Friday, August 17, 2007

Public Transportation

I’ve never been a fan of public transport; many of my friends have made jokes about me actually catching a bus, my current role is the only job I’ve had since I started driving that I’ve had to commute – when I say commute it’s a 5 minute bus ride and a 9 minute train, it’s the waiting at the terminals / stops / platforms that gets me. My experiences in the past haven’t been rather pleasurable either, who could forget the time I was on the bus with V and a guy blew in my hair? Bleh! However I have made the observation that the men on the 0630 train are so much better looking than the ones on the 0830 train.

Each day I pick up Mx a free newspaper to read on the journey I’ve often read the section ‘vent your spleen’ and thought all these people are ranting about how bad the trains are, I start thinking there are people out there so much more precious than me, it’s not that bad, I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve had to stand on the train. This week with my 0800 interview followed by 1800 second interview I was in amidst the crowds whoa baby the north shore line is deplorable! People jammed everywhere, the girl with the iPod blaring, another talking about her evening plans to loud, a guys computer bag hitting me in the head, when I wanted to get off people don’t move – nuts! I now get it.

Last night I went to see a movie straight after work (Fracture – see it, even just for the classy acting) leaving the cinema I went down to the bus stop to head off home. My terminal is right next to the Apple store where a woman in her late 40’s or so walked out with one of the employees with 2 huge boxes (computer and printer it looked like), they went across the road and waited for a cab, the worker left after a little while and the lady was waiting. I couldn’t believe my eyes, she hailed a taxi’s combined taxi and it went straight past her and picked up a young lady from the corner. Rude! Moments later a Silver Service Taxi slowed down then ran past her and picked up a young man standing 10 meters away. I could believe my eyes! Finally this poor woman get a cab, a St George taxi where the driver jumped out and offered to help put her goods into the car, I could see from across the road the relief that a taxi finally picked her up.

This morning… I have 4 or 5 buses I can catch from the nearest stop near my residence. I decided to start work a little later today (normal time for most – 9am) unfortunately when I have more time I use more time so I ended up having to run for the bus, when I say run it was more like a totter down the slight decline in my stiletto boots. When I got the buses font door the driver closed them on me and was smiling, I didn’t know what to think then he opened the door and laughed what a cheeky bugger! A couple of stops later a lady with a couple of small children and a pram, Mr bus driver offered to assist – wow, thoroughly impressed, I even wrote a 'compliment' on the Sydney Buses website.

2 comments:

MissE said...

I've been in Perth for near to 14 years now. I've caught the bus once. You couldn't pay me enough to get on one of the few trains.

Mind you when I move to Adelaide, the bus may become a main form of transport - what with not having a full-time job and petrol being so damn expensive!

I'm v. impressed at you for using the buses and trains.

Oh, and taxi drivers can be shallow, stupid buttheads.

M said...

I loathe public transport - I hate the stop and start and I really hate waiting and relying on a bus that might not come on time. That being said, it's usually me who's not on time - during my uni days the nice bus driver actually used to keep the bus waiting if I wasn't at the stop. Everyone else on the bus hated me.