Calgary Transhit - Trained By Hitler

Why is it that every time I try to take a bus in Calgary, it's either late or early. A bus in Calgary is never on time. I've been getting more and more annoyed with Calgary transit ever since I moved back to this cold, windy, barren wasteland of a city. It's like they're TRYING to be completely useless. That is the only explanation. Human ignorance and stupidity can accomplish only so much failure. But the Calgary transit system goes above and beyond that level of failure, to a whole new existence plane of shittiness that no one has ever imagined could exist, let alone tried to reach. Let me give you a couple of examples, and remember that if I, one simple man, have been privy to all of these experiences in my infinitesimal portion of time in this city, the reality of the situation must be decidedly worse than even I envision.

This morning, I decided to get up a little bit early just to make ABSOLUTELY SURE that I would get to class on time. I don't much like being late to class. As you saunter in, the professor has already started lecturing but pauses to quickly memorize your face so he can take marks off of every grade you will receive in every one of his/her classes. Every other student looks at you as if you have just thrown a kitten in a bag with a bunch of tacks in it and then hit baseballs with the bag for a half hour (Wow, that was way too gruesome. Maybe I'll downgrade it to hitting racquetballs). Long story short, being late is all bad. So I got ready and walked to the bus stop, and when I got there, there were two other people already waiting for the bus. I found this strange since I myself was five minutes early for my bus, which comes every 10 minutes, but I decided not to come to any bold conclusions. This was probably because Jack Johnson was playing on my MP3 player. He just makes me happy.

After waiting for 20 more minutes for my bus which comes every 10 minutes, I finally saw a bus coming up towards the stop. The baffling perplexity I saw next made me question my very existence. Immediately behind the #20 bus was ANOTHER #20 bus. I might have been delighted... if I had a rocket launcher. Instead I was filled with an unspeakable rage. Neither bus was anything near full, nor have they ever been, since the #20 bus is not all that popular. Gee, I wonder why. I had been waiting for 25 minutes, the time in which 3 buses were likely to have come and gone, for one bus to come. Instead of one coming every 10 minutes, now two had come in 25 minutes. Incredible.

I've got an idea for you Calgary transit - how about this: Just send one REALLY BIG BUS around at 5 or 6 random times during the day. You'll be able to cut down on driver costs, which will be good since 96% of your drivers are mindless assholes anyway, and it will solve all those pesky scheduling problems because the drivers can do whatever the hell they want - which is what they do ANYWAY. Maybe you should just install cannons at some specific places around the city, and get people to pay you for you to shoot them out of the cannons towards their destination. At this point, I think I would prefer landing face first in a park full of used needles to taking the bus.

Not long ago, my brother was heading to University for exams and he was nearly 10 minutes early for a bus, when it drove by unexpectedly as he was walking up to the stop. It had halted at a red light (Amazingly, since they usually just drive through, oblivious of the traffic signals) as he ran up to the door, and he smiled at the bus driver as a baby might smile at his mother immediately before being fed: He knew he had made it. He knew he was about to reach his goal. As Jason stood outside the door of the stopped bus, and the light turned green, the bus driver looked him straight in the eyes and drove away. I think we really need to buy a rocket launcher. Does anyone know where I can get a rocket launcher?

What kind of complacent slice of flaming shit does something like that. There is no need for bus drivers to be doing things like that. I'm sure everyone living in Calgary who has been on a bus has seen the bus driver just drive away from a stop when someone was running for the bus. It's usually an old lady with a walker and a few grocery bags, or some guy in a wheelchair (Yes, I realize someone in a wheelchair can't run for the bus. Don't be a jerk.) - you know, the people that will freeze and die if left out in the cold. The bus driver sees them and just doesn't care. Or maybe he actually enjoys watching people suffer. Maybe that's part of the driver training, teaching people to become heinous bastards. I bet that class is right after the one where they teach you to always be early or late, but never on time. Maybe that's even part of the job application - "Are you ethnic? Do you hate people in general, and more specifically people with disabilities, babies, and old people? Yes? You're hired. Someone tell him he's hired, I don't speak his language"

The stop where I catch the bus is up on an exit ramp where cars get off of Crowchild and onto 33rd avenue. Possibly the most amazing thing I've seen, which has happened countless times to me, is when bus drivers simply drive under the overpass, completely ignoring the stop and everyone at it. They can SEE THE STOP from below, while they still have time to turn up the ramp, and they KNOW if there are people there. They just keep on driving. If I can see the numbers on the front of the bus as it drives by and under the bridge, the bus driver can certainly see me. There is simply no explanation for this. How can you explain that a driver sees the people at the next stop and simply drives by without picking them up. The bus is not full. There is no traffic. There is nothing impeding his progress (Until I buy a rocket launcher, that is). The only explanation is that the bus driver has been trained to despise humanity, probably by either Hitler or Satan. Maybe Saddam Hussein was the student teacher.

The point is, this kind of blatant disregard for people is not only relentlessly annoying and utterly condemnable, it seriously pisses me off. It's like getting to the airport and finding out your plane left an hour early, for absolutely no reason, with no one on it but the pilot. Why? Why would they do that? What idiocy has occurred here? These questions go unanswered with respect to Calgary Transit. I guess all we can hope for, at this point, is a military coup. A military dictator would know how to run a damned bus system. Things would happen on time or people would get SHOT. Does anyone know a good dictator? Keep me informed. Anything would be better than this.

Spiker