Public Transportation

I was on the bus coming home from school on a half day (with my sister sitting next to me) and this guy decided to light up a cig. The lady next to us started yelling at him, telling him how he should be ashamed, and how he's killing himself, etc. He looks at me and says "what do you think pal?" I said I didn't want to be involved. Then the lady turns to me and starts preaching to ME about how bad cigs are. JUST SHUT THE HELL UP!

I have had a guy get on the bus and sit across from me, only to stare at me the entire 20 minute ride. He didn't take his eyes off me the entire time. Very weird.

I've seen a guy talk to himself with great enthusiasm. Obviously talking to the voices in his head.

Then there was the guy who got on and tried to get a free ride. He argued with the driver for about 2 minutes, and since the driver would get in trouble for being late to the next stop and screwing up the whole day, he just drove away and the guy got a free ride. That's stealing to me, and I thought he was a jackass.

My mom however has no problem with the bus. She takes it with her boyfriend into downtown and back when they want to drink. She either doesn't have these things happen or she just doesn't mention them.

 

I saw a girl getting arrested on the train not long ago. I've also concluded that 50% of all buses contain an old woman sitting up the front having a very loud conversation with the driver.

Also, there's the Homeless Train Rapper. He gets on trains and raps for spare change.

 

Only been on subways in London and New York and never seen any crazy people on either. Seen some pretty awesome musicians, though. A shame they're reduced to performing in such places just to (hardly even) scrape a living.

 

I've sat next to someone that messed their pants. Another guy followed me around downtown acting real friendly then got off at my stop and mugged me. Another person on a different bus offered me liquor. It looked like a blend of whatever he could find. Then there are the times that the wheelchair lift won't work. Everyone gets mad at me because we have to wait on a mechanic to get me off of the bus. Generally, the bus is better than walking.

 

Been riding public buses to Uni for like a year now and quite a lot of things happened but I don't remember fully or know the story fully.

 

I don't ride the bus that much. Only when the magic chariot is getting serviced, or if there is some good reason not to drive. For example, I have been known to take a bus into a nearby city instead of drive just to save myself the aggravation of dealing with downtown driving (stop and go is not much when you drive a 5 speed), not to mention the "joys" of finding a place to park.

I've had few complaints about the bus, apart from practical issues of having to plan around their schedules. At one time, I might have moved out to a certain undisclosed location that had bus service. I was so glad I never did move out there when the transit company cancelled that route. (I didn't need that service daily, but I like having it available as a backup. It's cheaper than a second car.)

But...the 2 routes I most likely ride are pretty decent. You don't have some of the interesting people where I am that you'll find in parts of the big city I mentioned earlier. And those people can cause huge problems. One driver was a full time substitute for drivers on vacation. She once had a regular route, and one that was a major one, in the city. But she said dealing with some of the passengers got to be just too much, and she finally decided that she'd better change before she cracked and said or did something that made transit terminate her contract.

Not that things are perfect. You do hear stories about things happening. People drinking and spilling their booze and creating a big headache. Or the time a man apparently sat back with some teenage boys and suggested some activities they could pursue. The driver said the boys were so embarrassed when they reported the incident, they wouldn't specify what the man wanted. I have to think in a day and age when anything goes, it must have been a doozie of an idea.

 

I once sat next to a girl on a bus who spent the entire trip going through her bag trying to piece together what had happened the night before. She had movie tickets from a movie she didn't remember seeing, a car air freshener, a broken belt, a couple of dice and a receipt for a huge number of energy drinks.

 

I take the train quite often and sometimes go by bus, but I've never encountered anything really weird. Only see people drink alcohol every now and then, but me and some friends have done that too once or twice. No big deal.

Something I do hate: people talking on their phones in public transport, preferably at high volume so everyone can hear them shriek. Please, don't.

 

>.> No, I've never had this issue. I've commuted to college in my car for over 20,000 miles going 60 miles per day to and from college.

During a shift from my hometown to Portland I began using the public transportation and although, yes, there are always some *unique* people onboard, I wouldn't put such negative descriptions with them.

For all I know, from my tight-clothed body to a formal suit the next day people have considered me the one whose elevator hasn't reached very high. Q.Q Live and let live.

 

WMU students can ride the Metro buses for free, and you can get pretty much anywhere in Kalamazoo or the suburbs closest to downtown. That being said, the one bus that runs to the train station is usually full of college kids because it goes from the train station to campus to a student apartment complex. There's two other routes that are mainly full of college kids, those usually run to the movie theater, Wal-Mart, and Target.

Other than that, the buses are full of creeps, flakes, and homeless people. They had a big problem with homeless people who would pay the $1.50 fare and ride that bus all day, from when they start the buses around 5:00 AM until the buses quit running at 10:00 PM. They now have signs inside the buses that say after one round trip, anybody who hasn't gotten off the bus will be asked to leave, and violators will be prosecuted.

I got on the train station route to get on another bus to go up to Target to get some Just For Men a few weeks back, and had to listen to this woman who had a Long Island accent talking to this other woman about how Child Protective Services are such assholes because they took away all 8 of her children just because she was on heroin! What an injustice! AND while they were in foster care, they were telling the kids that she wasn't their biological mother. This is an outrage!!! [/sarcasm] She then turned to me and started telling me all about her uncle that was killed by a drunk driver and then handed me her number. Ha! B****, that's not going to happen.

One of the scariest moments of my life happened at that train station as I was on my way back to campus. I'm sitting waiting for the bus to get there, and I hear a woman who looked like the lady from the "Ain't Nobody Got Time For That" video yelled, "Put that gun down! Put that gun down! PUT THAT GUN DOWN!!!!!" I crouched down behind the thick concrete column and called 911, and about 30 seconds later, there were black and whites everywhere. I don't know if they ever found the person with the gun, but I just wanted to get out of there.

 

I used to take the MARC train from Baltimore to DC for several years, and never saw anything really odd, either on the train or the DC metro.

My only observation is that the mass transit system in the US is very fragmented, underfunded, and could be a lot better...it doesn't reach enough places in the Baltimore/DC area that you 'need' to get to very easily.

I see more crazy people roaming the streets, all in all, which is sad, especially around the holidays, to see the poor, mentally unstable and homeless out in the cold. But that's life in the US, home of first world's rapidly rising poverty...

 

I also know people who have some crazy stories from riding the MARTA trains in Atlanta.

 

I've never really had any issues, and I take public transportation every day.

 

Public transportation in Cincinnati is... pretty bad. It is really only the bus. In the 1920s we built subway tunnels, but abandoned them. Never layed any track. Now there are miles of empty tunnels underneath the city. More recently we were building streetcars, but a decently elected politician is trying to kill the project even though we already spent a ton of money on it. One of my teacher's blames it on the cultural lag in Cincinnati, claiming it to he one if the largest in the world. The reason Chicago is so big is because we in Cincinnati said that trains are just a fad, we'll stick with steamboats, send the railroad somewhere else. Indeed, Mark Twain said something along the lines of "If the world comes to an end, I hope I'm in Cincinnati so I can live another ten years."
I used to live in D.C. but I was only an infant then, but my parents have said some very nice things about the metro.

 

That feel when the person sitting next to you in the tube falls asleep, lands on your shoulder, then drools on it.

Then those moments when two people begin arguing and start yelling at each other, making everyone in the car uncomfortable.

And don't get me started on the disabled people begging for money. When I went to university, I always encountered this blind old man with a tin can, wanting me to pity him and give him my money.
Or rather, my parents' loaned money.

 

I've noticed that too. One thing I've noticed in my area: the transit is one of the first groups to take a huge hit when the economy goes bad. Just when there are more people who probably need the service. (The issue, with at least one agency, is a sales tax revenue--when that goes down, they have to start swinging the budget ax.)

My area is strange for service levels. There is amazing coverage in some areas. If I am going to downtown Nearby Unamed City during the morning rush hour, I can get a bus that takes me right there with minimal stops. But...I can't get bus service that gets me back here late at night after, say, a cultural event from the same Unamed City.

So much depends on the city... My parents lived in one city in the early 70s, and my father took the bus. It was cheaper than having 2 cars, and eliminated a huge parking headache. And bus service was, apparently, amazing with regular busses.

Then, they moved. The new city had bus service, so my father thought all was well. Until he found out on his first morning the buses did not run quite as regularly as they had in the old city. And so he was an hour late for work on the first day.

 

I'm a bus driver in Glasgow, Scotland. I'll just let that sink in. I've seen some s**t lol.