AM I ALONE HERE???

If you are a bus rider in the Greater Seattle area please feel free to post your horror stories, complaints etc. I will be forwarding this Blog to the three major transit systems once a month. Let them know how you feel!

The Intelligent Need Not Apply

Pictured above:

Actual life-sized brain of a Transit Official

"Okay," said one pea-brained transit planner to another, "everything has been working for a while; lets really screw things up. We don't want to make it too easy for the riders."

So, the tunnel is closed, the bus stops are moved, the #7 changes and it takes me 45 effing minutes (counting waiting time) to get from Nordstrom's to my home in the ID. I believe the actual distance is just under a mile.

I could have walked and I normally do - but I got bad hips and they were killing me. I could barely make the two blocks from the bus stop to my apartment. (Used to be less than half a block.)

Before the changes I was home in 10 minutes. Thanks Metro...god knows I have nothing better to do than wait for busses.

Caught With My Pants Down

It was a short and uneventful trip to Bellevue to visit my parents. My only complaint is why this trip on Sound Transit, which takes as little as 15 minutes, costs twice as much as trips on Metro which take up to an hour and a half. There are are THREE rate structures going on and god save you from the drivers if a trip is more than you anticipate and don't have proper change. I have seen drivers berate tourists and make a big deal about letting them off the bus - and the poor and homeless - oh how they treat them.

Anyhow ran (or I call it running - more like the amusing-to-my friends trot I use when larded down not only with my own lard but also my bag lady bags) to catch the bus home and avoid a 15 minute wait in the rain. As I did my jeans started falling. By the time I reached the bus they were below my crotch and inching further down. I made the bus and had to ask the driver to wait for payment whilst I pulled up my pants. He was adorable about it.

Great Website

I just found this site - so haven't had chance to really check it out

http://www.busmonster.com/

Appears to be far more useful than the Metro "Trip Planning Site" (which once gave me a result from the ID to Northgate via Renton). More about this later - will add links if this proves useful and it looks like it might!

Boring

I promised myself I would report the good with the bad. Straight shot from my home in the ID to Lynnwood and back. Took less time than the bus ride to Capital Hill. I was almost upset it went so well - nothing nasty to say.

I am very impressed with the Transfer Center in Lynnwood I used: the public art may blend in a little too well with the structures and the whole thing may be ugly, but they at least provide a restroom (only one and it smells but it does provide a place to pee or throw up or do whatever you feel compelled to do away from the public). There is also a lovely customer service office (not kiosk but office!) where they actually assist you. And they sell cheap umbrellas, crossword books and some snacks.

Three cheers Community Transit!!!

Be Sure and Wash Your Hands Before you Leave the House, Dear

Awoke feeling queasy - probably all in my mind - visions of barf danced in my head. How is this Metro’s fault? When the tunnel was in operation staff actually policed it and kindly escorted those who vomited somewhere - god knows where - but somewhere. This prevented them from getting on my bus and sitting next to me - or some other poor shmuck. What happened to these people? Why are they not out at the bus stops that replaced the tunnel stops? Probably since there are now at least three or four stops replacing each former one in the tunnel Metro cannot afford it. Well, I can barely afford the anti-bacterial soap, hand sanitizer, and Airbourne I bought as soon as I got off the bus yesterday.

Please note, I am not germ phobic. I am, in fact, a slob. But even I have my limits.

And speaking of tossing one's cookies - listening to Bush's press conference. God, how does he live with himself?

Welcome to My World

Years ago I got rid of my car and decided to do the responsible thing: take the bus. After all, I have always lived in or near downtown Seattle; there were lots of busses on the streets; and parking cost me so much I could barely afford my vices, much less food and shelter. I took it for granted that the kind folks in my hometown knew that when you had to throw up you first at least tried to find a place other than my lap, that when you sneezed you used a tissue rather than the hand that’s sharing a pole with mine, that the elderly and handicapped were entitled to those seats labeled "Reserved for Elderly and Handicapped". And, naive back then, I actually expected a bus driver to do something when someone on crutches was pushed to the floor by a young stud racing for the last seat. Or that when a bus driver was told that someone had screamed "I'm gonna hit you" to the total stranger sitting next him the response would be more than "Find another seat”. Oh yeah, and I also assumed the powers that run Public Transportation in Greater Seattle had the public good in mind: frequent service for busy routes; drivers who at least tried to stay on schedule; fares that made sense - you get it.

Bus service, never Emerald City’s strongest suit, has become a nightmare. Sure if you only take the bus to a stadium for a game (and delay everyone whilst you chat up the driver because this is your first and you have all kinds of questions) you probably don’t know and don’t care. So this ain’t the blog for you. But after today’s ride from my home in the ID (where there used to be a bus tunnel) to Capital Hill (which used to be one bus and is now two) - a ten minute drive by car - 45 minutes by bus going, over an hour to return - I decided I cannot be the only sane person being driven nuts by some transportation demigod who has probably never ridden a bus.

Oh yeah, and today the homeless lady who tossed her cookies in the garbage can whilst waiting for the bus chose to sit next to me when it finally came. At least it wasn’t in my lap again.

Thus this blog. I will be honestly and accurately recording each bus ride I take. I will be telling past horror stories. Sound boring? Then you don’t take the bus in Seattle. (Plus it makes me feel better.) You are welcome to share - I will be with Metro. However if you have ever called their customer “service” office you know how far this will get me.