Tag: buses

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February BLAHS

By far the most agonizing part of my year is the one long month in three parts, January, February and March.

January begins with a tease of extreme temperatures, from near absolute zero to tropics. It thaws and freezes in daily cycles. February decides to be eye ball freezing cold mixed with some nice bouts of freezing rain and truck loads of snow, so that when March arrives we have four feet of slush.

February is particularly hard on my nerves with overcrowded, never on time or no show buses, that frequently get stuck in the snow, and our city is turned into a parking lot at rush hours. My 5km commute can become 3-4 hours of agony. It wasn’t always this bad, but the city’s poor transportation management is to blame for a large portion of it now.

I get tired of lugging not only myself, but half my wardrobe with me everywhere I go, layering is not a fashion statement, but a necessity. Dressing for extreme cold and deep snow puts a whole new perspective on ‘just popping over to the corner store’. You must prepare before you go out, and this can take up to a half hour. And bringing home even a jug of milk and a loaf of bread can seem like hauling a load of bricks, the weight of such is proportional to the distance you must travel. It increases by at least 10 pounds for every block you walk.

Salt leaves its trademark white undulating lines on boots and coats. Gravel and sand soon make a pathway in your house.

The only reason why I go out at this time of year is to go to some place warm, as my apartment is often very cold. I have an indoor winter coat that I sometimes have to wear. This is the plight of many fellow apartment and condo dwellers in our city. We build buildings and infrastructure with a California spirit and neglect the reality of our harsh winters. Our ridiculous laws are also rather optimistic; must be 72 F during the day (seldom attained) and 68 F at night, which translates to 60 F in reality because it never reached 72 F during the day (why do they turn it down at night?!). No need to turn on the heat until October 12th and off it goes by April. The only thing that is warm on many a Thanksgiving is the turkey. Perhaps this is a clever ploy to keep us going to work. Otherwise we would realize we are nuts to go out and stay home.

The upside is, we are heading towards spring, instead of away from it. The days are quite noticeably longer. Every once in a while the sun comes out and you can feel its increasing strength. And lo and behold! I saw some very brave or crazy song birds have returned.

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NOT on the Buses

Nasty day.  Not snowing yet, but that rain is near ice.  The bus is late, difficult to gauge by how much, they come when they feel like it, sometimes two arriving together, and then nothing for days.  My feet start to get cold.  A bus passes, too full to pick us up.  This is the daily attempt to commute to work.  Repeat the scenario on the way home, the wait so long, I could catch the next bus back to work.

Nothing can accelerate work place burn out faster than a lousy commute.  Perhaps the commute started the burn out in the first place.

Forget the advice to spice things up by going a different route.  I take the shortest, and only route available.  If there was another way, it would be infinitely longer – why would I want to do that?  Get up earlier and come home later?  Na.  And in the winter it is dark a.m. and p.m., not much change of scenery there.  Finding another route is as bad advice as standing on a bus without holding onto anything to improve your balance (yes this piece of wisdom is on the internet).  Advice doled out by people who never take the bus.  Ever.

It’s not the scenery that dulls the mind.  It is the waiting. Looking hopefully down empty roads and seeing no vehicles, of any kind, in sight.  Just blowing snow.  Or sheets of rain.  Or a nice sunset on the good days.

Once on a bus, packed in like sardines, our bulk is smashed to one side as bus takes corners on two wheels, and folded up like an accordion on sudden stops and starts.  And it stops at every. single. stop.  We get every. single. red light.

Eight a.m.  The driver sings at the top of his lungs all the way to work, in two languages.  A lot of tremolo, but not gravel down a tin chute, thank goodness. But at 8 a.m.?

Move closer to work?  Are you kidding me?!  The repercussions of that should be evident.

But busing beats walking. Walk?  I had to during bus strikes.  In January.  It took an hour and a half one way.  And I had it easy.  Some people had to walk hours and still put in a full day.  I near froze, got buried in a snow bank by a snow plow and generally believed my life would soon end.  Bicycle?  Dangerous. But brave souls do it. Koodoos to them for sure.  Plus they save a huge amount of money and get in shape.  Winter must be a blast to bicycle in.  I used to in the summer, but bike thefts are common.  So nice at the end of the day to find your only ride home is gone or worse, mangled.  No room in current office for safe stow away of bike.  I know, I have an excuse for everything.

Of course everyone has their own horror stories of taking the bus.  I could curl your hair with some of mine.

I am, of course, ranting.

I figured it out.  I have gone down the same road almost 6000 times during the past twelve years.

If I get to retire when I want, it means maybe only a thousand more trips.

I won’t miss it.