Sunday, April 8, 2007
More about Mass Transit
I took that ride in Pinellas County, where I am a little more familiar with the scenery regarding the bus situation. I rode from one end of the county to the other with 2 changes. Pretty impressive. What wasn't impressive was one of the stops where I thought I had to get off and was scared to death. By scared to death I mean, I had to use the bathroom so bad I was wishing for Astronaut underwear.

The bay way is by far the scariest of all. Even the bus driver looked like they were packing and I don't mean Easter presents.

I took one cab and found the cab driver to be polite, informative and very well mannered. When I handed him a 20.00 dollar bill (fare was 7.25) he immediately dug out change and didn't whine. I felt like I was in heaven. I turned and said, thank you, and gave him the change. NOT the 75 cents, the 12.75. I wanted to see if he would give me change, that is a huge pet peeve of mine. For instance, you go to a restaurant that cashes you out at your table, TOTALLY TACKY. And they round up. The bill is 52.10 and you give 60.00 they give you back 7.00. Now you know this is not sufficient for a tip, so you will be adding to it. 90 cents is not life altering, it's just principle.

Anyway, Pinellas seems to have mass transit in general a disorganized manner. If I wanted to use the bus for work and I lived in Seminole, and I had to bus to downtown St Pete I would be in luck. However, if I lived in Seminole and needed to go Tarpon Springs, pack food and a change of clothes...

Time schedules are not conducive for anyone on a schedule inside of a three hour window. If you need to cross the bridge to work where they pay a better wage, forget it. You can get there but you will get a hotel afterwards, it's entirely draining.

Next week I am tackling Pasco. Stay tuned I have a feeling it will be entertaining.

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posted by Nite Cricket at 7:48 AM |


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At April 8, 2007 at 9:17 AM, Anonymous Anonymous

I like your Mass Transit trials, I did the same in Tampa a while back, and all in all, it just takes 20-30 minutes longer to get anywhere due to no direct routes, waiting, transfers...i live in south tampa, and figure there shold be transit available all over in this area, well, the closest bus stop is only a block from my house off westshore, but it only comes once per hour, the other stop is on manhatten ave, about 5 blocks, and that one is every hour also....i like how in bigger sities there seems to be a bus sroute for each major street just going back and forth..here it could be Westshore Blvd, Manhatten Ave, Dale Mabry Hwy, HImes Ave, MacDill Ave for North South corridors, then Gandy Blvd, Euclid Ave, Bay to Bay Blvd, Swann Ave, Kennedy Blvd, Cypress Ave, BoyScout Blvd/Columbus Ave, MLK Blvd, Hillsbourough Ave..for the east west routes....and run them to come by at least every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day!! Then again, we dont have a million people living in the city limits of tampa, so it'll be quite some time before that ever happens.

 

At April 8, 2007 at 10:39 AM, Anonymous Anonymous

I second anonymous's praise of your mass transit trials. Haven't tried to get from our Port Tampa abode to anywhere via bus because I work from home and the husband rides his bike or runs to work at MacDill. However, the daughter was interested in taking the bus to work in the Westshore Business District. A bus stop is just a block from the house but the route goes up Westshore only to Euclid then inexplicably turns toward Downtown. To get back to Westshore and Kennedy she'd have had to transfer downtown. With a second business district, with as many employees as downtown, you'd think Westshore would be served better. Rant over-thanks for taking the time to do what most of us don't have the time or frustration level to handle.

 

At April 8, 2007 at 11:06 AM, Blogger Nite Cricket

Thanks to both my commentors... I will post why I did this and what I am trying to accomplish, you would be surprised.

Stay tuned!

 


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