My thoughts on... Palmerston North Buses
So sure, having free transportation is a big plus, and on top of that we get buses arriving on campus around every 15 minutes to ferry students in and out. During the weekend however, it gets reduced to about one evry hour or so. Not that the frequency is a problem, I already have a routine of going shopping in the afternoon and getting a bus back with minimal wait.
But that's the thing, isn't it? If you catch a bus, you don't want to be waiting half an hour for the bus to take you back. It's fine for going into town during the weekday, but in the weekend if you get it right you get a bus within 10 minutes; get it wrong and you're waiting another hour.
That's the problem with living in any city I reckon - it's hard to co-ordinate time towards something as unpredictable as the buses around here.
Although catching a bus from campus isn't that hard, just find a bus stop and wait. Plus, if you're running a little late for a particular bus, that's fine. They're usually a constant 5 minutes behind anyway.
The next problem is getting a bus within town. Any bus you catch will arrive at the Main Street terminal eventually (Massey ones are usually last), and from there you can catch a bus to anywhere in the city. The mad thing with the timetable, however, is that bus routes run in a loop. First a bus goes clockwise to the terminal, then around again the other way. Even more confusing is that the route numbers are split in two - i.e. a bus travels routes 3 and 4 on one trip, then on route 4 and 3. It'd be a lot easier if they had a single number and a direction instead.
The problem with the above is that two buses are on a loop at a time: one going away from the terminal, and one going towards it in the opposite direction. This means that in order for me to go to a certain street, pick something up and get back, I need to set aside a maximum of one and a half hours. I could almost walk to and from the place in that time!
Considering of course that it is winter and raining, I stuck with the attempt to catch a bus today (Friday). The bus I wanted to catch was mysteriously early, so I ended up catching a bus that took a scenic route. Getting off early, I had to cross the main road to get to my next bus stop, and the bus turned up at the scheduled time.
But I attempted to signal the driver and since the bus was in the next lane across from the footpath, he must've been focusing on something else since the bus went right past the stop. I whipped out my timetable and after saying "fudge" and "sugar" (literally) a lot, realised that another bus was due to come around a bit later. Although due to the complexity of the timetable, by that time the bus had already cruised past. And since I figured that if I tried the next bus I wouldn't be back until 6, I gave up getting my external hard rive back this week and will try again on Monday.
This is why I prefer the transport system in Japan, to some extent. It might get crowded most of the time, but if that means they're on time and frequent enough to not have to worry about missing a bus, then fine.
In short, I came home fustrated I couldn't go and pick up my external hard drive within a 2 hour time frame. Maybe I'll try again when there's less precipitation.
The Weekend Watch
Now to de-stress.
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