A few weeks ago, I had the joyous experience of taking a trip to Birmingham City Centre via bus. While I understand it's good for the environment and all that lark, I did find myself somewhat regretting my decision when I found that, five or so rows behind me, two rather indimidating, hooded creatures had what sounded like two men having an argument while both simultaneously recieving egg-whisk enimas as someone used a faulty vacuum cleaner in the background blasting out of their mobiles.

As something to announce my return to these fair virtual plains, I was wondering if anyone else had any stories, be they amusing, terrifying, or downright befuddling, of public transport.

I went to the trouble of acquiring a photo ID from my college so I could access certain perks. One of those perks was the ability to ride the bus for free. I wanted to use it when I needed to visit the campus so I wouldn't have to hunt down a parking spot, pay for it, then walk all over the campus anyway.
Didn't work out. I looked up my route online and asked for the quickest route to the campus from my apartment. It said it would take me 2 hours and 10 minutes to get to campus, including having to walk a few blocks.

I live less than five miles from the campus. Two hours and ten minutes to travel less than five miles?!? WTF???

My aunt once went up to Pittsburgh by bus, she went to a med school up there before quitting due to fear of blood/needles. She and my cousin, who are both probably the best pair of friends I've ever seen (aunt's on my mom's side, cousin's on my dad's), had to sit in the back of the bus because all the ones in front were taken. My aunt was hugging her backpack really tight, because of all those stories that if you weren't careful your stuff would get stolen. (Weird Al's "Another One Rides the Bus", anybody?) Anyway, she thinks she fell asleep or something, because the bus randomly stopped all of a sudden and she banged her head off of one of those metal poles. She never used a public bus again.

I always use the Public Transportation to get to school and, no bullshit here, ALWAYS DELAY. I have to walk to the train, get on the train, get from the station to the subway, from the subway to the bus and there walk 10 minutes. The train is always too late, the subway = shitty with the new chip card and buses suck ass cause they show up at random.

You guys think u have it bad..

Insanity. Absolute insanity.

I know right
when i first watched it i was like.. okay so the employs are gonna maintain control.. insted they add to the risk!!?!
then i realized where talking about the top populated countries

Riding a tram whilst an old geezer tried to feel me up kinda made me hate public transportation. Oh, and there was that taxi ride that had me screaming... and the guy never stopped! (Chicago has the WORST drivers and I'm from TX!)

I don't really have any public transport stories. Did pick up a nice iPod off of a bus once. Apparently some kid just left it sitting, in his pocket.

Idiot.

<.< While visiting friends just outside of seattle we had gone into town and took the bus back (his dad drove us in) and some old guy fell asleep on me cause my friends took all the seats on the other side >.>

i cant use public transportation due to the fact they dont like you throwing stuff out the windows.


what i got

you do get some bitching bumper stickers

I've never used public transportation. My husband laughs at me, he's from New York his youth revolved souly on the train/bus and subway.

I'm in Texas.....and to say that somewhere has worse drivers than Texas says a lot. The people around here are terrible. I've ridden the subway in NY. I thought it was better than DART Rail or TRE here. Around here, I will always drive myself
I would really rather sit in the hellish traffic than take a bus in this city.

At least you don't have to ride a trolley referred to as the SLUT.

been there seen that show me one with the C bomb and ill be impressed

are you kidding i ride the slut all day any day

Young mothers using the bus....

Oh

Ma

Hoes

See, Im the first to acknowledge that mothers should never be in a position where they have to take the bus, and that they have every right to be unpleasant... but

fuck

why deliberately make peoples lives harder? People who might have helped you, given you more reason to stop wallowing in self pity... not only does misery love company, it is a jealous mistress....

On some sub ways and buss in crowed cities that are known to have homeless ppl...
its not odd having to sit, near, next to or smell a homeless person.

there been stories where its been so crowed the homeless people stand so close to you that.. well its just not pretty

I used to live in England and went to school there, one day on the school bus, these older lads decided it would be funny to throw a dessert from the top window, they ran from the back, tossed it out the window where it landed on some guys porche at traffic lights and then legged it to the back of the bus, everyone else, even those not involved ran to the back of the bus, I just sat there, the only one left near the window and watched the man, get out of his car and WAS LET ON THE BUS even though he was obviously pissed off and ran upstairs to me.
He asked me who did it and I told him, "They just legged it to the back, Dunno who did it. Sorry Sir." (The sorry sir was self-preservation) He raised his fist to me and then sagged it back down and went, "it wasn't you" and walked slowly off the bus.

SCARIEST MOMENT EVER, well, I was 12 at the time.

There have been scarier moments since....

Also, drunk people on public transport annoy the hell out of me.

dammm
being 12 that must of been
i dunno that whole thing sounds like it suckeddddd

Yup, I had a long discussion with the bus driver about letting angry, fist waving men on the bus in future. (Without paying too!)
I took his name, and the number of the bus and told my dad. Never anger my father, He's like Ray'd on a bad day!

BoT though, I am also the scourge of the buses for Long white-bearded Indian men wearing red turbans! I was about 4, and I insisted the poor man was Santa Claus and went to sit on his lap and tell him what I wanted for Xmas!
Never mind that Xmas was three weeks previously...and he was on a bus rather than Reindeer...and that Mom told me Santa was a lot paler...lol.
I told Mom that Santa had just been on holiday!
Though mom was embarrassed, I was happy and the Indian Man with the Red Turban was actually laughing about the whole thing!

i bet he just enjoyed you sittin on his lap ;)

Alllll im saying ppl is theres a lot of prevs on the public transports.
nuff said

I'd happily ride the bus if it were actually useful.

I bought an inexpensive truck, because I really don't care much about the extras like power windows and heated seats and crap like that. I just want reliable, relatively comfortable transportation as cheap as possible.
I only pay about $300 a month for it (payment, gas, insurance and maintenance), but I could pay a tenth of that to ride the bus (bus pass is $28 a month).
But the bus is totally useless for me. Like I mentioned above, it takes forever to get anywhere even though I travel less than 8 miles to get practically everywhere I need to go. It doesn't run on Sunday. It doesn't run after about 7 p.m. which makes it totally useless for going to work, as I work 2nd shift and get off at 1 a.m. most nights. It doesn't even go to my workplace anyway; I'd still have to walk about a mile. Anytime I wanted to go anywhere out of the city, I'd have to either rent a vehicle, borrow one, or bum a ride.

So, yeah, bus = useless. The city keeps trying to promote it, but it's absolutely useless for me and many others. It's a shame, because I'd love to save an extra $270 a month by not having a vehicle. I could use it for short trips, but I'm already paying for a vehicle whether I use it or not. Why should I buy a bus pass or pay a buck per ride when I can get there faster and more conveniently by taking the vehicle I already have?

So yesterday I took the bus to work as per usual, and we actually hit a deer. The bus driver kept going because we were already running late. We get to the stop light about a half mile down the road when a cop pulls the bus over. The driver was arrested for not so much as calling it in. The city sent another bus about 20 min later, actually charging us to get on it. When asked why they were charging us, they said it was to cover the cost of a second bus running the route. That their employee screwed up on...