Sucky Bus Drivers I Have Known (long-winded)

[wagegoth]

1. Several years ago, I complained about a driver who would stop at the same corner then run in for 10 or 15 minutes to mack on this girl who worked there, which guaranteed that I would miss my bus. Trying to catch an earlier bus didn't work well, because, although the buses on this route were supposed to run every 15 minutes, I would regularly wait 45 minutes for one to show up. The person who took the complaint was completely rude and implied that it wouldn't matter if I complained or not. And nothing changed.

2. Several years go by and I'm back riding the bus. Guess what?! New management. Management that actually does something about complaints. Unfortunately, one time it led to this driver being a complete beyotch to me for months. She had obviously been driving for years and was used to the old regime. She felt it was her right to talk down to riders, including yelling at them, give them (unwanted) advice and just doing things her way.

One night, I'm waiting for the bus. It's late, I've been working overtime all week, this is actually the earliest I've left work, and I just want to get on the bus and read on the way to BART. It's cold and drizzly. Another regular is sharing the misery. Finally, we see the bus coming and rejoice. Except the bus didn't stop. We were frantically waving and yelling and it drove right past us. I called the next morning to make a complaint. The customer relations person is being a dick, so I ask for a supervisor, who actually listens.

The next night it stops! Yea! I had one of the new electronic tickets, but it wasn't working due to bugs in the system, so I had to pay cash. This means I have to ask for a transfer. You're supposed to request one when you pay, then the driver pushes a button that prints one out. I forgot, as I'm used to monthly passes. I sit down, then, before the bus even pulls out, I jump up and run up front. "I'm sorry. I forgot to ask, but I need a transfer," I said apologetically. The driver went ballistic!

She started yelling at me, really, really yelling, about how I was supposed to ask for one when I got on and now she had to push one out. This went on for a few minutes. I almost asked her if it was as bad as pushing out a baby, but I was afraid she'd toss me off the bus. I finally got my transfer, returned to my seat, and then had to listen to her bitch and moan until we got across the Bay and to BART.

From then on, she was cold and rude. I would ask her a question, and she would ignore me. I was used to the usually pleasant drivers on this route, as it is a preferred route. One night I was riding with another driver and told him the story. He told me that this driver was really bad about not stopping at any stops that did not have signs. We didn't have a sign because the route had just changed a few months before and they weren't all up. I'm thinking that she's pissed at me because she figured I was the one that complained when she didn't stop that earlier night.

Finally, I complain again. I get a supervisor and tell him about the yelling and the ignoring. After that, she didn't yell at anyone anymore, but I counted down the days until she was reassigned. I haven't seen her since.

3. The guy who was 10 to 20 minutes late every day. Actually, there were two guys who did this. They always said they got caught in traffic, but if a substitute driver was running the route, the bus was on time.

4. "Homeless Driver" looks homeless. She wears long skirts, thick socks, a jacket and a cap with earflaps every day of the year. She also carries old garbage bags with her stuff in them. She announces all the stops, but she does it so quietly you can't hear her, and she repeats herself in a way that makes her sound a leetle crazy. She also won't leave a stop until everyone has paid, which means we sit and wait, and wait, and wait while homee with his pants around his knees digs down to his ankles for change.

5. Mr. I-Know-Every-Single-Route-and-All-the-Fares nearly got into a fight with a guy he made pay the fare who wasn't supposed to. He had also gone the wrong way on an earlier run so he asked us when we got on the bus if the route had changed.

Now, the Governator has cut funding to mass transit again, the feds won't make up all of the difference, they're probably going to raise our fares, and the last five times I rode the bus the following occurred: one bus never showed up, I had to wait 45 minutes for the next one; one showed up 20 minutes late then took twice as long as usual to travel the route with no traffic to speak of; one bus showed up 30 minutes late and wasn't our larger, nicer bus, but a stripped down city bus with too few seats.

I want a car. I'm beginning to not care about gas prices or the fact I'd have to take money out of a down 401(k) to buy one. I don't care that it's not green or I'll be stuck in traffic or I won't be able to do my homework anymore on my commute. I just want to go home and get to work without worrying every day about whether I'm going to actually get there.

[RootedPhoenix]

I'll restrain myself from too much complaining, and just say that Sacramento's system isn't much better. At one time there were routes that could be counted on to be 20 minutes late. The route I travel on the most is routinely 5 minutes late to the mall on the route, no matter the time of day.

Makes me wish I could to get to places.

[smileyeagle1021]

And I thought San Fran was supposed to have a really good system...

Sounds like a lot of problems we have with UTA... except a lot of the time when drivers say they are doing the best they can, they really are... the route planners clearly use google maps then never actually drive the routes to see if it will work... they've also done things like scheduling only 60 seconds for a transfer... so basically a bus misses a light and everyone misses their connection.

[wagegoth]

I ride ACTransit, which covers Alameda County (Oakland, Fremont, Hayward, etc.), and I ride a bus that crosses SF Bay to get to work every day.

Curse you, Norm Mineta, for interfering with BART circling the Bay! Curse you!

[fireheart]

Adelaide's bus system isn't much better (or at least in my area). The buses run every half hour, except for weekends where they run every hour. My main gripes with the buses and the drivers fall into the following categories:

-Being late or failing to rock up. (In order for me to get to work on time, I have to get a bus which gets me there a good hour before I have to start)
-Being early (and therefore considered not rocking up) by a good stretch of time.
-Several of the bus drivers will drive like they're in a race.
-They're also late at connection points.

By far, one of the things that pisses me off extremely is that on my main route, it connects up with three other buses. One goes into the city (and near my uni), the other two go to a community college. What is pointless is having the other two going to the community college. They're both empty half the time, they travel the same way from the connection point onwards, so what is the point?

The only bonus is the fact that I'm still at uni, so I get cheaper bus tickets, but I wish that they had a montly pass rather than a weekly pass!

[Gerrinson]

Ah, you make yearn for the days when I didn't have to drive myself. NOT!

Yeah, the local bus routes sucked when I had to take them. Granted I'm off in New England, so they weren't quite as bad. But I couldn't take the bus that left 1/2 an hour before my shift (6 mile bus route) because it would be 10 - 15 minutes late and the driver's usually went no faster than 25 mph. Even in a 40 zone with no stops for the first two miles. Then they had to stop at a restuarant and grab lunch to go. Which means you wait for their meal to cook because they didn't call ahead. So, it took about 45 minutes to travel 6 miles with only 5 stops.

I used to have to catch whichever bus left at least 1 1/2 hours before my shift. Or walk it. I eventually settled on walking because at least I knew the guy in charge was reliable and gave a crap about me getting to work.

The longer distance runs were hellish. The long run, to go from mid county to south county used to (and still does, to my knowledge) take 3 hours. If you were going north, you had to catch the 3:30 bus to get to the central station at 6:30. It just never made sense to me. How were people supposed to use the bus to commute with a departure time like that?

[smileyeagle1021]

the 3:30 bus

you had buses running at 3:30 in the morning ... UTA doesn't start until 5am and only runs until 1am (on the latest route... most end at 11pm)

actually, so far the best system I've used is the Cache Valley Transit District bus system... starts at 6am goes til 10pm, most routes run every half hour, a few run every hour, one runs ever 45 minutes and two runs every 90 minutes... within Logan city limites there is no point further than 2 blocks from a bus stop, and outside of city limits has pretty good coverage too... doesn't sound that impressive, but Cache Valley only has 100k population and the system is free to use

[Muses_nightmare]

The transit where I live makes me miss vancouver transit. Buses run every hour (which isn't so bad really), and the night service (which is one bus, limited service), starts at 6:30 - 7. The service ends at 10pm and there are no buses on sundays, except in the summer, and then there's only one. Basically if you want to get anywhere, you walk or drive, unless by some miracle chance the buses happen to be running when and where you need to be.

The bus service in my hometown was better than this, and it's way smaller.

[Chromatix]

Makes me appreciate Helsinki's public transport. The buses are late when there's a blizzard on, but they keep going! They even have a door-to-door travel planner that actually works.

[Sliceanddice]

my big issue with my area is A) i couldn't take a bus to school if i wanted to unless i wanted an hour and half commute through three citys for a 20 minute drive cause buses cant go through the res, b) the bus company sucks and the city loves them though they over charge, C)im not gong to phoenix, whats the point...
though almost cant wait for light rail to be up and running in a month so i can head to tempe with out my car.
and i hope htye do deside to get a ral system set up connecting phoenix and tuscon so i can go to tuscon without massive planing

[prb]

Mississauga Transit - from 5 am to 2 am. Yup, only 3 hours with no service.

We also have a route that goes on a highway, and drives on the paved shoulder during heavy traffic.

[Chromatix]

That's another thing I've noticed locally. There are special public-transport lanes as part of each junction on the major highways, and many/most of these have a bus stop built into them.

So that has two benefits: bus stops in convenient (and safe) places on the highway, and the buses and taxis get to bypass the narrowing of the main road at the junction (because the "slow" lane is peeled off and then reattached).

[Carolaaine]

Situation in Belgium: Country is basically divided in Three: Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia, each part has their own buscompany. All these companies are partly privatized and partly owned by the local government (in stead of federal government)

Busfares are fairly cheap, you can get all sorts of dicsounts and they ridce on time, same for the trains. But we still b*tch about it
"it's 17:29 the bus should have been here a minute ago!"

I know Belgium is the size of a County in the US, but why are there so many problems with busses?

[Arcade Man D]

4. "Homeless Driver" looks homeless. She wears long skirts, thick socks, a jacket and a cap with earflaps every day of the year. She also carries old garbage bags with her stuff in them. She announces all the stops, but she does it so quietly you can't hear her, and she repeats herself in a way that makes her sound a leetle crazy. She also won't leave a stop until everyone has paid, which means we sit and wait, and wait, and wait while homee with his pants around his knees digs down to his ankles for change.

Actually, pretty much all the CENTRO drivers do that. (My area's buses.) Mostly because of homies that say "let me dig it out", then get where they were going without paying.

Also, on our buses, if the fare box isn't working right, and you use a pass (all passes are unlimited rides), you can just show it to the driver. (Also, they tell you to pay the next bus because they can't give out transfers if you use cash/pre-paid card)

[TOLady]

I'm pretty lucky that I live quite close to our local subway system and don't need to take the bus too often, but when I do, I'm almost guaranteed some attitude from the bus drivers.

I've always had bad feet/back problems, but since my job is pretty sedentary, I try to walk more often than not. However, sometimes, when I have a lot of groceries or I'm in a bad way pain-wise, I'll take the bus.

I'm only 3 bus stops from my house and since I know that I'll be getting off sooner than almost anyone, I make sure that I get on last - standing out of the way of everyone else (I also live in an area where the concept of a line is unknown and you really don't want to piss off anyone if at all possible), hold my metro-pass so it can be clearly read, say good afternoon/morning/evening, and I let the driver know - with apologies - that sorry, I'm getting off very soon. I've received more than one or two harrumphs and a muttered "to lazy to walk 2 or 3 blocks?"

I've given to exaggerating a limp when I do get off the bus just to make them feel a little bit bad.

And – although we’re certainly not rich, I’d still rather pay for a cab a few blocks than risk taking what we in our fair city lovingly call the “Vomit Comet” home after the subway closes at 1:00ish. Long ago, when I worked in restaurant kitchens, I’d rather work the 7:00am shift opening the kitchen than have to work past subway closing and take that Blue Bloor Bus – and having been 18 at that time and sleeping was a second job for me – that said (and continues to say) a lot about our city’s transportation system (or lack thereof!)
__________
One day closer to retirement!