Recently in Public Transit Category

Today some guy decided to rob me of some transfers that were stored in the wastebasket next to my bag and keys, which kind of pissed me off. Later on in the trip though, an elderly lady came up to make small talk.

Lady: I saw in the paper that those people left that Ronald Reagan left a trillion dollars buried at the White House. He buried them in tin cans. 'The Onion News' or something.

Me: That's a humorous newspaper. They make up their stories.

Lady: Yeah, I don't think he would have done that.

(A minute or two of silence)

Lady: You know, I don't think that's true.

Me: Yeah, that whole paper is made up. They're jokes.

Lady: He couldn't have fit a trillion dollars. That would be a lot of cans. I don't know. Maybe.

The Onion: U.S. Government Finds $20 Trillion Buried By Absentminded Reagan In 1987

I haven't posted in a while because I was on vacation (Boston's awesome - most polite drivers of any city I've been in, most random spaghetti bowl of public transit, made me depressed about massive Minneapolis front yards, stuffed my face with seafood etc) last month and we moved across the lake last week. I have a couple of mixes for the three of you left that RSS this bad boy and still download them. We don't have the internet yet though (I'm tethering on my iPhone at the moment - it's too slow to seed, plus it goes away when I go outside) so I'll be posting a mix in the next week or two, and another mix shortly after that. The music is there, it's just waiting to get out.

Yesterday on the 46, I was driving along and I was paying close attention to a blind intersection on a curve. In fact, my attention was too close and I nearly passed up an elderly gentleman who was on the opposite side of the street. I had to brake hard, and made him walk about 80 feet, but he made it. I felt real bad, actually. Nine times out of ten when that happens, it's not the driver's fault (if you act like somebody who's just walking down the street guess what happens) but this was completely my fault. It turned out to be a very animated French guy who held out that morning's paper and said "For you." What a sweetie! He only rode for about a mile, but he was awesome. I was all set to give him the special 6 hour transfer that I reserve for special people (OK I've never given one out), but he declined.

Tonight we had free rides from 4pm to 9pm on account of the Holidazzle parade. First of all, you'd think that if your bus driver is saying something, you might pay attention, especially when what he is saying is "Free Rides Tonight!" In the time it takes an average person to put money in the farebox, I can say "Free Rides Tonight! Excuse me, the ride is free! Have a seat, there's no fare!" How many people put a dollar in before looking at me with an expression that looked too similar to one that goes with "Look! The monkey is trying to say something! OMG Bus drivers talk! What's he saying? I wasted a dollar?" Seriously, it's like pulling teeth to get people to not pay on no fare night. I shit you not, I had to sit there and argue about it with a few people. I actually ran late all night because people would not sit down. All of this brings me to the second point. When I started driving five years ago, we used to have these black vinyl farebox hoods. They were brand new. We used them for one day. They were awesome. We ran on time that day. Seattle has little cardboard dealies that you block the coin and bill slots with.

It was a good night anyway.

Hey, thanks Transit Librarian tells even better stories, but he'll not be driving the bus for a few months. So stay tuned over there for some new driver training stories! He also doesn't have RSS. Overtime tomorrow night, 146 and 115. I love the 115.

On the subject of people showing up to this site out of the blue, here's some of the better Google searches that resulted in people finding my blog lately:

I'm pretty sure there was a holiday yesterday called Eat On Ryan's Bus Day. Every single trip I had somebody eating some horrible food (McDonalds, Taco Bell) that tastes horrible and smells worse. They were also all sitting in the same seat. Now not only is eating on the bus prohibited, it's just plain rude. Nobody wants to smell that cheesesteak. Or watch you chew with your mouth open. Or sit down on your used ketchup packets and put their feet in your trash. By the end of the night my demeanor had gradually shifted from "Attention passengers: Eating is prohibited on Metro Transit Vehicles" to "Hey! You in the back! Put cho food away, son."

Quote of the night: "Do you interfere with a 16?"

We got about an inch of snow this morning, with a touch of ice beneath it. People overreacted. It was 50 and raining yesterday which is sort of odd I guess. I understand we'll get bombarded tomorrow.

The Star Tribune said bus service was 10-15 minutes late this morning on account of the snow. I was 20 minutes late, and was the last of five 6 buses going down Hennepin at the same time. That's 25 minutes worth of number 6's.

The drivers got 725 buses out with 5 late according to Bob Gibbons (Metro Spokesman), who gets the stupid quote of the morning award: "That means the drivers got to work OK. They motored themselves in before they motored themselves out." Good thing nobody reads that far into stories about the previous day's weather. It's better than my response would have been if I had his job: "What? Shut up there's an inch of snow! Who cares!"

Even beating the lady who, while paying her fare, blankly said to nobody in particular "My pants are very wet."

Strib: New winter storm marches toward Twin Cities

I had a rough day on the 18 yesterday. I've had much rougher, but I had a splitting headache all day and everything seemed to just rub that spot on my head the wrong way. I very nearly (within less than an inch, both cases are miraculous) had two accidents. One guy ran the red light at Lake and 1st Ave. about five seconds late, catching me in the middle of calling the street ("Lake St! Big K in the sheeeeeeeei--"). The other guy made a right turn in front of my while I was pulling out of the stop. He was going very fast, and very nearly hit the bike on the rack. That could have made things interesting. Later on that evening somebody was having issues with my going 20 mph down Nicollet. Well at the same time I was having minor issues with the two cars ahead of me going 20 mph. The guy in the SUV behind me couldn't see them though, so he just assumed it was me. He decided to swerve violently and flash his brights right into my mirror. I showed him what it was like to sit behind a bus that was stopped in the middle of the street for about 45 seconds.

The highlight of the night, however, was when I showed up at 8th and Nicollet at roughly 5pm and a lady boarded and told me that her transfer is expired, but she's been waiting a long time for the bus. I get this all the time, it's a computer that reads the transfer so there's no leeway, but I usually just look at the time and give the person a ride if it's within 30 minutes or so, depending on the time of day. Keep in mind (for those not "in the know") that 5pm is, in fact, the heart of rush hour, and on the 18 line, a bus comes through downtown at least every five minutes during rush hour. I looked at this lady's transfer and it was expired by two hours. I figured maybe she had a more recent one so I said "This is expired by two hours." She became belligerent and exclaimed "Yeah! I told you I was waiting a long time!"

"Huh?"

I stopped on the mall today and Transit Librarian was in the bus going the other way. He was waiting for his time at 8th. After I leaned out and said hey, he told me to apologize to the 10 bus behind him for making him wait (unlike on an actual transit mall, we're not allowed to pass on our mall). This is just my way of letting him know that I happened to stop by the 10 bus's window and I did apologize for him. The driver just shrugged and said "what are ya gonna do?"

I'm trying something I picked up from the drivers in Portland. It's really helping my mood, the mood of my passengers, and it makes the day go much more quickly. When I call out a street, I've been calling out points of interest. This has actually made me like Minneapolis a bit more. There's actually something worth calling at almost every stoplight. I'm not calling out chainstores, because they don't need any help. 28th street seems to be a wasteland though. I can't think of anything for Nicollet or Lyndale on 28th. (Help would be appreciated. The best part of doing this: "Nicollet and Lake! Big K in the Way!" The best routes for interesting points of interest, in order: 2 (all those co-ops and it never leaves the city), the 6 (yeah no kidding), the 4 (lyndale, obviously, but johnson is turning very cool), the 18 (Nicollet is the new uptown) When there's a transfer point, I'll call out the route number and the current time. I think it's been helpful, although in the last two days, three people have asked me "what time itizzz" within 3 seconds of me saying it. Oh well.

In Ottawa the ATU local has an interesting idea. Negotiations have been dropped by the company (OCTranspo), so the bus drivers are going to try different ways to "send a message" to the public, starting with the drivers showing up to work in street clothes instead of their uniforms. They're going to try a new idea every three days or so until they run out.

By the way, is it just me or does the OCTranspo logo on the bus in that picture look like the company ran out of those white 'rtation' stickers?

I could have gotten Sunday, Monday, and Christmas off like the Ceejster, but I decided I should stick with the straight runs instead of those short splits I would have had to take, to spend more time at home. So I picked nine hour work and took Tuesday and Wednesday off. The good part of this is I'm 14th in line for overtime on Wednesdays, and I'm about 100th in line on Saturdays.

So I'll be spending fourteen weeks on the 6 and the 46, which isn't bad at all. Half the time I'll be driving around yuppies and college kids, and during the other half I won't be driving anybody around (heh heh I kid - the 46 can take it).

Sat: 2:45p to 11:24p on the 6
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