Transit Rant!

Time for another rant about transit! I find myself doing these around the beginning of each school year. This was definitely my worst day transit wise though.

I give myself two hours to get to school, and I normally get there with about twenty minutes to spare, sometimes half an hour on a good day. Tuesday was not a good day. The bus that I normally would catch is the 188. I have to walk up a small hill to catch it, but it takes me directly to a bus loop where I would then catch a bus (i69) that takes me directly to the skytrain (a sort of above ground metro, for anyone who doesn't know). However, since school has started, the 188 has been very full. On my first day taking it, I got lucky and was allowed on. Not so luck this previous time. The first bus passed me by, so I decided to just take a bit of a walk and go catch a different bus (C28) that will bring me to the same bus loop. I waited for about half an hour, in which time another 188 passed by, also full. When the C28 arrived (fie minutes late), it was full also. I've never seen the C28 full! By this point there was no chance that I was getting to school on time. If I risked waiting for a 188 or C28 that wasn't full, I would still be waiting for half an hour.

So I walked pretty much back to my house, which is about a ten minute walk from where I had ended up. I caught the C38, which would take me to a different bus (159) that would eventually get me to the skytrain, but using a route that takes twice as long. I very nearly didn't catch the 159, but my first bit of luck that day decided to shine, and the 159 was a couple minutes late.

So I got to the skytrain station, an hour later that I would normally get there. That meant that my class had pretty much started by that point. Since it was a three hour class though, I decided to just keep going and arrive late.

But of course, the very first skytrain that arrived was out of order. I had to wait another ten or fifteen minutes for the next one. Once off the skytrain, the bus I needed (319) arrived instantly, which was my second, and last piece of good luck for the day. Because when I was getting close to the university, thinking that I might be only 45 minutes late, there was construction.

I arrived at class bang on an hour late. My professor was pretty chill about it, so I guess technically I had three bits of good luck. My ride home was, thankfully, much less eventful, and my dad was even willing to pick me up from the bus loop. Once home, I sent a complaint to the transit company, so hopefully something will be done. I don't want to have to leave two and a half hours before my class, just to get there right on time, because I have to take the longest route possible just to get on a bus.