I hate you all! (not really)

I had to travel to the hospital this week for an appointment. It had been snowing for a few days before, so I used public transport instead of taking the motorbike.

It cost me £14.90 in tickets, which is enough to fill my tank and ride about 150 miles, and it took a little over two hours in each direction, rather than about 45 minutes. I travelled for about 45 miles in total.

The first bus, according to Google Maps, stopped 43 times and only took me about half way. The second bus was much better, and only stopped seven times, and the third bus was so late that I walked the last half a mile or so and got told off for having high blood pressure 🙈

The first bus was freezing cold, and both were quite cramped with no tables, so the idea of working on the bus was out of the window before I started.

Coming home, the trains were running, so I caught a bus to the nearest station on my line, thinking it would be a better option.

The bus, like the others, had no indication of which stop we were at, so I spent the whole time checking Google Maps and looking for street signs. Google tried to tell me that the train station was underneath a bridge and in the middle of the train tracks, but was pretty good apart from that. The train was quite crowded, but I managed to get a seat.

Luckily for me, my mother was picking my kid up from school as the train was pulling in, so picked me up from the station rather than me having to catch a bus for the last leg.

All in all, I was travelling for about four hours, and had to drag my disabled arse for a mile or so between stops and stations. I genuinely envy those of you who have decent public transport systems, but I can definitely see why people don't use them here at least 🙁

I wish public transport was more of a thing where I am. I personally really enjoy driving for leisure, but it'd be really nice to have the choice.

I should look up my local bus lines and operating hours. I think there are some around me, it's just extremely sparse from what I understand

banlieusard de Paris frérot on t'a reconnu 😏👌🤜🤛

The bus here would be pretty nice, it's around $2 for a one-way ticket or (I think) $5 for a day pass which includes the LRT.

The problem is, I have to drive to the bus stop or walk about 3 miles down a very dangerous, rural road that doesn't have space to walk on the side of it most of the time.. and the bus arrives "every 30 minutes" which ends up actually being about once an hour.
The LRT portion of it is great though aside from having to drive to the station. It's much faster than driving and is consistently on time so I do use it whenever I'm trying to go somewhere near one of its stops

So have cities cut a deal with the feds for untaxed diesel? I always wonder. The feds might be down.

rising gas prices

Most of my local public transport is electrically-powered now, so ¯_(ツ)_/¯

who buys tickets with cash anymore lol

I did recently when I lost my travel card. Some people also travel using cash habitually for privacy reasons (What if someone has an abusive partner watching bank card transactions and transport card accounts? What if there's a data breach? I recall a few years ago one train network voluntarily gave aggregated trip data to a student researcher which could pretty easily be deanonymized.)

Maybe it's different where you live, but cash certainly lives here.

Meanwhile here in the Midwest the cities are opting to not even continue service because the bus company wants too much. Last I heard four cities had done so in my area. The busses still run their same routes through my city. They just don't stop.

I miss having a bus. Even tho the nearest stop was about a mile and a half walk.

I'm in Albuquerque, NM. They did a test last year of Free Buses. Then made it permanent this year.

I've never used the bus, because the city is very much built for driving. But I do like that that the bus is free. Just wish I didn't have to walk a mile, and up a big hill to get to my closest stop.