The past week it’s been too icy to bike to work so I’ve been taking the skytrain from Renfrew to Broadway Station and from there the 99 to Willow. Everyone else in the world (possibly those who may have driven over a certain arsoned bridge) have had the same idea and there are lines similar to those when it snowed for days on end. Now for those who don’t know, this city is decent for bus etiquette most of the time – people form three lines where the bus stops, as shown in the diagram below. As you can see, (a) is where the bus stops normally and there’s a line for each door you can go in. The green line (middle door) and the orange line (back door) get a little hazy sometimes but things usually run smooth.
Now you knew there was going to be a ‘but’ and in fact there are a couple, both of which happened this morning.
When the bus looks full, the lines stop moving in. Except for about a dozen or so people way back in line who are assholes and more important than anyone else and can’t believe that the line has stopped moving. They run out of line to cram themselves into an already crowded bus.
This happened when I was close to the front of the green line, with maybe 8 or so people in front of me. Worse still, check out bus (b) just behind bus (a). Now the #99 runs every 5 minutes or so at this time of day so you never have to wait very long for the next one. Except the driver in bus (b) decides not to wait until bus (a) gets out of the way and opens her doors. Chaos ensues and people run helter skelter out of all of the lines to get into this second bus. I’ve actually fallen for this trick before and it makes for a nightmare ride, not to mention you run the risk of losing your place in line if you can’t fit in bus (b). So I just stayed in line and caught the next one, but because of that impetuous agent of chaos lady I had to wait for three buses.
I did essentially the same thing for a long while except I was taking the train from Nanaimo to Broadway. I started taking the train to VCC station and taking the 84…the 99 is so hellish. I’m glad I work at home now.
Don’t know if this would work for you, but if from Broadway you took the Expo line two stops to 29th Ave Stn, you’d be going the opposite way to the crush and you could take the new UBC bus that goes along 33rd, Cambie, and 16th. Might be worth a try…you might not save a lot of time but seems like you’d save a lot of aggravation.