Public Transport!

This is a rant...you've been warned.

Generally, I have no problem with the public transport system in the UK - because, it works. There are timetables - bus times, train times, metro times...and these various means of transport arrive, and depart, on time.

Usually.

The trains I've had no real problems with - if there are delays, they announce it. Train delays have yet to infringe on any of my plans.

Buses however...they've just been pissing me off lately. In particular, the one bus I need to catch to get to the rink.

It is never on time...always late...despite this - I've managed to get to my lesson on time. Today, however, it does not show!

I mean seriously, it was my last lesson before grading next week. I was sitting at the train station for 1 HOUR before a bus came..and then the stupid bus driver tells me that he is new and doesn't know the route...I could still have made the last maybe 10min of my lesson...but no...he doesn't know where is going.

I briefly burst into tears on the bus whilst waiting for him to figure out what's what, then I got off it. I burst into tears largely out of frustration. Hid behind the graphic novel I was reading. Kicking and screaming, throwing a hissy fit, swearing at the bus driver - is not going to achieve anything.

There is a parking bay where buses wait before they go to the respective stands. When the bus was about 10min late, I walked up and asked the one driver if he perhaps knows where the bus is. By this time I'd already called the travel line and all they can tell me is that the bus is due at such and such a time. I was like I know. It's not here. Where is it. This, they couldn't tell me. Gave me the providers number - and of course their office hours are Monday to Friday...didn't bother to hold on to hear the times.

So anway, this...insolent...bus driver tells me that everyone runs late on Sunday, when it is so quiet. He is even late. He doesn't know where the bus I require even goes to, and it's a different provider. He figures that this bus driver is having a cup of tea somewhere!

I turned and walked off...because if I stayed any longer I would have said something very nasty to him.

Instead I turn around and tears of frustration start welling up...and this frustrates me even more!

Urgh.

To say I was annoyed would be an understatement.

I very nearly went back home, since I was still at the train station...it was on time. Then I checked the other bus stops, figured there's a bus that goes close to where I want to be. The reason I only figure this out now, is because I don't know the bus timetables or routes...I only ever remember these things on a need to know basis.

Get a different bus, and then from it's stop to the rink was about a 15min walk. There's no point in walking to rink from the train station because I will miss my lesson. But today, I missed my lesson anyway.

On the way back... waiting for this bus. From the rink this time. It was supposed to come at quarter past and quarter to the hour. I get to the stop just after half past. Come quarter to - nothing. On the hour - nothing. Annoyed? Of course.

So i walk - to the the stop about 15min away of the bus that actually comes when it is supposed to!

This is not the first time I've had issues with this particular service either.

A few weekends back, I went through to London for a friend's birthday - I was counting on the bus coming on time so that I could catch the train - 2 trains per hour since it's a small station - it was 15min late...I missed BOTH trains that hour...so I had to wait ONE hour at the train station for the next one...and of course this delays my travel plans - as I was due to leave from a station in the city centre to London. Lucky for me - I had a rail ticket valid all day, and not just a particular train. Then of course, just to add to the delays, someone had decided - near a station about 30min from London, that today I no longer no longer want to live. We had a 40min wait while the tracks were cleared.

So.

I'm annoyed. And pissed off - because I missed my lesson!

This is the time when I miss having a car.

And...me bitching about the public transport in the UK is an indication that I've been here long enough to become accustomed to things running more or less properly because public transport back home is shite.

Most people have a car - the petrol tank may sit just above empty nearly all the time...but there's a car.

I have to plan things so that I get to the station in time to get the train to make sure I get to my destination on time...having a car, doesn't require all this planning. The times having a car sucks is when there's peak traffic (and yeah, ok...when everything decides to break down all at once), but otherwise...it's pretty good.

Gets you from A to B and it doesn't make you miss your skating lesson!
Hrmpf