May Day = Bizarro Day

A couple of days ago I got the familiar feeling that I'd woken up from the wrong side of the bed, twice.

Firstly, heading off to work I got to the bus stop to find nobody else there. This didn't look good, because that probably meant I'd just missed the bus. I looked up the road to confirm my fears, but I didn't see a bus on that 1.5 km stretch. It must've come very early. Oh well, the next bus should be along in the next 15 minutes or so (according to the timetable). If only. It finally did arrive 30 minutes later , closely followed by another bus! So, the bus I wanted to catch but missed was at least 5 minutes early, the next one was 15 minutes late and the one after that was on time. It would be nice if bus drivers followed the schedule a bit more closely. Perhaps people may have more confidence in public transport and use the system more.

Anyway, I finally got to work a bit later than I'd hoped. I worked through to lunch time quite productively. Then went over to eat my lunch at a nearby snack bar. I ordered lasagna with salad, specifically requesting no chips. Time passed. More time passed. Eventually, I overheard someone say that the chips were ready. Oh no, I thought, I'm going to get chips with my meal. Not only that, but the chips that I specifically did not want were the reason for the delay in getting the lasagna and salad that I did want! And trying to eat those chips used up even more time that I wanted to use on getting my work done. I hate having to throw away food, but there was no way I could eat all the chips without getting sick.

Fortunately, when I got back to work I managed to complete all the tasks I wanted to for the day. As they say, all's well that ends well :)

Cramped Seating on Buses

Australians are apparently getting physically bigger:

Obese Aussies get big ambulances

So why do bus seats seem to get smaller and more cramped?

On my bus trip home tonight I made the mistake of sitting on one of the face-to-face seats. The bus became rather packed, and someone had to sit directly opposite me. We had to place our legs in uncomfortable positions to avoid knocking each other's knees.

It's not just the face-to-face seats that are cramped. Other seating configurations cause different types of cramping. For example, seats over wheel arches require passengers to raise their knees (on the window side), or have one leg higher than the other (in the aisle side). And the seats behind the barriers near the exits allow barely enough room for your feet. Those with long legs and big feet can try sitting sideways, but that's difficult if the bus is packed and you have to share the seat.

The larger bags and other accessories that people carry around with them just makes things worse.

We should be trying to get as many as people as possible to leave their cars at home and use public transport. But making the seats uncomfortable is not the way to do it.

PS: To rub salt into the wound, another bus came past a few minutes later and was practically empty! Maybe the bus I caught was running late, and so was taking on additional passengers. If the buses ran on time, I probably wouldn't have had to feel like a sardine. Buses not following schedules is a topic for another rant :)