Though I didn’t read about it until after this morning’s commute, I had first-hand experience with the report that wait times for transit were much higher this morning compared to yesterday. After yesterday’s commute, I thought the first week might not be so bad after all. This morning proved me wrong.
I had already left for work late, heading out at around 10am. I was thinking I’d be in the studio by about 11am. The first bus that came along was the community shuttle that takes a meandering route to the Skytrain station. That shuttle takes almost double the time that the express bus takes, getting to the same location. If only I had hindsight there to tell me to take that bus. Instead, I waited for the express bus. The waiting continued. Ten minutes became twenty. The express buses usually are just ten minutes apart. Nearly twenty-five minutes later, I saw a bus come along. It was not in service. Five minutes later came another bus, also not in service. Ten minutes later, a real bus came along but it was so full it didn’t even stop for me. Ten minutes after that, the next community shuttle came along. Looking down the road, I couldn’t see any more buses, so I had to take this one.
Not two blocks down the road, the express bus came roaring by us as we puttered along. Not only was it flying down the road, it was half empty. We were in between stops so there was no way I could execute the “switch”. So not only was I on the slow, short bus (it’s been years since I’ve been on one of those), we came upon construction which narrowed the road down to one lane in either direction. So my morning of waiting continued.
We finally made to the Skytrain station where I realized I was going to make it to work just in time for lunch. After an uneventful ride to Waterfront, I sheepishly rolled into the studio just after 12pm.
I’ll be glad when this week is over.