More reasons to moan about the buses…

a mexican juggling green ballsThe 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!”

Dear Fellow Bus Passenger,

for god's sake, move down the back!…if you find your­self halfway down the bus, dur­ing rush-hour, with the entire rear of the bus’s aisle not only emp­ty, but with half a dozen seats still there for tak­ing, please don’t just stand there, act­ing as a dam against the ever-increas­ing human stream forc­ing its way up against your incon­sid­er­ate arse.

Mov­ing back, and up that one small step is all that divides you from a pos­si­ble seat, and from allow­ing anoth­er ten or so peo­ple onto this bus, instead of caus­ing them to wait 10 min­utes until the next (prob­a­bly also over­crowd­ed) bus arrives. Arse­hole.

Back on track: why submit?

Drawing of an LRT stopSub­mis­sions on the North Welling­ton Pub­lic Trans­port Study close on Wednes­day, and while this is obvi­ous­ly of major inter­est to those who live in that area, every­one else could be for­giv­en for think­ing it irrel­e­vant. How­ev­er, there are many rea­sons why oth­er Welling­to­ni­ans should care.

read on…

Gene pool deletion in progress

gene pool dele­tion in progress, orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by max­cher­ry. Could­n’t help but draw more atten­tion to this par­tic­u­lar pho­to, spot­ted in the Welling­ton Flickr Pho­to Pool today. Says max­cher­ry, the pho­­to-tak­er… noth­ing wrong with tow­ing a motor­cy­cle — can be safe­ly done. The rid­er has winds just one coil around the bar, and grips the […]

In which we bring you breaking news

Some­thing’s going on in Welling­ton. Bus dri­vers in Hataitai were only tak­ing mon­ey for one sec­tion from pas­sen­gers, warn­ing them they’d have to walk the oth­er sec­tion any way. Four trol­ley bus­es are parked along Cam­bridge Ter­race with their haz­zard lights on. At least four more bus­es are parked along Courte­nay Place. There were mut­ter­ings […]

Bus(t) a move

So, as part of the big shiny Metlink rebrand­ing, they’re going to change zones and prices, and they’d like you to have a say. Won­der­ing what this means and how it might affect you? Well, if you’re under 18 or over 65, you might get 50% off your fares, pro­vid­ed you show a pho­to ID. […]

Wellington Speed Traps

So, Welling­ton’s busiest urban speed cam­era is sit­u­at­ed down Ohi­ro Road (which, for those unfa­mil­iar with this road, starts down in Aro Val­ley, works its way up to Brook­lyn, the mean­ders down through Hap­py Val­ley to Island Bay). This par­tic­u­lar Welling­ton­ista knows the route well — I’ve been pinged at least four times over the […]

The Coastal Highway and Transmission Gully

The Welling­ton­istas received this email yes­ter­day & giv­en the impor­tance of safe & eff­i­cent trans­port routes in & out of the region, we think it’s a good idea to pass it on to our read­ers to con­sid­er, and even make a sub­mis­sion if you so desire. The Coastal High­way and Trans­mis­sion Gul­ly Dear Welling­ton­istas The […]

Overheard on the Cable Car

On this very wet, rainy after­noon… Young Woman 1: “Wotcha been up to?” Young Woman 2: “Work­ing” … Young Woman 2: “Wotcha been up to?” Young Woman 1: “Shop­ping at the Kirk’s Sale.” … Young Woman 2: “Wotcha buy?” Young Woman 1: “Knick­ers.” … Young Woman 2: “And an umbrel­la.” (Unwraps umbrel­la to show it) […]

Dear Stagecoach

Today (20th April), at about 5:50pm, I want­ed to catch my usu­al bus, the #4 Hap­py Val­ley, from Willis St, oppo­site the Metro New World. I spot­ted it pulling away just as I arrived at the stop, so, think­ing to myself that I would prob­a­bly be able to catch up with it at one of […]