Wednesday is rapidly becoming "Pileup Day" on the New Jersey Turnpike. A tractor-trailer overturned up near the George Washington Bridge around 5:30 this morning prompting one cop to comment, "It used to be Dunkin' Donuts, but now it's Krispy Kreme."
There were also two separate auto pile-ups somewhere along 495 between the exit from the Turnpike and the helix down into the Lincoln Tunnel.
We were a half hour late getting into town. I jumped off my so-called Madison Avenue bus and ran down into the subway outside of the Port Authority in the hopes of catching an uptown E train to the east side faster than the bus would make it. It worked, but that was about the only thing working this week.
Last night, after work and for no other reason than it "was Tuesday" downtown subway service was virtually non-existent on the E train. It took me 20 minutes to get to the Port Authority. Luckily, bus service was as bad as subway service and I was forced to wait another 35 minutes for a bus home.
It just keeps getting worse and worse.
It's almost bad enough to make me want to blow a grand on a tailor-made interviewing suit, another couple of hundred on a fancy-schmancy resume writing service and to start putting myself out there... a lot closer to home than I work now.
Almost.
Tomorrow.
Promise.
Showing posts with label commuting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label commuting. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Ooops, I pissed off the Bus Company!
So I sent that e-mail yesterday and, lo and behold, I got a fast response from one of my state legislators who, it turns out, hates Academy Bus lines as much as I now do.
The other one was from the Terminal Manager of Academy Bus. He was clearly not a happy camper and immediately set out to slap my hand because I transposed two numbers when I referred to the bus with the fucked-up airconditioning.
THAT'LL TEACH ME.
He also denied that they don't have an overnight maintenance shift and cordially invited me to "drive by the facility" sometime at night to view the lit up yard... from afar. He went on to explain that "due to ongoing construction, it wouldn't be safe to invite you IN."
He denied that they send out buses with broken air-conditioning, which is just a bald-faced lie. And, finally, he said, more or less, that his drivers were the finest drivers on earth and needed no adjustment to their attitudes or their abilities.
Yeah. Right. Yada-yada-yada.
Like I care about his problems.
So I've been busy cooking up a "form" for evaluating bus service, on a ride by ride basis, which I intend to print up and hand out to everyone at my bus station for the next several weeks. It tracks things like the arrival and departure times vs. the actually scheduled times, the status of the coach interior, the comfort of the seats, whether or ot the a/c was working, the courteousness/professionalism of the driver and a special column to note any "mitigating circumstances" regarding the commute. That would be for things like unavoidable delays on the highway due to accidents or weather. Look, I want to be fair about this.
I got this idea from my days of living in New York City. When I moved to New York in 1978 the subways were a shiteous mess. Graffiti blocked all the windows on the cars, the platforms were filthy, trains arrived late, if at all, and the whole place reeked of human excrement and exuded danger at every turn.
Then somebody, God bless 'em, started to organize and the next thing anybody knew there was something call "The Straphangers Association" and all of a sudden there were people, with clipboards and stop-watches and schedules and forms, standing on every subway platform, making copious notes about arrivals and departures and announcements and MTA employees.
And in no time at all the subways were suddenly clean, and new, and beautiful and safe and you could finally understand the announcements blaring from the loudspeakers (well, sometimes).
All the politicians in New York City couldn't do a friggin' thing about the lousy subways... but a handful of citizens could.
I believe in citizen action. I believe in citizen OVERSIGHT.
Now I want the mofos who run the bus companies where I live to be accountable. Something they are not now. Or not much. Mostly there's a lot of standing around and fingerpointing and denying everything.
They're like 4 year olds alone in a room with a broken lamp. "IT FELL" they say.
Oh, and that state legislator I mentioned, above. She wants me to join her rabble-rousing campaign to put a knife to the bus companies collective throats.
I emailed her back, "SIGN ME UP, ASSEMBLYWOMAN!"
The other one was from the Terminal Manager of Academy Bus. He was clearly not a happy camper and immediately set out to slap my hand because I transposed two numbers when I referred to the bus with the fucked-up airconditioning.
THAT'LL TEACH ME.
He also denied that they don't have an overnight maintenance shift and cordially invited me to "drive by the facility" sometime at night to view the lit up yard... from afar. He went on to explain that "due to ongoing construction, it wouldn't be safe to invite you IN."
He denied that they send out buses with broken air-conditioning, which is just a bald-faced lie. And, finally, he said, more or less, that his drivers were the finest drivers on earth and needed no adjustment to their attitudes or their abilities.
Yeah. Right. Yada-yada-yada.
Like I care about his problems.
So I've been busy cooking up a "form" for evaluating bus service, on a ride by ride basis, which I intend to print up and hand out to everyone at my bus station for the next several weeks. It tracks things like the arrival and departure times vs. the actually scheduled times, the status of the coach interior, the comfort of the seats, whether or ot the a/c was working, the courteousness/professionalism of the driver and a special column to note any "mitigating circumstances" regarding the commute. That would be for things like unavoidable delays on the highway due to accidents or weather. Look, I want to be fair about this.
I got this idea from my days of living in New York City. When I moved to New York in 1978 the subways were a shiteous mess. Graffiti blocked all the windows on the cars, the platforms were filthy, trains arrived late, if at all, and the whole place reeked of human excrement and exuded danger at every turn.
Then somebody, God bless 'em, started to organize and the next thing anybody knew there was something call "The Straphangers Association" and all of a sudden there were people, with clipboards and stop-watches and schedules and forms, standing on every subway platform, making copious notes about arrivals and departures and announcements and MTA employees.
And in no time at all the subways were suddenly clean, and new, and beautiful and safe and you could finally understand the announcements blaring from the loudspeakers (well, sometimes).
All the politicians in New York City couldn't do a friggin' thing about the lousy subways... but a handful of citizens could.
I believe in citizen action. I believe in citizen OVERSIGHT.
Now I want the mofos who run the bus companies where I live to be accountable. Something they are not now. Or not much. Mostly there's a lot of standing around and fingerpointing and denying everything.
They're like 4 year olds alone in a room with a broken lamp. "IT FELL" they say.
Oh, and that state legislator I mentioned, above. She wants me to join her rabble-rousing campaign to put a knife to the bus companies collective throats.
I emailed her back, "SIGN ME UP, ASSEMBLYWOMAN!"
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
The Suckiness of Commuting in New Jersey
It is not a state secret that commuting in New Jersey sucks AND, more to the point, that the people in government who should be in charge of oversight of the whole fiasco have a laissez-faire attitude towards commuting and commuters that amounts to little more than:
"Hey. It's a fucking commute. Whaddya expect? A pleasure trip?"
Well, no, I don't expect a "pleasure trip." But I do expect the fucking bus to show up when it's scheduled to show up. And when it's 95 degrees out, I expect the temperature INSIDE the bus to be somewhat less than the ambient temperature OUTSIDE the bus. In other words, the bus should be in good operating condition, including the climate control system.
But most of all, I expect the drivers of the buses to not turn into a bunch of quivering, whimpering pussies the minute their bus leaves the general safety and spaciousness of the New Jersey Turnpike to navigate the crowded, dangerous, aggressive, mean streets of New York City.
Regrettably, my expectations are, apparently, way too high for the two bus companies which service my area of central New Jersey. I refer to:
Suburban Transit / Coach USA
750 Somerset Street
New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901
1-800-222-0492
and
Academy Express, LLC
2042 Route 541
Westampton, New Jersey 08060
1-609-265-2400
I've "done the math" on the buses which leave my park and ride. At worst each bus that leaves the park and ride in the morning will GROSS $100,000.00 per year. It'll garner another $100,000.00 for the return trip in the evening. Keep in mind this is a lousy 50 mile trip, each way. Then, of course, there's the fact that the buses don't just sit somewhere all day. In between commute periods they are CHARTERED OUT for children's day camps, to take Seniors down to Atlantic City for several hours of gambling fun, etc.
Add another $100,000.00 gross revenue for that.
So you would think that at $300,000.00 per year, per bus, they could at least keep the buses from breaking down on the turnpike and the air conditioning going during the dog-days of August.
But they don't.
And the state, and our representatives, don't seem overly eager to do anything about it, either. I'd love to follow the donation trail, if I could.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that the bus companies are SUBSIDIZED by the state for running these routes. To the point where I'm pretty sure the state buys the buses for the companies in return for a modest lease fee (a buck a year?).
Welcome to New Jersey! Where crookedness runs from top to bottom and back again!
"Hey. It's a fucking commute. Whaddya expect? A pleasure trip?"
Well, no, I don't expect a "pleasure trip." But I do expect the fucking bus to show up when it's scheduled to show up. And when it's 95 degrees out, I expect the temperature INSIDE the bus to be somewhat less than the ambient temperature OUTSIDE the bus. In other words, the bus should be in good operating condition, including the climate control system.
But most of all, I expect the drivers of the buses to not turn into a bunch of quivering, whimpering pussies the minute their bus leaves the general safety and spaciousness of the New Jersey Turnpike to navigate the crowded, dangerous, aggressive, mean streets of New York City.
Regrettably, my expectations are, apparently, way too high for the two bus companies which service my area of central New Jersey. I refer to:
Suburban Transit / Coach USA
750 Somerset Street
New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901
1-800-222-0492
and
Academy Express, LLC
2042 Route 541
Westampton, New Jersey 08060
1-609-265-2400
I've "done the math" on the buses which leave my park and ride. At worst each bus that leaves the park and ride in the morning will GROSS $100,000.00 per year. It'll garner another $100,000.00 for the return trip in the evening. Keep in mind this is a lousy 50 mile trip, each way. Then, of course, there's the fact that the buses don't just sit somewhere all day. In between commute periods they are CHARTERED OUT for children's day camps, to take Seniors down to Atlantic City for several hours of gambling fun, etc.
Add another $100,000.00 gross revenue for that.
So you would think that at $300,000.00 per year, per bus, they could at least keep the buses from breaking down on the turnpike and the air conditioning going during the dog-days of August.
But they don't.
And the state, and our representatives, don't seem overly eager to do anything about it, either. I'd love to follow the donation trail, if I could.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that the bus companies are SUBSIDIZED by the state for running these routes. To the point where I'm pretty sure the state buys the buses for the companies in return for a modest lease fee (a buck a year?).
Welcome to New Jersey! Where crookedness runs from top to bottom and back again!
Monday, April 09, 2007
Too Pooped
Today's poster is copyright © Austin Cline. You can visit his website here.Austin has done a terrific job of taking old "wartime" posters from both WWI and WWII and photoshopping the hell out of the copy in them. I fell in love with them when I first saw them.
Anyway, I'm really tired this morning. It's probably because I'm getting old. Or, it could be because of the dumb weather (zero one day, 80 the next). Or, it could have something to do with the amount of sleep I get (or don't).
I don't know why, but I seem to get more sleep on weeknights than I do on weekends.
Because I work in Manhattan and live in central New Jersey, I have to devote most of my Saturday's to doing the necessary things to maintain life, such as cooking and cleaning, laundry, doctor's appointments, auto maintenance stuff, etc. Believe me, none of that happens on weeknights. When I get home from the office, generally between 6:45 and 7:15 every evening, I'm too pooped to do anything except raid the fridge, flop into my favorite chair and channel surf until it's bed-time, somewhere between 9:30 and 10:00 p.m.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
On top of that, I can't just hop into bed on Friday or Saturday night's at the same time I jump into bed the rest of the week! That would be shocking, scandalous, unthinkable!!! I must stay up and at least try to pretend that have a life! Don't I?!!!
Rhetoric aside, when the alarm went off this morning, at 4:45 a.m., I was definitely NOT ready for Prime Time. And even though I slept another 45 minutes or so on the bus ride in, I'm still ready to take a little nappy-poo for, oh, say, another 3-4 hours.
You'd think I'd make up for it during vacations. But, nah... not me. I'm way too excited to actually sleep on vacations. Besides, when I'm on vacation, usually with friends I haven't seen in months, I'm terrified I might "miss something" exciting that might happen while I'm passed out.
Sigh.
I guess too pooped is the price we pay for living exciting and glamourous lives!
I don't know about anyone else, but MY "gay agenda" definitely includes more rack-time, and not rack-time of the "recreational" variety, either.
I'm past the point of needing sleep. I need to be in a coma for awhile.
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