Buses World News

Riders * USA - Packing buses for 'a long haul'

DART's numbers climb as many find $1.15 fare a cheap alternative

(Photo by ROBERT CRAIG/The News Journal - Riders outnumber seats Monday on the trip from Claymont to Wilmington on DART's Route 1 bus. Use of public transportation grew in Del. from 2.7 percent in 2007 to 3.8 percent in 2008)

Wilmington,DEL,USA -Delaware on Line/The News Journal, by MIKE CHALMERS -October 14, 2009: ... More commuters have joined Brooks lately as high gas prices, expanded service and a desire to trim personal expenses prompted a small spike in people taking a bus or train to work in 2008, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau show. It estimated 3.8 percent of Delaware commuters took public transportation last year, compared to 2.7 percent in 2007... Yet Delaware's public-transit commuters continue to trail the rest of the nation where 5 percent of commuters took public transportation to work last year... Fares covered just 13 percent of the $76.3 million it cost Delaware Transit Corp. to operate its statewide bus system. Among similarly sized transit systems nationwide, fares covered 20 percent of costs in 2007, the latest year available from the the National Transit Database, compiled by the Federal Transit Administration... Increasing the number of people using public transportation helps operators boost their fare revenues, said Mantill Williams, spokesperson at the American Public Transportation Association, a trade group. And that means making the service more available to more people, he said...

(Photo by ROBERT CRAIG/The News Journal - Tracy Price, 52, waits for the Route 1 bus Monday at Fifth and Orange streets in Wilmington. The Route 1 bus carries about 800,000 people a year between Wilmington and Claymont, with buses running every half hour weekdays from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m.)

DART buses run into Kent and Sussex counties, even though they lack the density of commuters in northern New Castle County, he said...

Labels: Bus riders stories

PASSENGER'S STORY * USA - My first bus ride to work

Bay City,MI,USA -The Bay City Times/mlive, by Ryan J. Stanton -March 29, 2009: -- They say there's a first time for everything. So, after three years of living in Bay City, I decided Wednesday it was high time I had experienced Bay Metro Transit for myself so I took the bus to work... Carefully, I planned out my route the night before by logging on to www.baymetro.com. I found out I could hop on the No. 10 bus at the Kroger store - about a two-minute walk from my humble abode - and arrive safely in downtown Bay City via a straight shot down Center Avenue... I was pleasantly surprised to find the bus remarkably clean, and the seating comfortable. No sticky floors, no bad smells and no wacky passengers - contrary to popular misconceptions. In fact, the seven people I met proved to be good companions for conversation... Toward the end of the ride, I found the two people I was looking for: People going to work. After all, this week is "Take the Bus to Work Week" and that's why I'm writing this.. "We've got a good transportation system here," he said sincerely. "It's real convenient, especially when it's raining."... I arrived at the downtown bus station at 7:20 a.m., right on schedule, and just in time for a three-block walk to work in the rain. Of course, in all my careful planning, I forgot an umbrella... (Photo Bay City Times, by Cathy Layman - Reporter Ryan Stanton chats with fellow Metro bus rider Mildred, who was taking the bus home from her third-shift job at a local youth shelter)

Labels: Bus riders stories

Rider on the Storm * USA - The Best and Worst of L.A. Buses, Subways and Light Rail

Los Angeles,CAL,USA -LA Weekly, by Steven Leigh Morris -November 25, 2008: -- ... Let me count the ways: clean, efficient light rail linking Manhattan Beach to Norwalk (other lines roll into downtown from Sierra Madre and Long Beach); dedicated bus lanes that swoop eastbound, from downtown into the San Gabriel Valley, southbound to San Pedro and, from North Hollywood, westbound into the sunset across the San Fernando Valley... Express and Rapid buses feature limited stops on our most traveled major roadways, allowing them to sweep past the “milk-train” local buses that serve the same routes. A single fare for any MTA bus or train ride runs $1.25. In New York, the equivalent fare is $2...

The bad news is that the connections between the MTA’s major routes will take you efficiently and swiftly in the range of where you need to be, but you can then spend just as much time completing the final leg of your journey. Local-run buses are overcrowded and infrequent, and Department of Transportation shuttle service is paltry. The Eastside and South Los Angeles are woefully underserved, while the Westside, with no train service at all, is so gridlocked that even the Rapid buses crawl along with millions of car drivers, eradicating the very point of limited stops. Poor connections also undo the benefits of the Rapid bus service... (Photo: Scenic journeys to hell, on wheels)

Labels: Bus riders stories

FIRST EXPERIENCE * USA - Start 'em young

Tacoma,WA,USA -Bus pass it along/Transportation Task Force, by Garrett -September 29, 2008: -- As with most human behavior, people's comfort level with riding the bus seems to depend on prior experience and habit. If riding the bus is a natural thing for you, the sometimes odd but nearly always harmless behavior of some of your fellow passengers rarely fazes you. For this reason, I've gone out of my way to introduce my young son to the bus. We ride fairly frequently to places around town here in Olympia, most often (but not always) if his mother is using the car. For example, a few weeks ago we were headed out one weekend to our local Children's Museum, a favorite haunt, and I decided it'd be a good day to take the bus downtown. We caught our bus a few blocks from home without incident (the woman sitting at the curb near our stop complaining about how the last driver had refused to let her on without paying notwithstanding) and made a smooth connection at the transit center.... about a 20 min ride altogether... At the end of the day, we had a great trip to the museum and he's getting used to the idea that riding the bus makes sense, even in a city made for cars. I imagine by the time he's my age, that may change (gas prices, global warming, all point to more dense living where transit makes sense)...

Labels: Bus riders stories

PASSENGER'S STORY * Israel - Taking the bus every morning...

... is quite the sociological observation

Tel Aviv, Israel -Collective Pontifications of a Ginrod, by Ginrod Isus -February 13, 2008: -- ... Raised in Tulsa, public transportation is almost non-existent and everyone is handed a set of car keys the moment they turn 16. With cars for $500 used, and petrol the lowest in the country, buses and taxi's were used by "the retards who couldn't drive a car"... I found myself quite irritated this morning getting on to the number 47 bus. It was completely full with only standing room in the back. The first thing I noticed was that despite the bus being completely full, all the windows were closed. In fact, until I opened up a window in the center of the bus, everyone was quietly sitting wrapped up in their coats, in a humid and damp environment. Fresh air people. It does us all good ... Sometimes the bus driver forgets to open the back door for passengers to exit. This morning wasn't the first time I've witnessed a passenger dumbfoundly wait and wait then start yelling "Naag Naag (driver)" as the bus begins to pull away. As one who uses the bus often, It's pretty obvious a regular bus stop may only be 10 seconds, I can't get it through my head that people are so conditioned to wait for the door to open instead of immediately walking to the front of the bus. In fact, this morning- another woman had to suggest to the waiting passenger to walk to the front. It was only then- after the bus was pulling away that this made sense to the women... (Video fromYouTube, by alanheath -January 20, 2008: "Taking the bus in Tel Aviv" - This is the bus journey from one of the Tel Aviv railway stations to the port of Jaffa.)

Labels: Bus riders stories

STORY * USA - So this is the tale of two Buses

Both with the same paint, same number of wheels. But oh, so different. One is EVIL.

Chicago,Ill,USA -Life in the city -17 Aug 2007: -- ... So alike, only one number apart. The 65 and 66... The 65 is a kind and gentle bus, giving quick and fun rides where you need to go... The 66 is mean, a cruel creature that stops every ten feet and is packed with angry, nasty people who are mad about stopping every ten feet. The 66 should add another 6 to its name as a warning to all not to get on. I think it must be a special punishment to have to drive the 66, a sort of detention for bus drivers... Anyway the point is - don’t get on the 66 bus, ever, no matter how tempting it is. Take the 65, they give out free lollipops and sing songs which makes it a much more pleasant experience...

Labels: Bus riders stories

Ride a bus...or stew in traffic * Trinidad & Tobago

When I drove my car into the city, I suffered horrendous traffic, and again I am talking off-peak hours...

Port-of-Spain,Trinidad and Tobago -Trinidad & Tobago Express. by Raffique Shah -June 17 2007: -- ... When I drove my car into the city, I suffered horrendous traffic, and again I am talking off-peak hours... Really, it's sheer torture sitting in your vehicle, moving an inch-a-minute, watching your temperature monitor while staying alert for some fool who would careen down the shoulder and cut in sharply in front of you... No, sir, I thought: this is not for me... That's when some smart person alerted me to the alternative: ride the bus, man it's cheaper, it's efficient and you can relax in air-conditioned comfort. So I switched. And I have never regretted it... I shall add only this: as I sit in the bus and watch other motorists suffering in traffic, I wonder why Works and Transport Minister Colm Imbert cannot see the wisdom in adding a BRT lane...

Labels: Bus riders stories

Madrid to Granada by autobus

Now that I’ve been in Granada I know that it was one of my best travel decisions yet. Before the confirmation of experience however, it was on the heel of this windmill scene that I felt nothing but gladness over living at this very point in the timeline of the world, and that right then I was right there, in Andalucia...

Andalucia,Spain -Thinking Coral/WordPress -May 4th, 2007: -- One of my favourite parcels of time in Spain was the bus ride from Madrid to Granada. Gipuzkoa, where I had been, has quite different scenery to much of the rest of Spain; its bushy green hills very unlike the vast stretches of parched, gold-tufted land that have probably had more of a hand in shaping the Spanish spirit. Yet despite the presupposition of the imagination that dryness begets barrenness, the variety of colours and forms that I saw from the window were nothing short of enthralling. The area between Madrid and Granada was especially stimulating as the arid soil somehow still managed to give life to many green trees and shrubs...

Labels: Bus riders stories

* USA - Your bus Rx: Take 2 daily

Commuters are finding public transportation can be the cure for pricey gas and parking hassles

Seattle,WA,USA -The Seattle Post Intelligencer, by LARRY LANGE -27 April 2007: -- More people are riding buses as gas prices escalate; the higher they get, the more commuters opt for public transit. But parking costs, commuting distance and available jobs also are factors in increased transit ridership... Weekday boardings of Sound Transit buses and trains and King County Metro buses, on average, rose about 7 percent during the first quarter of this year, compared with the first three months of last year. Estimated boardings on buses run by Pierce Transit went up more than 2 percent; Community Transit's ridership increased more than 1 percent... Metro set a record for ridership in 2006, and this year a sales tax increase is adding new service which has attracted more passengers... (Photo by Joshua Trujillo / P-I: Bus rider Son Vardy, left, checks which stop his bus is at in Ballard during the evening commute on Thursday on the 15 Express bus from downtown Seattle)

Labels: Bus riders stories

Kinkajou Rider * Mexico - Flees zoo, bites bus passenger

Mexico City,DF,MEX -7Online.com (New York,NY,USA) /Notimex -4 Apr 2007: -- A kinkajou, also known as a honey bear that escaped from a Mexico City zoo boarded a bus and attacked a passenger, officials said Tuesday... The kinkajou, which is about the size of a small dog, got on the bus at about 11 p.m. Monday after escaping from the San Juan de Aragon Zoo... The animal sat next to the bus driver for almost an hour as he drove through the city, and scratched and bit a 20-year-old female passenger when she tried to hold it...

Labels: Bus riders stories

Bus rider ‘scent’ packing * Canada - Seeks apology from city

... wearing her usual two squirts of Very Irrésistible by Givenchy, a perfume billed as bringing out a woman’s “spontaneity, audacity and sensuality”...

Don Mills,Ontario,Canada -National Post, by Kelly Patrick -27, Mar 2007: -- A Calgary woman twice kicked off public transit because bus drivers considered her perfume too strong is demanding the City of Calgary apologize and punish the drivers... “I was just shocked,” Natalie Kuhn said. “I was very upset, very embarrassed.”... Ms. Kuhn’s first scent-related altercation with a Calgary Transit driver began on Thursday, the day before the start of an ongoing work-to-rule campaign by the transit operators’ union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 583, which is in the midst of contract negotiations with the city... The 25-year-old chiropractic assistant said she boarded a bus at a transfer station in northwest Calgary around 8:30 a.m. wearing her usual two squirts of Very Irrésistible by Givenchy, a perfume billed as bringing out a woman’s “spontaneity, audacity and sensuality.”...

Labels: Bus riders stories