My problem of the day has to do with buses. I waited close to an hour for a bus that's supposed to come every ten to fifteen minutes. For all I know, it may still not have come yet. I left. I've never been too thrilled with BC Transit, which has now turned into Translink I guess. You see, what's wrong with it is that it is unreliable, slow, inefficient, inconvenient and unfriendly. I wrote a letter to them. They have a spot on their webpage devoted just to receiving complaints. That should tell you something about how bad their service is.

So. Unreliable. Well, it's pretty clear that when they don't show up, that means that they are unreliable. They've never been particularly reliable. I don't take the bus myself very often, but whenever I do, I can be certain that they are going to be late. I don't know if I have bad luck, or if they really are that bad. But it really sucks.

Slow. Well, yes they are slow. They are buses, what do you expect? The only thing that goes at a half decent speed is the skytrain. And the skytrain brings me to my next point.

Translink is fantastically inefficient. And the Skytrain is the worst. There's a stat somewhere out there, that each Skytrain rider is actually being subsidized $12 or $14 of his fare? Some very high number like that. Does that seem right? No doubt half of that number is due to people who cheat the system. There's lots of them out there, make no mistake about it. But still, very much inefficient. And take a look, would you, at the ridership on some of the residential late night routes. Half the time the damn buses are going around without anybody on them. How much money do you think that wastes? Full scale buses are expensive.

What's next? Inconvenient. Well, sure enough, they are at that. The new Skytrain route is being built along the Broadway/Lougheed corridor. Why? Those people have the Beeline, already an express, to take them where they want. The original plan was to make two north/south routes, one from Richmond to Vancouver, and one somewhere around Coquitlam to New West, or Surrey or something like that. What was wrong with those routes? I mean, right now it's pretty hard to get from Coquitlam to Surrey with any sort of speed isn't it? And the bus routes connecting the airport to the heart of Vancouver have been pretty messed up for a long time. So, inconvenient.

And unfriendly. There are some exceptions to this rule. Some drivers are not bad. There's the guy who goes around dressed as Santa at Christmastime. There's other nice ones. But the majority are surly, unfriendly and just generally a bunch of jackasses. I recognize the hardships and dangers of their jobs. They get threatened and spit on and stuff. But why did you become a bus driver in the first place, you know that this crap was going to go on. Here's one bus driver story which particularly appalled me when I heard it. It was early in the morning, and the bus was zipping along with a few passengers on board. Suddenly, the bus crashed. I believe it was into a streetlight, although I'm not exactly sure. Ended up that some of the passengers were hurt, though none critically. The reason for the crash? The driver fell asleep at the wheel. I was quite taken aback when I heard it. Are these people not responsible for the safety of the passengers? I don't see a sign that says "Ride are your own risk" when I board a bus. I mean.....what can I say? The guy was recklessly endangering the lives of his passengers. I don't know what ended up happening to the driver. But I wouldn't be surprised if he just picked himeself up, brushed the dirt off and kept on driving. In my opinion, he should be hung out to dry. Fired from Translink and sued by the passengers. But there was no public outcry. Or hardly any public knowledge. No accountability at all. Our tax dollars at work. Disgusting.

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