The $17.50 bus ride

Why on earth would a bus ride in metro vancouver wind up costing $17.50 you ask? Well for those of us who depend upon public transit for all things such as work and entertainment some times you just wind up getting screwed.

Holidays? Some of us don’t always get a choice in the fact of working on a holiday, whether it be scheduling or you just need the cash. Well for those who don’t know Translink’s superior (insert laugh) transit system, they don’t really like weekends. I’m sure because the head of Translink’s private company doesn’t want to cut part of his $500,000 annual salary, he’d rather skimp on the finer details, say tax paying citizens such as myself. I understand its all about money and 20 bucks is 20 bucks, but the unmanned skytrain is not available 24 hours (which is absurd) and buses are running at less frequency on weekends and holidays. In order for me to get to work on this lovely sunny holiday morning, I knew I was going to be about half an hour late, (damn you not-so-early bus) only to realize that the skytrain doesn’t start until almost 8 am on a holiday. WTF. They have buses that can drive you to a skytrain station, but they aren’t opening the doors for some amount of time.

From there I was faced with a question, ” do I waste my time at the local timmy ho’s (worst coffee on the planet, over priced and malnourished food) or mcdicks ( decent coffee, worst food on the planet) or spend money on a cab, argue with the driver the whole way to my second stop about routes and prices. The cab would get me to my next bus at the legitimate time but its going to burn another hole in my not-exactly-full wallet. I had already eaten so I said nay to the food and coffee and jumped into a tiny cramped smelly cab. $15 to go down a giant hill later, + 2.50 bus fare I realize that I’d like to shoot myself in the foot for working a holiday. At least its double time and a half………