DeeKnow’s Grotto

There are many reasons why one might take the bus to work in a modern quality city. It may be because parking in town is too expensive. It can be because bus lanes and express routes mean you actually get to work quicker. It might also be because it ends up being cheaper on public transport than running a car back and fwds each day.

These reasons may apply somewhere like Wellington, but in Hamilton they most certainly do not. Here in the city "where its happening" people do not voluntarily take the bus.

The only folks unfortunate to be using our public transport system are school kids, international university students, elderly folks doing their weekly shopping run, sickness or unemployment beneficiaries, and people who've lost their drivers license through drink-driving or an excess of speeding infringements.

For the last week I've been on the bus after crapping off my bike last week on the way to work and having to wait for the insurance assessor to check it out before I can resume independent travel.

For the first few days I thought it was a great old adventure.

There's the time (lots of it) to read and relax en-route to work. There's the social aspects (aka eaves-dropping) of camaraderie, togetherness and community. I even liked the oh-so-kiwi way people thanked the driver as they disembarked.

All these positive things have regularly brought a smile to my morning, a time at which my humour levels are not usually normalised.

The magic of socialist travel however has finally worn a little thin. Missed connections, lack of out-of-hours facilities at our flash new terminal, crap evening schedules that mean 6:15 is the last practical leg home, buses that just plain don't turn up etc, etc, etc...

It soon brings you crashing back to reality and drives you to dream once again of independent means of atmospheric pollution. To be fair the network is crap-loads better than it was when I last used it so big-ups to Environment Waikato for that.  The fleet has improved no-end, schedules seem more frequent and useful, but there's definitely still that X-factor missing from the good old bus.

9:55:29 PM