more on the bus

[smileyeagle1021]

you know... i'm thinking we should have a sub forum for sighting on public transit...

First, is it wrong that I was running so early walking to the bus that I was able to catch the bus before mine that was running late?

anyhoo, on with the stories...

confused bus driver
going on the 41 bus along the meadowbrook expressway, as we were approaching meadowbrook and 1200 west the driver announced "now approaching 35th west 41st south"
to be honest, I was half asleep and I hear that and I panicked because that is about 2 miles past where I wanted to get off... then I looked around and recognized where we were and now I'm wondering... before he gets to 35th and 41st he has to turn onto redwood to go to SLCC, go through the campus, take 22nd west back up to 41st south over to 27th west, up to 35th south across a few blocks then back to 41st before going out to 35th west... how did he not realize he hadn't don't all that yet?

the stupid was strong with this guy
ok, guy gets off the bus and decides rather than going 100 feet back to the crosswalk at the light decides to cross in front of the bus... who was getting ready to pull out having to slam on his brakes... btw the idiot couldn't possible see the other lanes going the same way... and it is a road with 3 lanes each direction plus turn lane... that guy must be either stupid or have a death wish.

not on the bus, but still on the road

ok, most people are familiar with how you go through a light that is left turn yield on green... you go into the intersection and as soon as an opening is available turn... and if you get stuck out there when the light changes turn as quickly as you can as soon as the intersection is clear. Apparently there is at least one person out there who isn't familiar with the concept because they were far enough into the intersection to block the first lane and rather than rushing through the intersection deciding to just stop in the intersection and I guess wait for the next green... moron

[smileyeagle1021]

forgot one not related to the bus

will the weather person please look out the window
This morning the snow was falling heavily enough that there was only a quarter mile visibility... there was already an inch on the valley floor... the weather person said, "there will be a few light showers today, I doubt we'll see anything over an inch"
umm, hello, we already have an inch and your saying it will be on and off all day...
look out your window and look at what the weather really is and not what you computer is telling you.

[Shangri-laschild]

the stupid was strong with this guy
ok, guy gets off the bus and decides rather than going 100 feet back to the crosswalk at the light decides to cross in front of the bus... who was getting ready to pull out having to slam on his brakes... btw the idiot couldn't possible see the other lanes going the same way... and it is a road with 3 lanes each direction plus turn lane... that guy must be either stupid or have a death wish.

We've had students walk into the side of the bus on campus plenty of times. While it not moving. How you walk into something that huge that's stationary I have no clue.

[Aethian]

We've had students walk into the side of the bus on campus plenty of times. While it not moving. How you walk into something that huge that's stationary I have no clue.

There are high school students who will just walk into the road and not even bother looking up to see if anyone is coming. So...I have a feeling that where the ones who walk into things learn it.

[rerant]

We've had students walk into the side of the bus on campus plenty of times. While it not moving. How you walk into something that huge that's stationary I have no clue.

I know, well, knew as I haven't seen him in years, someone who, for lack of better ways to explain it, got hit in the face with a streetcar.
A lot of streetcar stops in Toronto are on islands in the middle of the road, as that's where the streetcars travel.
Usually these are the downtown stops on streets where the lanes are wider.
Well, this guy was at one of the island stops, had his headphones blaring and wasn't paying attention. Looked one way, looked the other way, BAM! Massive reconstructive surgery to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Seriously. Reconstructive surgery, and lots of it.

In case anyone is unfamiliar with what a Toronto streetcar looks like allow me to provide a visual, and state that no matter how loud your headphones are, NOT noticing one of these things is very VERY difficult.



PS The one in the picture just happens to be my route, which is also the longest route in the city. If you're a tourist who wants to kill a couple of hours and see a buttload of stuff just hop on at one end of the line and go straight to the other. Guaranteed you'll have a list several pages long of things to do after that ride, just from things you see out the windows.

[Difdi]

Where I live (Seattle, Washington), during power failures, unpowered stoplights are considered, by law, to be stop signs. But some idiots just don't get it, and treat a dead stoplight as a nonexistent stoplight. One of the worst offenders of this I've ever seen is the driver of the local bus route. Not only does he *not* stop for dead stoplights, he is usually late, so he *speeds* through the dead stoplights!

[Boochan]

Funniest anecdote was when I was working in another store of the same chain that I'm at now, but to get to his mall I had to take a bus route that goes right through the ghetto.. Every morning the bus would be pelted with eggs by passing school-children. Depending on the driver, we'd either be pelted for a few seconds or the driver would slam the brakes on, run out the bus and chase after them..

Most mornings this happened..

[Geek King]

Where I live (Seattle, Washington), during power failures, unpowered stoplights are considered, by law, to be stop signs.

Forget law, that's just good common sense for anyone driving. If people have a death wish, fine. But go drive off a bridge or something instead of trying to take other people with you.

[InverseHellion]

which is also the longest route in the city. If you're a tourist who wants to kill a couple of hours and see a buttload of stuff just hop on at one end of the line and go straight to the other. Guaranteed you'll have a list several pages long of things to do after that ride, just from things you see out the windows.

Ah the good ol' Queen Car, my best friend when I moved to this city.

[smileyeagle1021]

I know, well, knew as I haven't seen him in years, someone who, for lack of better ways to explain it, got hit in the face with a streetcar.
A lot of streetcar stops in Toronto are on islands in the middle of the road, as that's where the streetcars travel.
Usually these are the downtown stops on streets where the lanes are wider.
Well, this guy was at one of the island stops, had his headphones blaring and wasn't paying attention. Looked one way, looked the other way, BAM! Massive reconstructive surgery to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Seriously. Reconstructive surgery, and lots of it.

In case anyone is unfamiliar with what a Toronto streetcar looks like allow me to provide a visual, and state that no matter how loud your headphones are, NOT noticing one of these things is very VERY difficult.



PS The one in the picture just happens to be my route, which is also the longest route in the city. If you're a tourist who wants to kill a couple of hours and see a buttload of stuff just hop on at one end of the line and go straight to the other. Guaranteed you'll have a list several pages long of things to do after that ride, just from things you see out the windows.

oh i hear about people getting sideswiped by TRAX... which confuses me because how can you miss a train that is anywhere from 200 to 400 feet long and has bells and flashing lights?

which kinda brings me to a sighting on trax today... you can kinda see the signs in the picture below, but anyway, there was a set of doors out of order, there are signs saying "no access, please use another door"... anyway, at the central point station a guy comes up to the train, pushes the button on one side of the door... nothing happens (duh), pushes the button on the other side of the door, nothing happens, tries the first button again... then starts pounding on the door trying to force it open... the funniest part, he was staring at the sign the whole time and either he just didn't see it or he didn't comprehend... either way makes him kinda stupid (i must admit, when I boarded I walked up and pushed the button and did kinda a when the doors didn't open, but before trying again I looked to see if there was a... and yup there's a sign telling me to use a different door)

oh, and a picture of my train, at my station...

[rerant]

Ah the good ol' Queen Car, my best friend when I moved to this city.

It totally trumps the subway, which is a terrifying cesspool.
I'm so afraid of the subway (mostly because of the gang initiations that were going on in the city a few years back that would require a prospective member to kill someone, making people waiting on subway platforms sitting ducks for being pushed in front of a train) that when a subway approaches I hide behind a pillar and, if I can, get a nice white-knuckle grip on a bench or handrail.
Toronto subways are just bad news to me.

Speaking of which, if those jerks go on strike there will be hell to pay! I already bought my damn Metro Pass for April and I intend to use and abuse the hell out of it.

[smileyeagle1021]

Speaking of which, if those jerks go on strike there will be hell to pay! I already bought my damn Metro Pass for April and I intend to use and abuse the hell out of it.

if they do go on strike your transit authority needs to speak to the Regional Transit Authority of Washoe County... they had a strike several years back, service was down for 48 hours before they had back-up workers running sunday service, within a week they had enough temp workers brought in to run saturday service, within 2 weeks they had full service during peak hours and saturday service on the off-peak.
(interesting note on that though is that I don't know if they could do that in toronto, the only reason RTC was able to get other people in is because they were part of a general labor union rather than a transit union so members of transit unions could come in without "betraying" their own).

[wagegoth]

Walking in front of a streetcar? We have people around here walk in front of diesel trains and get killed on a fairly regular basis. How do you not hear a train? How loud is your iPod or Zune? Besides the train itself, all the crossings have bells, and they usually have gates.

And my bus service just did its regular three-month driver changeover, which means that the buses are showing up whenever, the drivers are asking the passengers for directions and I'm praying that the bus will actually show up at my current stop and not the old one from last year.

[smileyeagle1021]

Walking in front of a streetcar? We have people around here walk in front of diesel trains and get killed on a fairly regular basis. How do you not hear a train? How loud is your iPod or Zune? Besides the train itself, all the crossings have bells, and they usually have gates.

And my bus service just did its regular three-month driver changeover, which means that the buses are showing up whenever, the drivers are asking the passengers for directions and I'm praying that the bus will actually show up at my current stop and not the old one from last year.

I can beat you on that... last august salt lake did a bus route redesign, and by redesign I don't mean they changed a few routes here and there, they changed everything, every route at least had a number change, and the vast majority had actual route changes as well (btw, they took a system that was working extremely well if you didn't look at its lack of operating hours and turned it into a system with good hours that sucks)... the first day after the redesign I was waiting for my transfer from 39 to 41 (grr, on the old system I didn't need to transfer) and the driver of 41 pulled into the trax station, we all boarded, then he proceeded to go THE WRONG WAY out of the trax station because he used to drive the old 39 when it went all the way from 5600 west to wasatch blvd and wasn't used to just stopping at trax and turning around (likewise, I'm sure there were a lot of drivers on the new 39 who were used to the same thing that missed their turn on 500 west).

[repsac]

The funniest thing I have ever witnessed was something a friend of mine sent me. If I can find it I'll upload the vid to my youtube account.


Either way, it's this jerk of a bike messenger that's dodging in and out of traffic on this 10 speed. After ducking around one car, the guy turns around to flip the driver the bird, only to have the wheel of his bike drop into the groove of the trolley rail. Guy does a nice header onto the pavement.

This isn't it, but well... Marathon runner hits tram.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-QBReCej2w