of that in extra walking.
If I don’t time it right, or there are delays…. This far northeast, York Region transit has not seen it fit to provide bus shelters. The scheduled buses are between 20 and 30 minutes apart. If I don’t get to my stop early enough, or the driver is a Sunday-driving twit, I’m waiting half an hour with no shelter against the wind.
I understand that this is still good compared to what others may have, but it falls short of what service is normally available.
Just this morning, my eastbound bus was THIRTY minutes late. The driver’s unspecified “delays” seem suspect considering he arrived a mere car length in front of that route’s next scheduled bus.
Though he was unapologetic, he did seem to recognize the situation, pushing his vehicle harder than normal, getting me to my second bus in the nick of time. If he hadn’t, I’d have had to wait another 25 minutes for that bus, and this post would have needed a coarse language warning.
I’m freezing my toes off in the middle of buttfuck nowhere (hereby defined as Major Mackenzie and Warden, where bus stops don’t even have shelters) because of the friggin’ YRT strike.
My commute is nearly twice as long and suffers from much longer waits when I miss a connection.
Sadly, it is still possible to get to work on an alternate route.
I made it all the way to the bus stop for 6:30am before I found out.
My commute is on strike.
As lovably simple as they seem to be, if these two jabbering schoolgirls don’t stop sitting behind me on every single bus we change to, I’ll stab someone.
Switching my transit pass of choice.
What a crappy trade.
I haz a sad.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was these next bus arrival time displays.
1 minute = Anywhere between 30s to 6 minutes
Also, sometimes the time goes up instead of down.
I’m on a boat bus.
A guy from York Region Transit just got on my bus offering commuters free chocolate and pens.
Your public transit service is invalid.
