Bus Driver and Public Transit Nightmares

None to report here -- my adventures in public transportation have been punctuated only by the occasional hobo chatting up the drivers and passengers and the rare crazy person who keeps to their self most of the time.

My only beef is the operating time. 6am to 6pm. After that, you're fucked, unless you happen to be downtown on a Friday night -- that's when the Drunk Bus operates from 6pm to midnight.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

lol, I have one problem. >.> No buses were I Live, No BARTS/Subway at all. this town his hic

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Most buses in my area stop running around midnight, but some routes have special night buses. Still, I feel you pain, as I often come home after midnight and have to talk 2 or 3 miles from the closest bus terminal to my house.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I've definitely had some experiences with public transit, considering that before moving to TX I never rode *any* form of public transportation -- barring the occasional taxi in SF or LA.

When I got to Austin, I suddenly found myself car-less and parent-less, so I needed some way to get around. Hello buses and school shuttles! The worst thing was when my roommate and I were leaving the grocery store, we took the #15 in what we thought was the right direction, but it turned out that it was going back through it's *entire* route, which takes about an hour and a half all told, going through some of the more slummy parts of the city.

I've done that on my own as well, so I was ridiculously late returning to my dorm. Plus my cell died, so my roommate had no idea where I was or what happened to me. Bad situation.

But you do meet some...er...interesting people while riding. And whatever happens, I've never had a mean/nasty/creepy bus driver. They're always very helpful and talkative.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I remember in middle school, one of my bus drivers used to get high and drunk on the bus. Afterwards he would come onto the girls who were known to be easy. Sad that they were easy in 7th/8th grade, but there it is.

Also, one morning when I was heading home, it had been storming really bad when this older lady got on the city bus I was on. She was trying to get to a seat and stepped off in a little puddle when the bus pulled off and she slipped and broke her hip. That sucked cuz the bus was pulled over for roughly an hour despite us being in front of the hospital.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I had this fat woman ask me if I was elderly or disabled, because I was sitting in one of the front seats. I told her I did have a disability, that I was blind, for try as I might I just could not see the queue of disabled and elderly people jostling each other in the great struggle over my seat, and that if it was really that much of a problem for her to waddle the 3 foot extra distance that it was from my seat to the one directly behind, then she could have asked politely for me to get up.

Actually I didn't say any of that, I was drowsy and too taken aback by her bitchiness to have come up with anything witty or scathing on the spot; my real response was actually something like "guh..wha.. huh?"

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The driver of the bus I take home from school varies, but the one that is driving the most looks just like Ice-T. And he let's me on for free. Not even lying.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Kolba

I had this fat woman ask me if I was elderly or disabled, because I was sitting in one of the front seats.

People who demand respect like that very seldom have any of their own to give.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Bad experiences...

I don't know if this one counts, but I had a friend who got hit by a subway train. He obviously died on impact, and I won't say anything further than that.

I remember coming home on the Metra from a Bela-Fleck & The Flecktones concert from the Ravinia, and I remember spotting a dude do a line of coke and kick a pregnant lady in the belly. I had a bottle of wine I could have thrown, but I didn't want to hit the lady. He forced his way through the crowd of drunken stoners to the next car, so I didn't bother to pursue.

Back in high school, I was waiting for the bus at the same place everyday, and one day the bus just drove right past me. I waved it down, the dude let me in (it was a substitute driver), yelled at me (I had headphones on so I didn't care for what he had to say), and continued to drive. He did the same thing for about five more stops (not to mention all the stops he could have done it eariler), and he got over the intercom yelling at us over the fact he has a schedule to keep (which is complete bullshit to begin with), and how we shouldn't flag down the bus. Since I could hear him over my headphones this time, I yelled "shut up and drive fat fuck!" That was a real bad decision, because he pulled the bus over, and took about five minutes to peel his ass out of the seat. I never realized this guy really was about 400 lbs, and everybody started laughing (students and others), because the dude really tried his damnedest to front, but really couldn't. He finally got out, pointed to the door, and told everybody to get out. We were only about five blocks from the school anyways, so it wasn't that bad.

This one isn't my story, but my coworkers instead. He was riding the PACE bus to the college down Golf Rd, and the bus engine caught fire. The funny part about it was everybody in the bus could smell smoke, but didn't know the bus was on fire. A Sherrif's Office police officer had to pull over the bus to get it to stop, and the street was bottlenecked to take care of the incident. I ended up picking him up from a local restaurant to get him to work.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

We've been riding the bus for a month now, we normaly just walk unless it's too far to walk to. Usualy the buses we have been on were pretty decent, not alot of people at all, and if they're were they were just usualy old people. But today....we had to get on the super crowded one. Wall to wall people. At first it wasn't so bad, just alot of talking like a school bus. At one stop, half the people got off then more came on. But one of them was this guy....I'm not usualy one to be freaked out by someone or judge anyone, but he was creepy. I mean he could have just been mentaly ill or something....but he was coughing and pretending to shoot ambulances, fire trucks, cop cars, and what not. Making the hand gestures and sounds to match. When he finaly got off he looked back and gave a kiss. We don't know if it was for the bus or at us (he was sitting in the side seats infront of us.).

He just creeped me out for some reason....Usualy I'm pretty understanding of and not freaked out by the mentaly ill...they're people too. But there was just something about this guy that just struck me as not right for some reason......

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I rode the bus for about a year before I got my license. Since I live in a rural part of the US, the only people that use any sort of public transportation are alcoholics who lost their license, hobos, and schizophrenics. It also only ran a few times a day, and wouldn't run if we got a weather occurance such as a few snowflakes hitting the ground, or gusts of wind faster than 7 mph. I had plenty of terrifying conversations with crazy people, and at one point, a bus driver who hated his life and loved to drive by my stop without even glancing as I waved my arms frantically. He quit doing it when I complained. The experience definitely inspired me to go get my driver's license.

Here are my thoughts on it, summed up:



I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Toothpaste for Dinner describes everything. He hit the President's "Embarrass the Nerds" Fitness Test pretty well on the head.

My school district has had serious problems with over crowding, and I remember sitting in the aisle many times. I'm fairly sure that's illegal, but what can you do when you're 12 and need a ride home?

This made national news (I was watching CNN at the time, so you can imagine the shock of hearing the name of my little town on air) a few years ago. There was a bus that drove one of the old highway routes--plenty of curves and hills. The bus driver got hit with a wad of paper, turned around to see who did it, and drove off the road into an embankment with lots of trees. One girl died and plenty more got put in the hospital. I think 4 or 5 were in critical condition for a while.

How ya doing, buddy?

From this incident I have a feeling that a bus forgot to come, but nothing was ever made known to us. I had night class and got out at around 8:45 p.m. where people were waiting inside the bus shelter because it was cold. It wasn't that cold but over time you could feel it if you stayed outside too long.
Here you can already tell that the bus system is inefficient for night class students in general because out of the 4 buses that by pass throughout the day, 2 of them stop service at 6:30 p.m. and after that, each bus comes by every 20 minutes or so.
So all of us were waiting there and the bus hadn't come for like 20 minutes. Okay, I guess we just missed the bus, and it should come soon. 30 minutes, then and no bus comes by! By this time, the number of us waiting at the bus stop had quadrupled at least, as you could see the crowd spilling over way past the number that usually wait there at the busiest time. We were all very cold by this time, and I am extremely grateful that I always kept my gloves in my bag, otherwise, my hands would be extremely numb for the next day.
45 minutes and a bus comes....it's full of people that were at the stop distantly before us...to the brim. The bus driver also shook her head, because she knew that all of us waiting would be angry, but there's nothing she could do.
Finally at the hour mark, another bus came, and I barely squeezed myself on (I was very close to the front doors). I felt sorry for the equally large group of people at the stop after the one we were waiting at, I bet they had to wait another 20 minutes or so.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

One personal experience was in Taipei. Usually I can trust public transit in Taipei, but this was one weird experience. It was like 10 PM and the driver was driving like a nut bag. He ran red lights, sped, and unlucky me had to stand close to the door he neglected to close. Frightening experience, especially on turns.

One of my friends had a bad experience with my city's bus system. He had to go to the airport, which is like half an hour away from campus, and he said the bus took them the wrong way on the freeway for a good hour. Then on the next stop the bus picked up a person who knew how to get there.

FELIPE NO