More reasons to moan about the buses...
The fares have gone up! Well, for some of us they have. The new zones do make things a little simpler, but one gets the feeling the 1, 2 and 3 stage price hikes will generally outweigh the discounts the more rare 4 stage traveller will be making. Don't know about you train users. You can fend for yourself.
If you're a little confused about it all MetLink have excellent online info about the new zones and fares.
And to the bus-driver who looked stroppy at me this morning when I presented my brand new (but old-school $20 three-stage ten trip), and griped that I should be using one of the new cards, and made his decision to let me on regardless seem as if was the greatest show of magnaminity shown by a single person across the Wellington region this year, might I now say (having checked the rules): "Get stuffed! It's valid to the 17th!"
My bus fares are cheaper now, with changing from a four section ticket to a two zone.
But I suspect this is unusual...
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http://halfpie.net/
I do hate to go on about bus drivers...
oh, no, hold I don't, I love to...
Anwyay, this morning, on a packed bus, the driver decided it was time for the school kids to obey the 'stand for adults' rule, stopped the bus, and refused to go on until all the kids had stood up and shown suitable deference to their elders.
Thankfully, I was already sitting, so wasn't involved in the body-shuffling chaos that ensued, as every school-bag wielding kid on the bus attempted to stand up at once and get an aisle-dwelling adult to take their place.
Of course, the ratio of kids to adults was about 2:1, so the aisle was instantly clogged, and it took about two minutes for the adults who wanted seats to wriggle their way through the throng to take them (and most of them honestly didn't look they cared one way or the other, and, indeed, looked a bit sheepish about the whole thing), and another minute as the many now empty seats were re-taken by school kids according to some hierarchy of ownership that was well beyond my experience to glean.
Madness.
On the bus yesterday I had a fight with the driver because he wouldn't let me on as the bus was in the "waiting zone" and not the "loading zone", it didn't matter that he was leaving that second, he still made me walk 20 metres down the street to where he was, by then, waiting for me. I got on and said 'gee, that must have made you feel real important huh?" and he gave me an earfull about proper procedure.
Then near the end of the trip the office radioed in to ask him about a complaint they'd had where he had made a schoolgirl pay cash because he refused to let her use a 3 section trip on a 1 section ride. He denied it, but I knew it was him.
heh. typical.
sometimes I catch the late bus to town that heads through berhampore and newtown around 9am.
Now there must be some pensioner scheme that kicks in at 9am, as there's usually a couple of oldies at each stop wanting to get on with some discount card they have. But, even at 8:58am, the driver invariably tells them: 'nup, not 9 o'clock yet', and doesn't let them on.
Now, I realise the fare machine probably isn't configured to allow them to register that fare until 9am, but what's the harm in letting them on, and then registering the fare 2 minutes later?
arseholes.
Hmm
Am I the only one who is really confused by both the train and bus zones ? Ive read the metlink site over and over and still ... dont really understand it , especially the train ones !
Why couldnt they just leave it the same for people like me who are so confused by timetables as it is !
It's something about Stagecoach and their meanness that breeds this Jobsworth work-to-rule. In Auckland I live on a route served by Howick & Eastern AND Stagecoach, and the Stagecoach drivers are noticeably surlier.
I'm bloody furious about my fare now costing 250% of what it used to. And the "blah blah blah" leaflets that Stagecoach have been handing out don't make it one jot better. In fact, it makes me angrier. And I blame Stagecoach for my flatmate deciding to move to the other side of the tunnel. Even if he didn't actually ever take the bus in the first place...