General life grousing...

[elfs]

So, the weather sucks, my anatomy is temporarily telling me to go hermit, my brain is doing the same thing. That steak I ate Sunday night apparently didn't sit as well with my insides as in the past. Generally feeling blah. It's mostly the weather, I think. Mouth is starting to heal, finally, but it's still irritating.

We had no power this morning, so the laptop was out when I woke up and couldn't make coffee or write on the bus. That was okay; the 121 is a hit or miss affair; sometimes we get a full-size bus, sometimes the short bus. Today, when the Metro tells us that ridership is up 20% across the county and the weather is awful, we got the short bus. Worse, the heater was going full blast; the air was miserably damp in there. A woman wearing coke-bottle glasses talked on her cell-phone far too loudly. Apparently with those glasses she can't read the new cell-phone etiquette signs. So Metro announces that they're considering cutting service in response to gas prices, and just packing us in tighter. Have these guys actually been on a fully-loaded 15 or 121 recently? You don't even have room to open up a paperback.

And they tell me it's only going to get worse.

Comments

[lucky-otter.livejournal.com]

Wait, ridership is up => cut services? These people are broken.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Ridership is up because gas prices are up. However, the budget to run buses has not been updated to reflect the new gas prices, and rider feels fees don't even pay the cost of bus operation, so...

(Grief, makes me sound like a groper.)

[(Anonymous)]

At least there wasn't someone chewing gum. Nothing makes me feel like vomiting like the stale mint smell from someone chewing gum in an already far too warm and humid bus.

[bldrnrpdx.livejournal.com]

Our bus fares are about to go up again too. Since pretty much the inception of our current bus system (at least 20 years, IIRC), fares have gone up a nickel every two years. The last year and a half, it's gone up repeatedly (at least three, maybe more times). This next hike is up by 25 cents, I think the largest single hike so far. It isn't bad enough people are priced out of driving, but now they're gonna get priced out of bussing too. Which is gonna suck for people getting to work to be able to afford... [insert vicious cycle here]