When Public Transport Fails/ Public Transit Rants

[Jonius7]

Hi,

Almost forgot to mention the chaos I encountered this morning!
I live on the Gold Coast, in Queensland, Australia.
I went to my regular train station (Varsity Lakes train station) this morning on the way to go to school, and I noticed that there were a lot of people waiting outside at the entrance to the station. On arrival one of the people from my school said that all trains were cancelled for at least the next hour! Madness, at peak hour! Luckily I got my mum to drive me to school (I am old enough to get a driver's license and should have drove there myself), but for some other people, they had to wait for an hour and arrive at school late.

Later that day I checked the news online, that it was a powerline fault at Roma Street Station, one of the major stations in Brisbane, the capital of Queensland. Chaos reigned today from 4:30am from what I heard, but nothing could match peak hour with everyone just left with few options but to take buses or taxis or drive by car. Of course that meant lots of traffic.

The public transport system is quite underdone in Australia if you compare to other countries such as China, France, Japan and US, and Queensland isn't exactly the best in the country either. So today's event to me showed how much we need upgrades to public transport here, a subway would be nice (though that won't happen), and improvements are still a few years away.

Also btw, here is an image of Varsity Lakes Station: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/691/varsitylakesstationopenh.jpg/

See what you guys think,
Jonius7

[DJ Omnimaga]

I hate that kind of stuff X.x. Over here several years ago, city buses would often stop working and we would end up getting late at places. I also dislike how in my city past midnight there is no city bus service at all and during morning it starts only at 6 AM on week days and 7 AM on weekends (8 AM for some bus rides). In some cases this can make it hard to travel around. For example I can't even go out late at night with Juju or other people if nobody can take us back at home in car.

Of course there are cabs but early in the morning sometimes there aren't a lot so when you call, sometimes nobody answers. When I went to Ottawa two weeks ago, I had to try 3 taxi phone numbers before I get an answer. X.x

[Jonius7]

Oh wow, things sounds pretty bad in Canada too. In Quebec though? I wonder how it is in Toronto. Surely could be a bit better.
On my trip to Melbourne I discovered how good trams were. It's a subway without the underground tunnels needing to be excavated and can service many places. And it works!
Brisbane had trams but they removed them like years and years ago.
In some cases we may have gone backwards in public transport.

[Art_of_camelot]

In the US it depends on what city you are in. New York and larger cities main form of transport is The subway or cabs. I'm in a pretty big city, but we have no subways, and cabs are expensive and not used that often. If you are taking public transport here, most likely it is the bus (which seem to be pretty reliable). The only problem with this though is that the buses don't run after certain hours. A great many people here have cars though, I can't imagine trying to get around without one here.

[Juju]

Well, I live in the same town as DJ, so yeah. But when it works, well it works pretty well.

[runeazn]

we have buses here, though they stop operating after 2 PM

[Jonius7]

we have buses here, though they stop operating after 2 PM

I wonder how that works. How about peak hour at 5-6PM?
@Art_of_camelot how about trains in your city?

Also some Gold Coast Bus drivers get attacked. Crime rates on the Gold Coast went up significantly last year.

[Art_of_camelot]

Trains... there is a train system, but I don't know where it runs to/from and if it's a straight trip or has stops (I rode it once on a school trip to a neighboring city). I don't think it's used very much. There is a light rail system as well, but it only covers a small area.

[Darl181]

Hm, public transport seems decent around here (just looked, apparently there's three bus lines a block away from my house 0.o).  Tho I guess this is a densely-populated area

Apparently I could go and stalk leafy after about an hour and a half en route...not that I would or anything..
<.<

[DJ Omnimaga]

Also talk about transport fail: Due to financial issues, they are cutting in service rather than increasing prices again now here and now I can't even go to hockey games with Juju anymore except on Sundays. X.x

[sammyMaX]

I live in the suburbs. I run when it's practical (if it's only a few miles and I'm not carrying anything) and otherwise my parents drive me.

We also have school buses, but that's not really public transportation

[Jonius7]

Also talk about transport fail: Due to financial issues, they are cutting in service rather than increasing prices again now here and now I can't even go to hockey games with Juju anymore except on Sundays. X.x

Prices here have gone up 50% or so in the last few years.

[BalancedFury]

I remember when we lived in South Korea, I was 5 hours late for elementary school, because the bus schedules got fked up...
I got spanked

Spoiler for Hidden:

Ouch

[Jonius7]

You lived in South Korea? What nationality are you?
That seems pretty unfair to get spanked because of the bus schedules. Did other people get affected too?

[DJ Omnimaga]

Also talk about transport fail: Due to financial issues, they are cutting in service rather than increasing prices again now here and now I can't even go to hockey games with Juju anymore except on Sundays. X.x

Prices here have gone up 50% or so in the last few years.

Ouch that sucks.

Over here the price increase was mostly in the '90s, where bus went from $2.00 to 2.75 in like 4 years, even on weekends. After many complaints and the fact bus here was most expensive than most cities, they froze prices until about 4 years later when gas prices started to skyrocket. They almost went bankrupt so they were forced to start increasing prices again and again and it eventually peaked at $3.60 (although during weekends it was $2.20 for me and $1.10 for people under 24). Eventually things got better and they decided to reduce prices to $3 and $2 to attract more customers, then froze regular prices (although the monthly pass still increases a bit). However since last year gas prices started to skyrocket again and instead of increasing prices, they decided to remove most of the the extra services they had added last Summer to cut on costs. I personally would rather pay an extra $0.25 per ride and have services at night, though.