Transit Lessons Learned

I had quite the afternoon. My dental appointment -- for a teeth cleaning -- was scheduled for 3:15 pm. I took a bus from right outside work, straight to where I needed to go. It only took about 10 minutes to get to the closest stop to the dentist, followed by a 1-2 minute walk. Very nice! I even made it there a few minutes early.

I was finished up by 4:00 pm, and only had to make a quick stop at the pet store next door before heading back to the same bus stop. I'd so done some research, and it looked like I could take the same bus, or another one that came by within a few minutes, and get back downtown.

At approximately 4:08 the bus arrived and I hopped on thinking I'd be downtown within the next twenty minutes or so, and be able to catch the #1 back home at 4:40. I'd even be home by 5:00! My bus ride was not so simple, however, but I didn't realize it right away.

I got tipped off when we kept going west. I thought it would east a bit then north, back towards downtown, but it didn't. It just kept going west. We even stopped at the Southland mall for over five minutes, and proceeded to head even more west out to Harbour Landing, where we again stopped, this time at the Walmart.

I was pretty ticked about it, but also didn't check with the driver when I got on to ensure it was the best bus for me. I figured out, after getting back to the Golden Mile mall (two blocks from where my journey started), that I should have just walked over there in the first place to catch any bus going downtown. My bad.

I didn't get off the bus by my house until 5:48... one hour and 40 minutes after getting on. I even waited downtown for over 25 minutes for my bus after getting off the one from hell.

I printed off a map and highlighted the area I traveled on hell-bus in red, with the blue being what I thought it would be, and the green/blue my route home from downtown. The yellow bit in the middle is the transition point. See what I mean?

The point is, my lesson has been learned. *sigh* I've had quite enough for today. The good news is, my teeth cleaning went really well and I only had to fork over $12.10.