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1 hour ago, Matt Dunlop said:

Arboc being used, not a good idea with COVID-19 happening. Passengers boarding and exiting the bus are too close to the operator. 

Capture.JPG

They have installed a barrier to protect the driver's compartment on these vehicles. At the moment they are used as a last resort.

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8 minutes ago, CV92 said:

They have installed a barrier to protect the driver's compartment on these vehicles. At the moment they are used as a last resort.

Interesting. Well looking at the schedule previews (no riders guide apparently?) there aren't too many Arboc paddles. Just basically the 53, 63, 64. 

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2 minutes ago, Matt Dunlop said:

Interesting. Well looking at the schedule previews (no riders guide apparently?) there aren't too many Arboc paddles. Just basically the 53, 63, 64. 

Most of the Arbocs are scheduled in the Peninsula for the Spring.

The Route 53 is the only route in the system that cannot take a 40 foot bus, so for any paddle with a Route 53 trip scheduled, if there are no Darts or Vicinities available, it must run an Arboc. 

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On 4/2/2020 at 5:18 PM, SomeIslandKid said:

It won't be on Monday, as I'm talking about the service change. The first 60 will leave at 10:20am starting Monday. Also, I take it you've never been on a UVic route during busy times, less buses would mean more pass ups. They're often full despite the 5-10min service, when UVic and Camosun are in session. They always have worse service in the summer, and it's further reduced for COVID. The majority of Greater Victoria residents live between Saanich, The City of Victoria, and Esquilmalt, these routes are used by far more people than just UVic/Camosun staff and students. The 12 is the only route that is near exclusively useful to UVic trips, everything else hits many key destinations and just terminate at UVic.

Langford has about 40,000 people
Colwood has about 16,000 people
Metchosin about 5000 people
Therefore Westshore totals to roughly 60,000 people
Saanich has over 100,000 people
City of Victoria, over 80,000 people

It's natural for the Westshore to have less service especially with the low density car dependant design (Much of Langford is horrible for pedestrians. Colwood does a bit better). Westshore service expansions have not kept up to population growth, but that does not mean elsewhere is over-serviced. There's lots of expansions in core areas that should happen, as there is in the Westshore. That does not mean equal priority should be given to each expansion of course. Good news though: Westshore local routes are slated for a 5500 annual service hour expansion in January, pending COVID. See 2020/21 Annual Service Plan from the February 25 Transit Commission Meeting (PreCOVID). That's about 15 hours a day more service, which admittly isn't great, but it depends on how it's used. More concrete details should be given in the documents for either the June 16th, or August 11th Transit Commission meeting, depending what happens with them again because again COVID.

I say this as someone who lives in the Westshore and relies an hourly indirect poor span of service route. They're bad and need expansion, but they're not the only lacklustre part of Victoria's transit system. Before COVID closed UVic, I took 3 buses one way, everyday. I've seen that the entire system has problems. Westshore expansions would certainly help me more than other expansions and I have pushed politicians on them, but I understand everything is a trade off.

Well said! UVic has over 20,000 students and the highest transit mode share in the region. There's no wonder that it is so well serviced and still experiences a massive amount of passups. 

System expansion in Victoria has not kept up with population growth. Up until this past September, the system had not had any major expansion since 2008. Between 2008 and 2019, the expansion was only incremental, barely a drop in the bucket, and that's including one or two years where service was actually reduced. If decision-makers were actually serious about addressing reliability issues and making a dent in reducing traffic congestion on the Westshore, I would estimate they would need to put at minimum another 40-60 buses on the road tomorrow. The routes that move between the Westshore and the rest of the region are the only ones where it is not abnormal to be running 30-45 minutes late. Significant reliability issues through schedule maintenance are just as important as increasing service headway, span, and coverage. 

The 50 is jam packed, and there's isn't much more one can do in the way of increasing headways on that route. That's one of the reasons behind why they added an extra trip on the 47 and 48, and are looking at the feasibility of having other Westshore-Downtown routes in the future: capacity issues of the 50, and reducing travel time. You can run the local connector service as often as you want, but you're not going to build ridership or confidence in the system if you're forcing them into the likely situation of being passed up, by funneling all those passengers to the over-stretched Route 50, which is already over capacity even without an effective local connecting route network. 

Look no further than the Core to see the effect that a well developed transit network can have. The areas of town that are served by major routes - the Quadra, Hillside, Fort, and Shelbourne corridors, house an immense number of residents and jobs, yet it is an anomaly for any of these corridors to experience what one might call "congestion." In fact, policy and proper development have actually allowed the removal of some general traffic lanes in recent years with little to no negative effect. Contrary to popular belief, the areas that suffer the worst traffic problems are not the parts of town where they are building bike lanes and wider sidewalks. Rather, the problems lie where the single-occupant vehicle is prioritized over all other transport modes. 

This is why it is so important to me that politicians and administrators seriously consider reducing or eliminating fares (coupled with stronger enforcement of policies preventing joy-riding), as a means of driving transit investment. Look no further than the UPass implementation of 2001. Ridership went through the roof, and I say with complete confidence that I believe our system would have only a fraction of the service it currently does had the UPass not come along. The system right now is bursting at the seams, but it's clear that the demand generated by having fares as they are currently set is still not enough to really wake the people up who control the purse strings. If lowering the cost at point-of-entry is what it takes to drive ridership to the point that politicians have no choice but to aggressively expand service, then that's what should be done. When reducing infrastructure costs, making cities more sustainable, and having a healthier population is the goal, then increasing transit's mode share is the way to go.  

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1 hour ago, CV92 said:

Most of the Arbocs are scheduled in the Peninsula for the Spring.

The Route 53 is the only route in the system that cannot take a 40 foot bus, so for any paddle with a Route 53 trip scheduled, if there are no Darts or Vicinities available, it must run an Arboc. 

Must be a last-resort thing why they've also put 40-foot buses on the 53 (on extreme rare occasions). I've actually posted NextRide screenshots where Novas have been on the 53. It's do-able but I'm sure it's very tough for the operator. 

On a side note maybe you can put some insight on the schedule situation? Why not post a digital PDF riders guide? I know they don't want a printed one due to germs. 

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3 hours ago, CV92 said:

You can run the local connector service as often as you want

Honestly I just want the local routes to have a better span of service. Just an extra trip or 2 on all local routes to put the last bus a little after 11pm to allow fast food workers, Walmart employees, UVic students writing a 7-10pm final exam and anyone else the chance to actually get home with transit. Maybe an extra earlier trip in the morning for some of them. I missed out on a job in high school because the local buses don't run past 10 at best (Except the 52, which is sorta becoming more of a Westshore only crosstown service than just a connector) and fast food often wants people till 11. My parents could have given me rides but I was too proud to accept them, not everyone has that option. A friend who worked at Walmart until recently was complaining about how a new hire kept asking her for ride home since transit stopped running too early. It shouldn't add much demand to the 50 since the infrequency still scares off most people, and generally the 50 isn't at high risk of pass ups later in the evening (except 50-61s). Span of service isn't just a means of generating ridership and reducing traffic, it's also critical for equity and economic mobility.

Although the 54 needs something for the Happy Valley rd up to Latoria portion since it's also passing people up when it runs a community bus. 30ft Vicinitys work ok though so just that switch would hold it for a while. Weekend service should be hourly instead of every 2 though, it causes spikes in 50 demand too.

I also wish that the local buses didn't line up with the 50-61s. They're always busy with people going to Sooke and are oftentimes later than a normal 50 with the extra load. Logistically it could be hard, but doing that would transfer local route transfers off of competing with Sooke ones. I feel bad possibly making people going to Sooke miss it, but what choice do I have on a weekend when the 50's dropped to 30 minute service? Just so long as the last bus is not moved earlier. I also tend to get pushed towards taking the 50 instead of the 51 since the routes to my house seem designed with a minute extra 20-30 minute wait if I want to transfer. It's also part of my issue with the morning 48s travelling down Sooke right after the 51. I get a longer trip transferring at Uptown instead of JDF and add to overcrowding on both Westshore-downtown trips, and Mckenzie trips. Minor (from a rider's perspective) changes like those shouldn't create a large spike in new demand on busy 50 trips, but might let people push back buying a car for a few months.

Though you're absolutely right that the 50 is prone to overcrowding and better local routes could easily make it worse. I just want some relatively minor improvements for local service and I'll be satisfied with local service even if it remains hourly and indirect. It's just that 10pm is too early for the last bus, and adding an extra trip around 11:10pm or 11:30pm shouldn't create much new 50 demand.
 

4 hours ago, CV92 said:

Contrary to popular belief, the areas that suffer the worst traffic problems are not the parts of town where they are building bike lanes and wider sidewalks. Rather, the problems lie where the single-occupant vehicle is prioritized over all other transport modes. 

I actually respect Colwood far more than Langford for this reason. Colwood is stepping up to add sidewalks and bike lanes to streets built in 20th century sprawl. Latoria alone becomes far more walkable in Colwood than it is in Langford. More comfortable to bike too though the Verterans/Latoria intersection is becoming too busy to be comfortable. Not at all perfect, but in contrast Langford has some incredibility stupid road designs that feel like a f*** you to non drivers. There's dedicated left and right turn lanes on Luxton at Happy Valley/Luxton that comes at the expensive of any space for pedestrians. The existing property has a massive hedge there too so someone on foot has to literally walk into traffic to even see if a car is coming. You have to walk on the road to turn the corner. Like who thought this was in anyway ok?!? I don't understand, even a dirt patch to walk on would suffice. The subdivision behind it even put sidewalks on the dead end road sideroad but not Luxton which obviously will be busier. Latoria's also been getting a lot busier with new development, but only one of Langford's new subdivisions even bothered to have sidewalks, while all of Colwood's included them. Langford city planners are frankly incompetent. It's a shame since starting from Latoria Happy Valley is the flattest route meaning it could be a decent bike route, but nope somehow Veterans is for having shoulder bike lanes. Wishart almost is good, but that massive hill at the end of it is surprisingly steep.

Langford's trash road design means there's a bus stop in an intersection at Latoria/Klahanie and it used to be on a decent sized shoulder. Past images on Google Street show pedestrian accommodations have actually decreased. They also put up a concreate barrier to prevent cars from crashing. Good idea, except the bike lane is on the same side as the car, and the other side is too narrow to walk so get f*** wheelchair uses and strollers, Langford doesn't want you. Have a bike for scale. It's a bad design. Just move the barrier over and call what's left a mixed use walking/biking path and bam inclusive design. Not like the current design prevents bike/pedestrian conflict either since the bike lane is the only realistic place to walk

  image.thumb.png.7f716039d3c87d848c2cfd8f0eb7541c.png

I also think there needs to be some form of pedestrian crossing over highway 1. There used to be a surface crossing when Spencer road had lights, but the province failed to keep a pedestrian connection when the Leigh Road Interchange was built. Not sure if a crossing at Spencer road to from the corner or Brock/Matson would be a better placement. Spencer road appears to have more space and would help Spencer Middle School students, but Brock/Matson would provide better access to Ruth King and Langford's major commercial areas of Goldstream Ave and Westshore Town Centre. I want both built but either would be great and allow so many trips to be done on foot that currently can't. Could also allow more people to take transit as a 30-40 minute walk to the 50, 46, and 39 becomes 10 -15 for people living near the crossing. Wouldn't help the overcrowding sure, but whatever it helps make the case for better transit priority and the eventual implementation of a higher capacity transit mode say rail, especially as the Westshore is supposed to grow to over 100,000 people by 2050. Not sure buses will be able to keep up forever with how funnelled. Also walkability alone is important so the effects on overcrowding shouldn't prevent it.

 

Should I stop writing essays on here? :P

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Okay let me say, I agree with you that Langford and Colwood needs some service after 10pm. It's an expanding community. Triangle Mountain service is terrible, I think the last bus is around 9:55pm, and it takes the long way around (Wishart first, then Triangle Mountain). 

Sidewalks in and around Langford are pretty non-existant, yes, and whatever sidewalks there are are poorly designed like your photo there, or blocked by cars from some of Langford/Colwood's illegal suites. 

The Route 54 gets most of its customers from the start of it's route and the end of it's route, the Glen Lake, Sooke Road, and Luxton areas. I have rode that route before, and during the day, you take the same people out, they get off around Belmont, or Sooke Road, and then you basically run empty out to the prison, then returning you pick up a few people along Glen Lake, etc. Yes, there are some people that go out to My Chosen cafe, but not that many. 

Also, pretty soon that "South Point" will be developing and adding lots of housing, that subdivision up towards Bear Mountain on Leigh Road. Does that mean the 52 will start going down Leigh Road? Or perhaps having the Bear Mountain bus do a large loop, for example leave Colwood Exchange, Royal Roads, Lagoon, Langford Exchange, then Millstream, then head up to Bear Mountain, then head down Bear Mountain Parkway towards Leigh Road, then head down Goldstream, then turn right on Peatt to the exchange, then go back to Colwood? Sounds like a good idea? Maybe increase service on the Route 57 to service Millstream instead? 

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@SomeIslandKid You have a lot of good points. When I was growing up near Fernridge in Langley (on the mainland), we had one bus ever 1.5 hours, and it is now once hourly (plus extra peak service) with only early morning trips cut out on Saturday (Sundays are reminiscent of BC Transit treatment). I grew up thinking that the service was rubbish (I mean, it still is), but you compare that to similar areas over here and it becomes evident just how badly our service is laid out and scheduled over here when convoluted loop routes aimed at non-commuters in South Langley seem more useful than routes through major commuter areas in the CRD. 

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And again, an Arboc out on the Route 53 (and Route 59, since the paddle is a 53/59 mix) while a pandemic is going on. Shield or not, the driver is still in closer proximity to the passengers, especially with the one door. And with limited service today, you could really only fit 4-6 people in that particular bus with social distancing. Can't tell me there's not enough buses when there was a Vicinity out earlier on that route. 

Screenshot_20200405-164529_Samsung Internet.jpg

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1 hour ago, Matt Dunlop said:

Can't tell me there's not enough buses when there was a Vicinity out earlier on that route. 

I know TransLink does this, but I don't know about BC Transit. They have a different driver base for community shuttles. Could this have anything to do with it or is the VRTS still small enough that all drivers operate any vehicle?

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29 minutes ago, InfiNorth said:

I know TransLink does this, but I don't know about BC Transit. They have a different driver base for community shuttles. Could this have anything to do with it or is the VRTS still small enough that all drivers operate any vehicle?

Any driver can drive any vehicle in Victoria, it's been that way since April 2016. The old community shuttle operators had the option of either quitting or getting their class 2 (paid for by BC Transit) and getting a higher wage. 

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@SomeIslandKid I was just checking BC Transit's alerts this morning (for myself, since I'm off to work in a couple hours) and noticed the answer to your 59 and 60 being cancelled in the morning, as well as the 55. It's due to low ridership :(https://www.bctransit.com/victoria/schedules-and-maps/alert?id=1529708824285

And a funny little NextRide glitch - was looking at the Route 25, and I see something is off, someone is off-route. Turns out there's a Route 25 in VTC garage! I can only imagine the operator tapped on "Start trip" on his screen while he/she was doing a pre-trip in the garage. 

Capture.JPG

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21 hours ago, Matt Dunlop said:

And again, an Arboc out on the Route 53 (and Route 59, since the paddle is a 53/59 mix) while a pandemic is going on. Shield or not, the driver is still in closer proximity to the passengers, especially with the one door. And with limited service today, you could really only fit 4-6 people in that particular bus with social distancing. Can't tell me there's not enough buses when there was a Vicinity out earlier on that route. 

Screenshot_20200405-164529_Samsung Internet.jpg

I'm not going to defend the use of Arbocs, because I do agree with you - I don't feel that they should be out in service at all, but just because there was a Vicinity on the route earlier today, does not mean there was one available when this particular Arboc left the yard. Buses are moved between garages if needed to meet demands for service system wide. 

Here's a picture of the Arboc barrier from a media release that went out today: 

Arboc April 6 2020.jpg

7 hours ago, Matt Dunlop said:

And a funny little NextRide glitch - was looking at the Route 25, and I see something is off, someone is off-route. Turns out there's a Route 25 in VTC garage! I can only imagine the operator tapped on "Start trip" on his screen while he/she was doing a pre-trip in the garage. 

Capture.JPG

That's not how the system works with the GPS. More likely is that the vehicle broke down or was otherwise disabled while on the road, and ended up back at the yard without being removed from that trip.

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@CV92 thank you for the clarification! That drivers barrier looks a bit ghetto - but whatever. Seeing as they only have a handful of Arbocs left I guess there's no point of actually paying a company to install a plexiglass shield. Would operators still have to strap in wheelchairs then, seeing as there is no pole? 

I heard Vancouver isn't using their Orions due to having only one door. 

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Well this is news to me - they have basically axed the Route 53. Now I will admit the Route 53 is dead - you'll be lucky to fill a Dodge Caravan with that route - but still. One trip in the early early morning TO COLWOOD and then nothing til the afternoon? And nothing heading towards Langford until nearly 3pm? Something is wrong here. Even East Sooke gets better service. 

no532.JPG

no53.JPG

 

Spoke too soon - took a look at NextRide and a Route 53 bus came out of nowhere! And a DART too (not a crappy Arboc). 

53ghost.JPG

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1 hour ago, Matt Dunlop said:

Something is wrong here. Even East Sooke gets better service.

The 32 has also been absolutely decimated. Service gap between between about 7:45AM and 12:45PM, then consistent service through the whole afternoon. I would kill to get my hands on a rider's guide right now that actually has all the schedules accurate, but BC Transit refuses to publish one for some reason. Hey BC Transit, I volunteer to go through route by route and correct the Rider's Guide to make it accurate. 

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10 minutes ago, InfiNorth said:

The 32 has also been absolutely decimated. Service gap between between about 7:45AM and 12:45PM, then consistent service through the whole afternoon. I would kill to get my hands on a rider's guide right now that actually has all the schedules accurate, but BC Transit refuses to publish one for some reason. Hey BC Transit, I volunteer to go through route by route and correct the Rider's Guide to make it accurate. 

Good point. At least there's only a 5 hour gap in service on the 32 vs an 8 hour cap between service on the 53. Although depending on where you are, the 32 is not exactly walkable. I used to visit my parents 8 years ago when they lived in Cordova Bay, I never bothered catching the 32. I just used to ride a bus to Royal Oak and ask my parents for a ride from there, or from the Pat Bay highway. I should make my own riders guide using the layout from the last January one and just remove the missing trips. Problem is, I'm not sure how I would print it out.

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17 minutes ago, Matt Dunlop said:

I should make my own riders guide using the layout from the last January one and just remove the missing trips. Problem is, I'm not sure how I would print it out.

I might give this a shot, as long as I can successfully import the guide into my vector graphics editor. Unfortunately they are saying schedules are still subject to lots of change. 

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59 minutes ago, InfiNorth said:

I might give this a shot, as long as I can successfully import the guide into my vector graphics editor. Unfortunately they are saying schedules are still subject to lots of change. 

I tried to scan the old riders guide into my computer and just remove the existing times for the routes that aren't running but my scanner opened up Notepad for some reason... after scanning all pages of the riders guide. Oops. 

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BC Transit's ability to communicate what has changed is seriously lacking. This morning, I went on NextRide and activated the 6. The 6B appears to be completely gone, while the schedule on the BC Transit website claims the 6B is still running occasionally. Meanwhile, on that very page with the 6's schedule, I thought to myself, "well, maybe I should check what service advisories are in the place for the 6." That was a bad idea. Twenty seven service advisories, wow, that's lots of cancelled trips on the 6! Wait, when you click on the first one, it's about the 11. The second one is about the 52. The third one is about the 15. Fourth is about the 55. So not only are they putting the service advisories for all routes on every single individual schedule page, but they aren't even putting them in order. They refuse to release a rider's guide. They are overusing service alerts. They aren't updating NextRide correctly. Seriously, I get that this is an emergency situation but maintaining a schedule was already part of your job description, BC Transit.

On top of the 6B being completely missing from NextRide, so is the 39 at any point beyond Royal Oak. If anyone notices any more mistakes, do comment.

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1 hour ago, InfiNorth said:

BC Transit's ability to communicate what has changed is seriously lacking. This morning, I went on NextRide and activated the 6. The 6B appears to be completely gone, while the schedule on the BC Transit website claims the 6B is still running occasionally. Meanwhile, on that very page with the 6's schedule, I thought to myself, "well, maybe I should check what service advisories are in the place for the 6." That was a bad idea. Twenty seven service advisories, wow, that's lots of cancelled trips on the 6! Wait, when you click on the first one, it's about the 11. The second one is about the 52. The third one is about the 15. Fourth is about the 55. So not only are they putting the service advisories for all routes on every single individual schedule page, but they aren't even putting them in order. They refuse to release a rider's guide. They are overusing service alerts. They aren't updating NextRide correctly. Seriously, I get that this is an emergency situation but maintaining a schedule was already part of your job description, BC Transit.

On top of the 6B being completely missing from NextRide, so is the 39 at any point beyond Royal Oak. If anyone notices any more mistakes, do comment.

I agree with you 100% on that one. I looked at the Route 6 just for fun, seeing as it should be the MOST FREQUENT route in the system, maybe aside from the 50, 26, or 15. There was only ONE BUS on it. 9753. Checked 20 minutes later, still only that one bus, heading towards Downtown still, nothing towards Royal Oak. Now who knows. Maybe the NextRide on the vehicles aren't working. I have heard that alot of buses have broken terminals right now. And also who knows, maybe the operators don't feel like using it. Never know the reason. 

Check the Route 52 in Langford, ONE BUS only, where there should be two buses (hourly service). 

I can only imagine the office staff are probably at home self-isolating and not working anyways since it's a stat today. The majority of those transit alerts are for runs that they've permanently cancelled due to low demand and lack of drivers (I heard that 160 DRIVERS are not working right now). 

I had to walk to and from work yesterday because my local bus (which only runs every hour) didn't show up. I actually PHONED the BusLine yesterday morning to ask if the 57 would be running and they said no due to driver unavailability. 

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39 minutes ago, Matt Dunlop said:

I agree with you 100% on that one. I looked at the Route 6 just for fun, seeing as it should be the MOST FREQUENT route in the system, maybe aside from the 50, 26, or 15. There was only ONE BUS on it. 9753. Checked 20 minutes later, still only that one bus, heading towards Downtown still, nothing towards Royal Oak. Now who knows. Maybe the NextRide on the vehicles aren't working. I have heard that alot of buses have broken terminals right now. And also who knows, maybe the operators don't feel like using it. Never know the reason. 

Check the Route 52 in Langford, ONE BUS only, where there should be two buses (hourly service). 

I can only imagine the office staff are probably at home self-isolating and not working anyways since it's a stat today. The majority of those transit alerts are for runs that they've permanently cancelled due to low demand and lack of drivers (I heard that 160 DRIVERS are not working right now). 

I had to walk to and from work yesterday because my local bus (which only runs every hour) didn't show up. I actually PHONED the BusLine yesterday morning to ask if the 57 would be running and they said no due to driver unavailability. 

Fun reminder that I just realized: It is a holiday today, on top of being in the middle of a global pandemic. I did the dumb.

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